Taking leave of Uncle Job and Aunt Betty, Constance and I started for the Dragon, and on our way ran across Fox, as good luck would have it. When we told him about the journey and our wish that he should go with me, he was delighted beyond power of speaking, for he had long desired to get away from Appletop, and only Uncle Job’s wish kept him back. This because the past had been a bar to his getting anything worthy of him, nor did it seem possible he could live it down, though he labored hard to be thought worthy of men’s confidence. It was plain, too, that he had now begun to despair of his future, in which we greatly pitied him, for he was in all things of blameless life and wholly free from folly of any kind. "Do you know where you can get a horse?" I asked, when it had been arranged that he should go. "Yes, I know a good one I can hire," he answered, and sorrowfully enough, for it had been a long time since he had a horse of his own. "We had better buy one; Aunt Jane has sent me money enough, and it can’t be used in a better way, can it?" "That would be fine; and have you a horse?" he asked. "Yes; Uncle Job has given me the gray mare." "Given her to you! Well, that’s past belief, for she is the very apple of his eye," he answered, surprised. While we were thus talking, Blott came up, bustling and fat and as full of color as an alderman. He had now been married a year, and was, moreover, deputy sheriff, an office he filled with great pride, and acceptably to the public. When I told him of our journey, the roving instinct in him showed itself in the way he straightened up. "I’d like to go with you," he answered, "for it’ll be a picnic; but business is business, an’ the peace of the county’s got to be looked after," he added, with a sly glance at his wife, a little woman with a firm mouth and big nose, who had come up while he was speaking. This little lady was a very determined woman, and ruled her lord with an iron hand in all matters relating to temperance and early hours and things of that sort, but for his good, be it said, and not unkindly. "We should like to have you go if you could get away," I answered, for Blott was fine company. "It would be great if both Blott and Mr. Fox could go, Gilbert," Constance spoke up, seeing in this greater safety for me in fighting off the outlaws and desperadoes with which she had peopled every lonely place since the night in Murderer’s Hollow. "He can’t, though, Miss Constance," Mrs. Blott broke in. "He couldn’t be away so long, and besides he might have a return of the old malady, an’ I ain’t goin’ to risk it." "There ain’t a bit of danger, Sarah," Blott answered, "for I’m livin’ too near the sky to ketch anything but a cold. Do you know, Gilbert, I can hardly keep my feet on the ground, an’ have to clip my wings every mornin’, I’m so good. Only Sarah’s stricter’n she need be sometimes." "No, I ain’t," Mrs. Blott spoke up, "seein’ what indulgence led you into before."