There were lights in the Squire's house. In spite of the fog, Vaniman perceived that there was a gray hint of dawn in the heavens. More acutely was he wondering what this universal vigil in Egypt signified.

But reaction had overtaken him. He was in the mood to accept commands of any sort. He walked on in silence.

"You must stay out here till I break the thing to Xoa!"

The young man clung to the trellis of the porch for a few moments until Xoa flung wide the door. Supported in her embrace, he staggered into the sitting room.

"Cry, sonny! Cry a little," the Squire adjured him. "Put your head on Xoa's knee and have it out. It will tide you over till your own mother can comfort you."

But wild desire for knowledge burned the sudden tears out of Vaniman's eyes. "Where is Vona? What is happening?"

"We'll see to it mighty quick that Vona knows, sonny. The right word must get to her in the right way. Mother will know how. Mother, you'd better attend to it."

She agreed with that suggestion, but first she brought a basin and water and soft cloths and solicitously made more presentable the young man's face.

While she ministered to him he told them what had been happening in his affairs.

"You're alive. That's the main point. Now, Xoa," urged the Squire, "go to Vona before some lunatic tells her something to scare her to death!"

The good woman hastened away, her smile rea.s.suring the lover.

For some time the Squire regarded Vaniman with an expression into which some of the old notary's whimsical humor began to creep. "So it struck you, did it, that you had dropped back into town on a lively night? I was expecting quite a general stir, myself. But I'll confess that the thing hit me as livelier than what I had looked for when I was sitting here and heard a man holler outside that your ghost had chased Tasper Britt into his office. You see, the plan was not to have Tasper disturbed by any human beings this night. We all hoped he would sleep sound. Everybody proposed to tiptoe when pa.s.sing in the neighborhood of the Harnden house. But to have a ghost come and chase Tasper around town was wholly outside the calculations of the human beings in Egypt this night."

"I'm afraid I don't see any joke hidden in this proposition, Squire,"

the young man complained.

"Son, it's a joke, but it's so big and ironic that only one of those G.o.ds on high Olympus is big enough and broad-minded enough to be able to laugh at it. Some day the folks of this town will be able to look back on this night and laugh, I do hope. But not now. They're too much wrought up. They're too busy. Hold on! I'm going to let another man explain the thing. He's in a position to pa.s.s out information more to the point than anything I can hand you. I'll simply say this. When you saw what you beheld in the fog this night, you were seeing a revised version of the Book of Exodus acted out in real life. The Children of Israel, of this day and date, are departing from the land of Pharaoh, current edition. With their flocks and their possessions, their wives and their children, they are on their way to The Promised Land. And now, if you'll step into the parlor with me I'll introduce you to the promiser."

Vaniman followed

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE PROMISED LAND

There was a big man in the parlor, a hearty-looking man, manifestly of the metropolis, patently of the "good sport" type. He was walking up and down. With his tweed knickerbockers, his belted jacket, his diamonds in his scarf and on his fingers, he was such an odd figure in the homely surroundings that he produced on Vaniman a surprise effect. The young man surveyed the stranger with the interest one might take in a queer animal in a circus van; the big man's restless pacing suggested a caged creature. But he took not the least interest in Vaniman, an unkempt individual without a coat.

"Hexter, what did happen, anyway? I thought you were never coming back.

I had a good mind to chase you up, though it would be poor judgment for me to show myself to-night."

"This has happened!" The Squire pointed to Vaniman. The big man c.o.c.ked an inquiring eyebrow, looking at the Squire's exhibit with indifference.

"Colonel, this is Frank Vaniman. You know all about the case!"

The stranger stepped back so hastily that he knocked over a chair.

"Know about the case!" he bawled. "No, I don't know about it, either, if this is the man the mountain fell on--or whatever it was that happened.

What kind of con is this you're giving me, Hexter?"

"This is the man, sir. What I mean by saying you know about the case is that you have agreed with me that an innocent man was railroaded into prison, after I gave you the facts. He is out through a trick worked by a prison guard. He'll give us the details later. Just now it's more important for you to be told that Tasper Britt, by his own acts, has confessed that he robbed the Egypt Trust Company."

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.nationed!" blurted the big man, with such whole-souled astonishment that the mode of expression was pardonable. "And I thought that plenty and enough was happening in this town for one night!"

