"Come on," cried Henry Burns. "Will you go, fellows?"
A whoop of delight gave acquiescence. The procession clattered out of Benton and started up the valley road by the stream.
They went along noisily at first, beating their battered tinware, setting off giant firecrackers, blowing horns and whooping lustily. Farmers along the road opened a sleepy eye as they passed, remembered it was the morning of the Fourth, and turned over for another nap. Pickerel in the stream dived their noses into the soft mud at the lowest depths. Night-hawks, high above, swooped after their prey and added their weird noise to the din. Yellow-hammers and thrushes, rudely roused, darted from their nests and took flight silently into the thicker screen of the woods.
But, as the riders neared the Ellison dam, and heard the first sound of the falling water, they subsided, planning to take the neighbourhood, and particularly the occupants of the Half Way House, above, by surprise. Thus silently going along, they were aware of a light wagon, drawn by a lively stepping horse, turning from the road that led up to the Ellison farm and coming on toward them.
"Hello!" exclaimed George Warren; "it's Doctor Wells. Something's up. Wonder what's the matter."
Doctor Wells, coming up to the leaders, reined in his horse and regarded the procession with a mingled expression of good humour and anxiety.
"Pretty early to start the Fourth, isn't it?" he asked. "What's that you say? Going to wake up Colonel Witham—and Ellison?"
His face assumed a serious expression.
"Wake Jim Ellison," he repeated, as though he was speaking more to himself than to them. "I wish you could. 'Twould stop lots of trouble, I'm thinking. No man can wake poor Jim Ellison. He's dead. Went off quick not a half hour ago. Got a shock, and that was the end of him. You'll have to turn back, boys."
Quietly and soberly, the procession turned about and headed for Benton. The parade that morning was minus a good part of its expected members.