ETHAN FROME
pointment; but I exclaimed in surprise as I saw him turn his horse in a direction opposite to that of the Corbury road.
"The railroad's blocked by a freight-train that got stuck in a drift below the Flats," he explained, as we jogged off into the stinging whiteness.
"But look here—where are you taking me, then?"
"Straight to the Junction, by the shortest way," he answered, pointing up School House Hill with his whip.
"To the Junction—in this storm? Why, it's a good ten miles!"
"The bay'll do it if you give him time. You said you had some business there this afternoon. I'll see you get there."
He said it so quietly that I could only answer: "You're doing me the biggest kind of a favour."
"That's all right," he rejoined.
Abreast of the schoolhouse the road forked, and we dipped down a lane to the left, between hemlock boughs bent inward to their trunks by the
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