the two were knocking at the parson's door.

Confused and turbulent as Tiverton had become, Nicholas Oldfield settled
her at once. Knowledge dripped from his finger-ends; he had it ready,
like oil to give a clock. Doctor and minister stood breathless while he
laid out the track for the procession by local marks they both knew
well.

"They must ha' come into the town from som'er's nigh the old
cross-road," said he. "No, 't wa'n't where they made the river road.
Then they turned straight to one side--'t was thick woods then, you
understand--an' went up a little ways towards Horn o' the Moon. But they
concluded that wouldn't suit 'em, 't was so barren-like; an' they
wheeled round, took what's now the old turnpike, an' clim' right up
Tiverton Hill, through Tiverton Street that now is. An' there"--Nicholas
Oldfield's eyes burned like blue flame, and again he told the story of
the Flat-iron Lot.

"Indeed!" cried the parson. "What a truly remarkable circumstance! We
might halt on that very spot, and offer prayer, before entering the
church."

"'Pears as if that would be about the rights on't," said Nicholas
quietly. "That is, if anybody wanted to plan it out jest as 't was." He
could free his words from the pride of life, but not his voice; it
quivered and betrayed him.

"Your idea would be to have the services before going down for the
Indian raid?" inquired the doctor. "They're all at logger-heads there."

But Nicholas, hearing how neither faction would forego its glory, had
the remedy ready in a cranny of his brain.

"Well," said he, "you know there was a raid in '53, when both sides gi'n
up an' run. A crazed creatur on a white horse galloped up an' dispersed
'em. He was all wropped up in a sheet, and carried a jack-o'-lantern on
a pole over his head, so 't he seemed more'n nine feet high. The
settlers thought 't was a spirit; an' as for the Injuns, Lord knows what
't was to them. 'T any rate, the raid was over."

"Heaven be praised!" cried the doctor fervently. "Allah is great, and
you, Mr. Oldfield, are his prophet. Stay here and coach the parson while
I start up the town."

The doctor dashed home and mounted his horse. It was said that he did
some tall riding that day. From door to door he galloped, a lesser Paul
Revere, but sowing seeds of harmony. It was true that the soil was
ready. Indians in full costume were lurking down cellar or behind
kitchen doors, swearing they would never ride, but tremblingly eag