In all their progress they met only one party headed in the opposite direction, coming back toward the town that had been deserted. Vaniman beheld Bartley Wagg teaming along the two convicts. They were tied together and he was threatening them with a club. They merely flashed on the screen of the mist and were out of sight. It was evident that Mr. Wagg had determined to grab a couple of straws, at any rate, in a desperate attempt to buoy himself officially in the flood of his misfortunes.
The sun was burning away the mists when Colonel Wincott's turnout topped a hill; he waved his whip to invite the attention of his passengers. “There she lies, folks! I've been calling it my town. From now on it's our town. Some daisy on the breast of nature, eh?”
There was a lake on the facets of whose ripples the sunlight danced. White water tumbled down cascades. Beside the lake there was a nest of portable houses. “Homes till we build bigger ones,” explained the master of The Promised Land. “I'm giving building lots free. The class of settlers warrants it!”
Then Colonel Wincott called their attention to something else—something that was not visible. He wrinkled his nose, but his sniff indicated gusto. “Smell it? It's food for the Children of Israel. Not manna. But it will fit the occasion, I hope. It's a barbecue. A whole ox and all the fixings.”
Then they came to a high arch, fashioned from boughs of fir and spruce trees. The wains were rolling under it.
Frank and Vona lifted up their eyes. At the top of the arch, in great letters that were formed of pine tassels fastened to a stretch of canvas, was the word, “LIBERTY.”
“The name of our new town,” said the colonel.
But for the two on the rear seat it was more than the name of a town. Vaniman pressed the girl's trembling hand between his palms. They looked at each other through the lenses of grateful tears.
Just inside the arch stood Prophet Elias, welcoming all comers. He had put off his robe and had laid aside his fantastic umbrella. He wore the sober garb of a dominic, and his face, above his tie of white lawn, displayed shrewd and complete appreciation of the occasion.
He took off his hat and bowed low when Colonel Wincott's party passed under the arch. And this sonorous proclamation followed Frank and Vona: