The blood left Oakley's face. He looked down at the crowd and saw Turner Joyce. He saw McClintock and Holt and the men from the shops, who were, if possible, the noisiest of all. He turned helplessly to the doctor.
"Let's get out of this," he said between his teeth. The crowd and the noise and the excitement recalled that other night when he had ridden into Antioch. As he spoke he swung himself down from the steps of the coach, and the crowd closed about him with a glad shout of welcome.
The doctor followed more slowly. As he gained the platform, the Hon. Jeb Barrows hurried to his side.
"Where is he to go, Doc?" he panted. "To your house, or to the hotel?"
"All right, then. The crowd's spoiling the whole business. I've got an address of welcome in my pocket that I was to have delivered, and there's to be a supper at the Rink to-night. Don't let him get away from you."
Meanwhile, Dan had succeeded in extricating himself from the clutches of his friends, and was struggling towards a closed carriage at the end of the platform that he recognized as the Emorys'.
In his haste and the dusk of the dull October twilight, he supposed the figure he saw in the carriage to be the doctor, who had preceded him, and called to the man on the box to drive home.
As he settled himself, he said, reproachfully:
"I hope you hadn't anything to do with this?"
A slim, gloved hand was placed in his own, and a laughing voice said:
He glanced up quickly, and found himself face to face with Constance Emory.
There was a moment's silence, and then Dan said, the courage that had brought him all the way to Antioch suddenly deserting him: "It's too bad, isn't it? I had hoped I could slip in and out of town without any one being the wiser."
"But you can't," with a little air of triumph. "Antioch is going to entertain you. It's been in a perfect furor of excitement ever since it knew you were coming back."
"Well, I suppose there is no help for it," resignedly.
"I guess we left him behind," with sudden cheerfulness. He leaned forward so that he could look into her face.
"Constance, I have returned because I couldn't stay away any longer. I tried to forget, but it was no use."
She had withdrawn her hand, but he had found it again, and now his fingers closed over it and held it fast He was feeling a sense of ownership.