“Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years ago he was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streets lickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first and last. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted. He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At last accounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was still addin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wish they'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want your engine-bell when he sees it to-morrow.”
Another cackle from the crowd.
Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in the tavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in their earlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonel to pit might against right. The young man went over his papers once more, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights and powers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course and is prepared to follow it.
The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyed with rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the “Swamp Swogon,” as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the little locomotive.
Suddenly a bystander leveled his mittened hand above his eyes and gazed up the long trail across the lake. The road was “brushed out” by little bushes set along at regular intervals.
Away off on the distant perspective a dot was advancing. It resolved itself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animal indicated the urgent precipitancy of its speed.
“I reckon that'll be Colonel Gideon Ward!” called the man who had just observed the team.
Parker, busy with his gages and oil-can, gave one look up the road and went on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of many bells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, the locomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume of steam.
“We are very nearly ready, gentlemen!” called Parker. He gave an order to his volunteer fireman, and suggested that intending passengers get aboard the sleds.
“I'll sound the whistle,” said he. “There may be some still waiting up at the store.”