“I think ’twas on the long stretch of the Trumet road that we beat Tobias.  I know we passed somethin’ then, though just what I ain’t competent to testify.  All I’m sure of is that, t’other side of Bayport village, the landscape got some less streaked and you could most gen’rally separate one house from the next.

“Bradbury looked at Henrietta and smiled, a sort of sickly smile.  She was pretty pale, but she managed to smile back.  I got up off the floor and slumped on the cushions.  As for Cap’n Jonadab Wixon, he’d stopped yellin’, but his face was one broad, serene grin.  His mouth, through the dust and the dirt caked around it, looked like a rain gully in a sand-bank.  And, occasional, he crowed, hoarse but vainglorious.

“‘Did you see me?’ he barked.  ’Did you notice me lick him?  He’ll laugh at me, will he?—­him and his one-horse tin cart!  Ho!  Ho!  Why, you’d think he was settin’ down to rest!  I’ve got him where I want him now!  Ho, ho!  Say, Henrietta, did you go swift as you—?  Land sakes!  Mr. Bradbury, I forgot all about you.  And I—­I guess we must have got a good ways past the doctor’s place.’

“Bradbury said never mind.  He felt much better, and he cal’lated he’d do till we fetched the Old Home dock.  He’d take the wheel, now, he guessed.

“But, would you b’lieve it, that fool Jonadab wouldn’t let him!  He was used to the ship now, he said, and, if ’twas all the same to Henry G. and Hettie, he’d kind of like to run her into port.

“‘She answers her hellum fine,’ he says.  ’After a little practice I cal’late I could steer—­’

“‘Steer!’ sings out Bradbury.  ’Steer!  Great Caesar’s ghost!  I give you my word, Cap’n Wixon, I never saw such handlin’ of a machine as you did goin’ through Bayport, in my life.  You’re a wonder!’

“‘Um-hm,’ says Jonadab contented.  ’I’ve steered a good many vessels in my time, through traffic and amongst the shoals, and never run afoul of nothin’ yet.  I don’t see much diff’rence on shore—­’cept that it’s a little easier.’

“Easier!  Wouldn’t that—­Well, what’s the use of talkin’?

“We got to the Old Home House safe and sound; Jonadab, actin’ under Bradbury’s orders, run her into the yard, slowin’ up and stoppin’ at the front steps slick as grease.  He got out, his chest swelled up like a puffin’ pig, and went struttin’ in to tell everybody what he’d done to Loveland.  I don’t know where Bradbury and the widow went.  As for me, I went aloft and turned in.  And ’twas two days and nights afore I got up again.  I had a cold, anyway, and what I’d been through didn’t help it none.

“The afternoon of the second day, Bradbury come up to see me.  He was dressed in his city clothes and looked as if he was goin’ away.  Sure enough, he was; goin’ on the next train.

“‘Where’s Jonadab?’ says I.

“‘Oh, he’s out in his car,’ he says.  ‘Huntin’ for Loveland again, maybe.’