The Prowler whished around a right angle turn on a narrow ledge and the distant peaks wheeled sickeningly against the sky.
Meek lay flat on his belly and hugged the Prowler's sides. The mountains whistled past. He stole a look at the jagged peaks on the near horizon and they looked like a tight board fence.
Oliver Meek fought manfully to get back his composure as the Prowler pranced down the main street of Asteroid City.
The sidewalks were lined with hundreds of staring faces, faces that drooped in astonishment and disbelief.
Stiffy was yelling at someone. "Now, doggone you, will you believe there is a Prowler?"
And the man he yelled at didn't have a word to say, just stood and stared.
In the swarm of faces, Meek saw those of the Reverend Harold Brown and Andrew Smith and, almost as if in a dream, he waved jauntily to them. At least, he hoped the wave was jaunty. Wouldn't do to let them know his knees were too weak to hold him up.
Smith waved back and shouted something, but the Reverend Brown's jaw hung open and he seemed too wonder-struck to move.
This, thought Meek, is the kind of things you read about. The conquering hero coming home astride his mighty charger. Only the conquering hero, he remembered with a sudden twinge, usually was a young lad who sat straight in the saddle instead of an old man with shoulders hunched from thirty years of poring over dusty ledgers.