The danger lay in the lawless folk whom he might meet on the way.  Unshaven and unshorn he met them, travelling endlessly along the railroad tracks, by highways, through woodland paths.  They slept by day and journeyed by night.  By reversing this program, the General as a rule avoided them.  But not always, and when the little lad Derry had followed his strange quests, he had come now and then upon his father, telling stories to an unsavory circle, lord for the moment of them all.

“Come, Dad,” Derry would say, and when the men had growled a threat, he had flung defiance at them.  “My mother’s motor is up the road with two men in it.  If I don’t get back in five minutes they will follow me.”

The General had always been tractable in the hands of his son.  He adored him.  It was only of late that he had found anything to criticise.

Derry, driving along the old Conduit road in the crisp darkness, wondered how long that restless spirit would endure in that ageing body.  He shuddered as he thought of the two men who were his father—­one a polished gentleman ruling his world, by the power of his keen mind and of his money, the other a self-made vagabond—­pursuing an aimless course.

The stars were sharp in a sable sky, the river was a thin line of silver, the bills were blotted out.

Bronson was waiting by the big bridge.  “He is singing down there,” he said, “on the bank.  Can you hear him?”

Leaning over the parapet, Derry listened.  The quavering voice came up to him.

  “He has sounded forth the—­trumpet—­that shall never call—­retreat—­
  He is sifting out the—­hearts of men—­before his judgment—­
  Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer him!  Be jubilant, my feet—­’”

Poor old soldier, beating time to the triumphant tune, stumbling over the words—­held pathetically to the memory of those days when he had marched in the glory of his youth, strength and spirit given to a mighty cause!

The pity of it wrung Derry’s heart.  “Couldn’t you do anything with him, Bronson?”

“No, sir, I tried, but he sent me home.  Told me I was discharged.”

They might have laughed over that, but it was not the moment for laughter.  In the last twenty years, the General had discharged Bronson more than once, always without the least idea of being taken at his word.  To have lost this faithful servant would have broken his heart.

“I see.  It won’t do for you to show yourself just now.  You’d better go home, and have his hot bath ready.”

“Are you sure you can bring him, Mr. Derry?”

“Sure, Bronson, thank you.”

Bronson walked a few steps and came back.  “It is freezing cold, sir, you’d better take the rug from the car.”

Laden thus, Derry made his way down.  His flashlight revealed the General, a humped-up figure on the bank of a little frozen stream.

“Go home, Derry,” he said, as he recognized his son.  “I want to sit by myself.”