seat like I'd drive a tack. Drive on!"

Brackett ducked his head and drove. And the Cap'n, summoning all the
resources of a vocabulary enriched by a sea experience of thirty
years, yelled at him and his horse without ceasing.

When they topped the ridge they were in full view of Ide's doomed
buildings, and saw the red tongues of flame curling through the
rolling smoke.

But a growing clamor behind made the Chief crane his neck and gaze
over the top of the van.

"Hecla" was coming!

Four horses were dragging it, and two-score men were howling along
with it, some riding, but the most of them clinging to the brake-beams
and slamming along through the dust on foot. A man, perched beside
the driver, was bellowing something through a trumpet that sounded
like:

"Goff-off-errow, goff-off-errow, goff-off-errow!"

The peddler was driving sullenly, and without any particular
enterprise. But this tumult behind made his horse prick up his ears
and snort. When the nag mended his pace and began to lash out with
straddling legs, the Cap'n yelled:

"Let him go! Let him go! They want us to get off the road!"