The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry for entertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled to shapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants in arms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera House to its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time as completely as an exodus. While the best people, among whom were the Toomeys, occupied the several rows of reserved chairs and smiled tolerantly upon the efforts of the performers, and the proletariat stamped and whistled through its teeth and cracked peanuts, a man muffled to the ears by the high collar of a mackinaw coat, his face further concealed by the visor of a cap and ear-laps, rode to the top of the bench, drew rein and looked down upon the lights of Prouty. It was not a night one would select for traveling on horseback, unless his business was urgent. However, the man's seemed to be of this nature, for he rode behind a large signboard which advertised the wares of the Prouty Emporium, dismounted, tied his horse to the prop that held the signboard upright, and with a show of haste took a coil of rope from his saddlehorn, an axe--the head of which was wrapped in gunny sacking--and a gun that swung in loops of saddle thongs at an angle to fit comfortably in the bend of the rider's knee. He did not follow the road, but took a shorter cut straight down the steep side of the bench to the nearest alley, through which he ran as noiselessly as a coyote. He ran until he came to Main Street, which the alley bisected. In the shade of the Security State Bank he peered around the corner and listened. The street was deserted, not even a dog or prowling cat was visible the entire length of it. The man crossed it hurriedly, looking up and down and over his shoulder furtively, like some cautious animal which fears itself followed. In the protection of the alley he ran again until he came to Mormon Joe's tar-paper shack setting square and ugly in the middle of the lot--an eyesore to the neighbors. The door was locked, but it was the work of a second to tear off the axe-head's covering and pry it open. He stepped inside and closed the door quietly. Lighting the candle he took from his pocket, with his hand he shielded the flame from the one window, and looked about with a glance that took in every detail of the shack's arrangement. A single iron bedstead extended into the room and a soogan and two blankets, thin and ragged from service, were heaped in the middle. There was no pillow, and a hard cotton pad constituted the mattress. An empty whiskey bottle stood by the head of the bed.