"What will you take for that team jest as it stands?" blurted the
mariner, desperately. The fire, the smoke of which was rolling up
above the distant tree-tops, and his duty there made him reckless.
As he looked down on Todd he hadn't the heart to demand of that meek
and injured person that he should forget and forgive sufficiently
to take him in and put him down at Ide's. It seemed like crowding
the mourners. Furthermore, Cap'n Aaron Sproul was not a man who
traded in humble apologies. His independence demanded a different
footing with Todd, and the bitter need of the moment eclipsed economy.
"Name your price!"

"A hundred and thutty, ev'rything throwed in, and I'll drive you
there a mile a minit," gasped Todd, grasping the situation.

With muddy hands, trembling in haste, the Cap'n drew his long, fat
wallet and counted out the bills. Brackett eyed him hungrily.

"You might jest as well settle with me now as later through the law,"
he cried.

But the Cap'n butted him aside, with an oath, and climbed into the
wagon.

"You drive as though the devil had kicked ye," he yelled to Todd.
"It's my hoss, and I don't care if you run the four legs off'm him."

Half-way to Ide's, a man leaped the roadside fence and jumped up and
down before them in the highway. He had a shotgun in his hands.

"It's my brother--Voltaire," shouted Marengo, pulling up, though