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"We'll see him through," someone said. "Well, he cannot see himself through," rejoined the old man solemnly. The enigmatical words made them feel there was something behind. "Why can't he see himself through?" asked Osterhaut the universal, who had just arrived from the City Hall. "He can't see himself through because he is blind," was the heavy answer.
There was a moment of shock, of hushed surprise, and then a voice burst forth: "Blind they've blinded him, boys! The dagos have killed his sight. He's blind, boys!" A profane and angry muttering ran through the crowd, who were thirsty, hungry, and weary with watching. Osterhaut held up the horseshoe which had brought Ingolby down. "Here it is, the thing that done it.
He's looking for Marchand, and blabbing what he means to do when he finds him. That ain't good for Dennis. If he kills Marchand, it's murder, and even if the lawyers plead unwritten law, and he ain't hung, and his wife ain't a widow, you can't have much married life in gaol. It don't do you any good to be punished for punishing someone else. Jonas George Almighty look! Look, Osterhaut!"
Osterhaut and Jowett became silent, too, and, like the Indians, ran as fast as they could, over fences, through the trees, stumbling and occasionally cursing, but watching with fascinated eyes this adventuress of the North, taking chances which not one coureur-de-bois or river-driver in a thousand would take, with a five thousand-dollar prize as the lure. Why should she do it?
"Six months," was the reply, "but she's working smooth as music. She's as good as anything 'twixt here and the Atlantic." "It ain't time for Winter fires. I wonder what set it going," said Jowett, shaking his head ominously. "Something wrong with the furnace, I s'pose," returned Osterhaut. "Probably trying the first heatup of the Fall." Osterhaut was right. No one had set the church on fire.
Here's Ingolby back on the locomotive, running the good old train of Progress, and here's Ingolby's fire-brigade, which cost Lebanon twenty thousand dollars and himself five thousand, going to put out the fires of hate consuming two loving hamulets. Out with Ingolby's fire-brigade! This is the day the doctor ordered! Hooray!" Osterhaut had a gift of being able to do two things at one time.
"One minute!" he called with outstretched arm and commanding voice. They paused. Something in him made him master of them even then. At that moment two men were fiercely fighting their way through the crowd towards where Ingolby was. They were Jowett and Osterhaut. Ingolby saw them coming. "Go back go back!" he called to them.
He ain't got back to where he was before the war," remarked Osterhaut sagely. "War that business at Barbazon's! You call that war! It wasn't war," declared Jowett spasmodically, grasping the rail of the fire-engine as the wheel struck a stone and nearly shot them from their seats. "It wasn't war. It was terrible low-down treachery.
She couldn't make the bank if she wanted to. She's got to run 'em. Holy smoke, see her wavin' the paddle at Tekewani! Osterhaut, she's the limit, that petticoat so quiet and shy and don't-look-at-me, too, with eyes like brown diamonds." "Oh, get out, Jowett; she's all right!
"When Ingolby goes fishing, there's trouble goin' on somewhere and he's stalkin' it," rejoined Osterhaut. "But, by gol, he's goin' to do this trump trick first; he's goin' to overhaul her before she gits to the bridge. Look at him swing! Hell, ain't it pretty! There you go, old Ingolby. You're right on it, even when you're fishing."
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