les and aching joints seemed to relax at the very
whisper of the word. Food! Well, he needed food, it would be welcome, of
course--but rest! Oh, rest!!

And food and rest, not to mention reasonable prices and pleasant people
and no frills, were all but a mile away at the Restabit Inn at Gould's
Bluffs--beautiful Gould's Bluffs. No wonder they called them beautiful.

He returned the pocketbook to his inside pocket and the flashlight to an
outside one, turned up his coat collar, pulled the brown derby down
as tightly upon his brow as he could, picked up the heavy suitcase and
started forth to tramp the mile which separated his tired self from food
and rest--especially rest.

The first hundred yards of that mile cut him off entirely from the
world. It was dark now, pitch dark, and the fog was so thick as to be
almost a rain. His coat and hat and suitcase dripped with it. The drops
ran down his nose. He felt as if there were almost as much water in the
air as there was beneath him on the ground--not quite as much, for his
feet were wetter than his body, but enough.

And it was so still. No sound of voices, no dogs barking, no murmur of
the wind in trees. There did not seem to be any trees. Occasionally he
swept a circle of his immediate surroundings with the little flashlight,
but all its feeble radiance showed was fog and puddles and wet weeds and
ruts and grass--and more fog.

Still! Oh, yes, deadly still for a long minute's interval, and then
out of the nowhere ahead, with a suddenness which each time caused his
weakened nerves to vibrate like fiddle strings, would burst the bellow
of the great foghorn.

Silence, the splash and "sugg" of Galusha's sodden shoes moving up and
down, up and down--and then:

"OW--ooo--ooo---ooo--OOO!!"

Once a minute the foghorn blew and once a minute Galusha Bangs jumped as
if he were hearing it for the first time.

The signboard had said "1 MILE." One hundred miles, one thousand miles;
that was what it should have said to be truthful. Galusha plodded on and
on, stopping to put down the suitcase, then lifting it and pounding on
again. He had had no luncheon; he had had no dinner. He was weak from
illness. He was wet and chilled. And--yes, it was beginning to rain.

He put down the suitcase once more.

"Oh, my soul!" he exclaimed, and not far away, close at hand, the word
"soul" was repeated.

"Oh, dear!" cried Galusha, startled.

"Dear!" repeated the echo, for it was an echo.