"Frank, this is Colonel Norman Wincott. He has well understood your case from what I have told him. Now he will understand better. Colonel, won't you allow Frank's story to wait? He is in a dreadfully nervous state, poor chap. And I'm afraid he'll go crazy on our hands if he isn't enlightened right away about what is going on here to-night."

Colonel Wincott strode across the room and slapped Vaniman cordially on the shoulder with one hand and pumphandled with the other. "Plenty of men have escaped from state prison. There's a special novelty about a story of that sort. But let me tell you that I'm the only man in the world who has ever put over a proposition such as this one that is on the docket right here and now. I don't blame you for being interested."

It was plain that the colonel entertained no mean opinion of himself and his projects. "All is, Vaniman, I hope your making a two-ring affair of it hasn't taken the attention of the folks off the main show."

"It has only added to the general effect," affirmed the Squire. "It's a clincher. Folks don't care now because Tasper Britt is awake. He has got plenty of business of his own to attend to without calling in sheriffs to slap on attachments."

"Very good! The easier the better," returned Colonel Wincott. "But when I hired you to look after the law part, Hexter, I reckoned you could counter every crack he made. Sit down, Vaniman!" He picked up the chair he had overturned and took it for himself. "You have seen the parade, some of it?"

"I saw a great deal of it, sir."

"And you don't know where it's headed for?"

"No."

The colonel leaned back and regarded the Squire with the satisfied contentment of a cat who had tucked away the last morsel of the canary.

Then he winked at Vaniman. "Young man, did you ever hear of Wincott's Pure Rye?"

"No, sir."

"Glad of it! Hope you never were familiar with any other brands.

However, enough men did know about it in those dear, damp days beyond recall to make me independent of the p.a.w.nshop, to say the least. And, having cleaned up a good pot with whisky running down men's gullets, I reckoned I'd see what I could do with water running downhill. Do you get me at all so far?"

"No, sir."

"Didn't suppose you would. I'm only shuffling the deck. Now for the deal! Awhile ago I came up into this state from the South and I bought the unorganized township that bounds this town on the north. It had gone begging for a buyer because it's mostly pond and water power. But it's what I wanted. And, having bought it, I used my check book and got some good lobbyists on the job and I got a conditional charter from the legislature. That is to say, it becomes a town charter automatically the moment I can report a certain number of inhabitants--not mere men, but families, regularly settled. Do you see?"

"I surely do begin to see, Colonel Wincott."

"Vaniman, if I had gone to the cities and advertised for settlers, what kind would I have got? Probably only a bunch of aliens dissatisfied already; if they weren't sore on general conditions I couldn't coax 'em to move. And aliens are always moving. I wanted some of the old breed of Yankee pioneers. That's what my folks were, 'way back. I took a sly peek into the town of Egypt. Good folks, but no opportunities here.

Everything gone to seed. Up in my township a new deal with a fresh deck!

Plenty of timber, plenty of rich land--and mills going up. Confound it!

I propose to be boss of a real town--not a wild land plantation!"

He suddenly shifted his posture. He came forward in his chair and set his elbows on his knees. "Say, Vaniman, I got Hexter's opinion a few days ago when I opened up to him and hired him to attend to the law. But I want to ask you now what you think of my real-estate agent?"

The young man shifted his bewildered gaze from the colonel's jovial and inquiring visage to the Squire's equally cheerful countenance.

"Known to Pharaoh and the modern Children of Israel as the Prophet Elias, Frank," explained the notary. "I have heartily indorsed his good work. Furthermore, he knows well how to keep a secret and how to train others to keep one. Tasper Britt went to bed this night without one inkling of what was about to happen. He did not know that he was to be left here without men to toil and pay him his twelve per cent. He has town debts. He has the bare acres he has foreclosed on--he has the tumble-down houses. He has the paupers on the poor farm. He--"

"Hold on, Squire! I forgot about those paupers," broke in the colonel.

"I want a town that's fully rounded out. A few paupers belong in a town so that they may serve to remind others folks that they must keep busy and avoid the poor farm. And even the paupers will wake up and go to work in my town! Work will be in the air. I'm going to send a wagon after those paupers. Britt is no sort of a man to be allowed pets; he'll let 'em starve."

"Undoubtedly," agreed the Squire. "I'll say, further, Frank, that when the Prophet started off last evening, blowing his trump to sound the signal for the migration, Britt stood and saw him go--and never guessed what it meant."

"I heard that horn--I wondered."