His sole knowledge on that subject was derived from the newspapers and comic weeklies, and he remembered reading of places in the West where lawyers with the necessary blanks in their pockets met applicants at the arrival of one train and sent them away, rejoicing and free, on the next.
"You jump right off the cars and then Turn round and jump right on again." This fragment of a song, sung at a "moving-picture" show in the town hall, and resung many times thereafter by Ezra Payne, John Brown's predecessor as assistant keeper at the lights, recurred to him as he urged the weary Joshua onward.

So far as Seth knew, the Reno custom might be universal.

At any rate, he must get to Judge Gould's before Emeline and her brother-in-law left there.

What he should do when he arrived and found them there was immaterial; he must get there, that was all.
Eastboro Back Harbor was left behind, and the long stretch of woods beyond was entered.

Joshua, his hoofs swollen by the sticky clay to yellow cannon balls, plodded on, but, in spite of commands and pleadings--the lightkeeper possessed no whip and would not have used one if he had--he went slower and slower.