head. In fact, we were crossing the bridge before I saw the first light
of the town.

The livery stable was deserted. I had to open the doors, to drive in,
to unhitch, to unharness, and to feed the horses myself. And then I went
home to my cold and lonesome house.

It was a cheerless night.

SIX. A Call for Speed

I held the horses in at the start. Somehow they realized that a new kind
of test was ahead. They caught the infection of speed from my voice,
I suppose, or from my impatience. They had not been harnessed by the
hostler either. When I came to the stable--it was in the forenoon, too,
at an hour when they had never been taken out before--the hostler had
been away hauling feed. The boys whom I had pressed into service had
pulled the cutter out into the street; it was there we hitched up.
Everything, then, had been different from the way they had been used to.
So, when at last I clicked my tongue, they bounded off as if they were
out for a sprint of a few miles only.

I held them in and pulled them down to a trot; for of all days to-day
was it of the utmost importance that neither one of them should play
out. At half past twelve a telephone message had reached me, after
having passed through three different channels, that my little girl was
sick; and over the wire it had a sinister, lugubrious, reticent sound,
as if the worst was held back. Details had not come through, so I was
told. My wife was sending a call for me to come home as quickly as I
possibly could; nothing else. It was Thursday. The Sunday before I had
left wife and child in perfect health. But scarlatina and diphtheria
were stalking the plains. The message had been such a shock to me that I
had acted with automatic precision. I had notified the school-board and
asked the inspector to substitute for me; and twenty minutes after word
had reached me I crossed the bridge on the road to the north.

The going was heavy but not too bad. Two nights ago there had been
a rather bad snowstorm and a blow, and during the last night an
exceedingly slight and quiet fall had followed it. Just now I had no eye
for its beauty, though.

I was bent on speed, and that meant watching the horses closely; they
must not be allowed to follow their own bent. There was no way of
communicating with my wife; so that, whatever I could do, was left
entirely to my divination. I had picked up a few things at the drug
store--things which had occurred to me on the spur of