Then Colonel Wincott called their attention to something else—­something that was not visible.  He wrinkled his nose, but his sniff indicated gusto.  “Smell it?  It’s food for the Children of Israel.  Not manna.  But it will fit the occasion, I hope.  It’s a barbecue.  A whole ox and all the fixings.”

Then they came to a high arch, fashioned from boughs of fir and spruce trees.  The wains were rolling under it.

Frank and Vona lifted up their eyes.  At the top of the arch, in great letters that were formed of pine tassels fastened to a stretch of canvas, was the word, “LIBERTY.”

“The name of our new town,” said the colonel.

But for the two on the rear seat it was more than the name of a town.  Vaniman pressed the girl’s trembling hand between his palms.  They looked at each other through the lenses of grateful tears.

Just inside the arch stood Prophet Elias, welcoming all comers.  He had put off his robe and had laid aside his fantastic umbrella.  He wore the sober garb of a dominic, and his face, above his tie of white lawn, displayed shrewd and complete appreciation of the occasion.

He took off his hat and bowed low when Colonel Wincott’s party passed under the arch.  And this sonorous proclamation followed Frank and Vona: 

“’And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight.  These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them.’”

“Amen!” responded Colonel Wincott, fervently.

The two persons on the rear seat did not speak.  In silence they had reverently prostrated themselves at a shrine of thanksgiving in their souls.