and
became Pounddug Slough. In the Slough, near its ocean extremity, his old
schooner, the Daisy M., lay stranded. He had not visited her for a week,
and he wondered if the "spell of weather" had injured her to any extent.
This speculation, however, was but momentary. The Daisy M. must look out
for herself. His business was to reach Judge Gould's, in Denboro, before
Mrs. Bascom and Bennie D. could arrange with that prominent citizen and
legal light for the threatened divorce.

That they had started for Judge Gould's he did not doubt for a moment.
"I shall seek the nearest lawyer," Bennie D. had said. And the judge
was the nearest. They must be going there, or why should they take
that road? Neither did he doubt now that their object was to secure the
divorce. How divorces were secured, or how long it took to get one, Seth
did not know. His sole knowledge on that subject was derived from the
newspapers and comic weeklies, and he remembered reading of places in
the West where lawyers with the necessary blanks in their pockets met
applicants at the arrival of one train and sent them away, rejoicing and
free, on the next.

"You jump right off the cars and then
Turn round and jump right on again."

This fragment of a song, sung at a "moving-picture" show in the town
hall, and resung many times thereafter by Ezra Payne, John Brown's
predecessor as assistant keeper at the lights, recurred to him as he
urged the weary Joshua onward. So far as Seth knew, the Reno custom
might be universal. At any rate, he must get to Judge Gould's before
Emeline and her brother-in-law left there. What he should do when he
arrived and found them there was immaterial; he must get there, that was
all.

Eastboro Back Harbor was left behind, and the long stretch of woods
beyond was entered. Joshua, his hoofs swollen by the sticky clay
to yellow cannon balls, plodded on, but, in spite of commands and
pleadings--the lightkeeper possessed no whip and would not have used one
if he had--he went slower and slower. He was walking now, and limping
sadly on the foot where the loose shoe hung by its bent and broken
nails.

Five miles, six, seven, and the limp was worse than ever. Seth, whose
conscience smote him, got out of the carriage into the rain and mud
and attempted repairs, using a stone as a hammer. This seemed to help
matters some, but it was almost dark when the granite block marking the
township line was passed, and the windows in