s they goin'? Back to the Lights or--or where?"

"No, didn't seem to be goin' to the Lights at all. They went on the
other road. Seemed to be headin' for Denboro if they kept on as they
started. . . . Seth Atkins, have you turned loony?"

Seth did not answer. With a leap he landed at Joshua's head, unhooked
the halter, and ran out of the shop leading the horse. The astonished
blacksmith followed as far as the door. Seth was backing the animal into
his wagon, which stood beneath the shed. He fastened the traces with
trembling fingers.

"What in the world has struck you?" shouted Ellis. "Ain't you goin' to
have that shoe fixed? He can't travel that way. Seth! Seth Atkins! . . .
By time, he IS crazy!"

Seth did not deny the charge. Climbing into the wagon, he took up the
reins.

"Are you sure and sartin' 'twas the Denboro road they took?" he
demanded.

"Who took? That feller and the Bascom woman? Course I am, but . . .
Well, I swan!"

For the lightkeeper waited to hear no more. He struck the unsuspecting
Joshua with the end of the reins and, with a jump, the old horse started
forward. Another moment, and the lighthouse wagon was splashing and
rattling through the pouring rain along the road leading to Denboro.

CHAPTER XV

THE VOYAGE OF THE DAISY M.

Denboro is many long miles from Eastboro, and the road, even in the
best of weather, is not a good one. It winds and twists and climbs and
descends through woods and over hills. There are stretches of marshy
hollows where the yellow clay needs but a little moistening to become a
paste which sticks to wheels and hoofs and makes traveling, even behind
a young and spirited horse, a disheartening progress.

Joshua was neither young nor spirited. And the weather could not have
been much worse. The three days' storm had soaked everything, and the
clay-bottomed puddles were near kin to quicksands. As the lighthouse
wagon descended the long slope at the southern end of the village and
began the circle of the inner extremity of Eastboro Back Harbor, Seth
realized that his journey was to be a hard one. The rain, driven by the
northeast wind, came off the water in blinding gusts, and the waves in
the harbor were tipped with white. Also, although the tide was almost
at its lowest, streaks of seaweed across the road showed where it had
reached that forenoon, and prophesied even a greater flood that night.
He turned his head and gazed up the harbor to where it narrowed