When Dan and Dr. Emory stepped from No. 7 Saturday night the station platform was crowded with men and boys. The brass-band, which Antioch loved with a love that stifled criticism, perspiring and in dire haste, was turning the street corner half a block distant. Across the tracks at the railroad shops a steam-whistle shrieked an ecstatic welcome.
Dan glanced at the doctor with a slightly puzzled air. “What do you suppose is the matter?” he asked, unsuspiciously.
“Why, man, don't you understand? It's you!”
There was no need for him to say more, for the crowd had caught sight of Dan, and a hundred voices cried:
“There he is! There's Oakley!”
And in an instant Antioch, giving way to wild enthusiasm, was cheering itself black in the face, while above the sound of cheers and the crash of music, the steam-whistle at the shops shrieked and pealed.
The blood left Oakley's face. He looked down at the crowd and saw Turner Joyce. He saw McClintock and Holt and the men from the shops, who were, if possible, the noisiest of all. He turned helplessly to the doctor.
“Let's get out of this,” he said between his teeth. The crowd and the noise and the excitement recalled that other night when he had ridden into Antioch. As he spoke he swung himself down from the steps of the coach, and the crowd closed about him with a glad shout of welcome.
The doctor followed more slowly. As he gained the platform, the Hon. Jeb Barrows hurried to his side.
“Where is he to go, Doc?” he panted. “To your house, or to the hotel?”