t to-day the room was stifling, and even
the stiff beetles on their pins seemed to droop in the fierce glare of
the sunshine streaming in.

With an impatient "Whew-w!" Dan went hastily about, selecting such
things as he needed for his impromptu camp of a night, and soon was
ready; a blanket tightly rolled around net and tackle, and some food in
his dinner-pail.

Coming out into the yard through the rear door, he stepped under a rough
lean-to of a shed, and soon emerged with his wheel, which, being geared
to suit his peculiar form, made him look almost like a caricature when
mounted. He fastened his paraphernalia in place, steered it around in
front and was just mounting when the man with the newspaper issued from
the cobbler's room, talking loudly,

"I tell you, it's no good! Toil and moil every day from your first
breath to your last, and what good does it bring you? Independence?
Humph! You are as much a slave as any nigger bought for cash. Comfort? A
heap of that! You'd be better housed and fed in any county-house.
Respect? Get yourself charged with a crime and see whether it's any good
to have been an honest, hard-working man. I tell you----"

He stopped and Dan, who had buckled his last strap, looked up to see
why. He divined instantly, and that same sardonic smile passed over his
face once more. Mr. Dalton was approaching, and the speaker, but now
climbing the heights of oratory with the paper flourished like a
standard before him, shrank suddenly into himself and seemed to fall
away, as if he would annihilate himself if he could. Finding that
impossible he sank into his chair and began a vague remark about the
shoe his host was half-soling, all which the latter took as a
matter-of-course, not seeming to notice, even.

Dan pedaled away, laughing harshly.

"Fool!" he muttered. "One would think, to hear him, he was the only one
not a coward amongst us, when the truth is he's the biggest one of all.
Old Tonguey Murfree would cringe to the devil for ten cents worth of
patronage, and then cheat him out of half of it, if he could."

He made his wheel fly in a sort of frenzy of disgust, but the fresh
wind, sweeping his hot face like the besom of peace, soon drove away
this temporary chagrin, bringing to him the best comfort life gave in
those days--the gentle influence of Nature. For, just in proportion as
Dan shunned humanity he courted her, and though he felt her
relentlessness through every fibre of his suffer