this and more; he saw Ariel Tabor and his own daughter
leaning from the carriage, the arms of both pityingly extended to Joe
Louden and his two burdens, while the stunned and silly crowd stood
round them staring, clouds of dust settling down upon them through the
hot air.

XX

THREE ARE ENLISTED

Now in that blazing noon Canaan looked upon a strange sight: an open
carriage whirling through Main Street behind two galloping bays; upon
the back seat a ghostly white old man with closed eyes, supported by
two pale ladies, his head upon the shoulder of the taller; while beside
the driver, a young man whose coat and hands were bloody, worked over
the hurts of an injured dog. Sam Warden's whip sang across the horses;
lather gathered on their flanks, and Ariel's voice steadily urged on
the pace: "Quicker, Sam, if you can." For there was little breath
left in the body of Eskew Arp.

Mamie, almost as white as the old man, was silent; but she had not
hesitated in her daring, now that she had been taught to dare; she had
not come to be Ariel's friend and honest follower for nothing; and it
was Mamie who had cried to Joe to lift Eskew into the carriage. "You
must come too," she said. "We will need you." And so it came to pass
that under the eyes of Canaan Joe Louden rode in Judge Pike's carriage
at the bidding of Judge Pike's daughter.

Toward Ariel's own house they sped with the stricken octogenarian, for
he was "alone in the world," and she would not take him to the cottage
where he had lived for many years by himself, a bleak little house, a
derelict of the "early days" left stranded far down in the town between
a woollen-mill and the water-works. The workmen were beginning their
dinners under the big trees, but as Sam Warden drew in the lathered
horses at the gate, they set down their tin buckets hastily and ran to
help Joe lift the old man out. Carefully they bore him into the house
and laid him upon a bed in one of the finished rooms. He did not speak
or move and the workmen uncovered their heads as they went out, but Joe
knew that they were mistaken. "It's all right, Mr. Arp," he said, as
Ariel knelt by the bed with water and restoratives. "It's all right.
Don't you worry."

Then the veteran's lips twitched, and though his eyes remained closed,
Joe saw that Eskew understood, for he gasped, feebly:
"Pos-i-tive-ly--no--free--seats!"

To Mrs. Louden, sewing at an up-stairs window, the sight of her stepson