Keith had been elected marshal, but had appointed Dave Dennison his deputy, and on inclement nights Keith still occasionally relieved Tim Gilsey, for in such weather the old man was sometimes too stiff to climb up to his box.

“The way to know people,” said the old driver to him, “is to travel on the road with ’em.  There is many a man decent enough to pass for a church deacon; git him on the road, and you see he is a hog, and not of no improved breed at that.  He wants to gobble everything”:  an observation that Keith had some opportunity to verify.

Terpsichore appeared suddenly to have a good deal of business over in Eden, and had been on the stage several times of late when Keith was driving it, and almost always took the box-seat.  This had occurred often enough for some of his acquaintances in Gumbolt to rally him about it.

“You will have to look out for Mr. Bluffy again,” they said.  “He’s run J. Quincy off the track, and he’s still in the ring.  He’s layin’ low; but that’s the time to watch a mountain cat.  He’s on your track.”

Mr. Plume, who was always very friendly with Keith, declared that it was not Bluffy, but Keith, who had run him off the track.  “It’s a case where virtue has had its reward,” he said to Keith.  “You have overthrown more than your enemy, Orlando.  You have captured the prize we were all trying for.  Take the goods the gods provide, and while you live, live.  The epicurean is the only true philosopher.  Come over and have a cocktail?  No?  Do you happen to have a dollar about your old clothes?  I have not forgotten that I owe you a little account; but you are the only man of soul in this—­Gehenna except myself, and I’d rather owe you ten dollars than any other man living.”

Keith’s manner more than his words shut up most of his teasers.  Nothing would shut up J. Quincy Plume.

Keith always treated Terpsichore with all the politeness he would have shown to any lady.  He knew that she was now his friend, and he had conceived a sincere liking for her.  She was shy and very quiet when a passenger on his stage, ready to do anything he asked, obedient to any suggestion he gave her.

It happened that, the night Wickersham chose for his trip to Gumbolt, Keith had relieved old Gilsey, and he found her at the Eden end of the route among his passengers.  She had just arrived from Gumbolt by another vehicle and was now going straight back.  As Keith came around, the young woman was evidently preparing to take the box-seat.  He was conscious of a feeling of embarrassment, which was not diminished by the fact that Jake Dennison, his old pupil, was also going over.  Jake as well as Dave was now living at Gumbolt.  Jake was in all the splendor of a black coat and a gilded watch-chain, for he had been down to the Ridge to see Miss Euphronia Tripper.

It had been a misty day, and toward evening the mist had changed into a drizzle.

Keith said to Terpsichore, with some annoyance: