It was a compact, resolute little shadow, stepping decisively and briskly along, that blurred and blotted out the dapplings of the chestnut and maple leaves, all fair and fresh and whole, which were imprinted by the sunshine in their graceful entirety on the smooth, broad, sandy stretch that led to the little station. The determination, though so suddenly taken, was definite in Ned's mind, and as he entered the building and walked over to the ticket-seller's window he had not a doubt as to his best course now. The man that the little aperture framed was blond, clean-shaven, young, with a steel blue eye and a cardigan jacket which he had donned to save the sleeves of the natty coat hanging on a hook beside his desk, and indeed the frayed sleeves of the jacket told of the wear and tear incident to driving a pen. He fixed upon Ned those matter of course, disconcerting eyes peculiar to the human automaton, whose business it is to do the same mechanical thing a thousand times a day and to repeat the same mechanical words. Ned demanded the price of a ticket, his little grimy paw already on his cheap buckskin wallet, hid away among less valuable stowage in the museum of his pockets. "To New Arcady, Kentucky? Twelve dollars!" said the man. Ned felt his hair rise,--more than a month's wages! And was he to beg or beat his way back? The prospect in which he had begun to rejoice was dwindling, fading, vanishing like a mirage! And it had been so hopeful! He wondered, when he thought of this, might he not steal a ride thither,--beat his way! Nay,--had he not yet enough of beating his way? "Want the ticket? Then move on," said the ticket agent as Ned still vaguely clung to the window, as if he thus kept a clutch on his ephemeral hope. He shook his head, unclasped his hand, and slipped away. "What can I do for you, sir?" the agent asked sharply of a gentleman who was now standing silently at the window, seeming scarcely less dazed and wool-gathering than Ned had been. "Oh, time-table?" The automaton ungraciously flung it out, and went back to his writing with an air which seemed to ask if all the fools who wanted to go nowhere, and whom he wished were there, were coming this day to block up his window, and interrupt his work, and impede traffic.