Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/46

 old man it was important war news. Once aside, I whispered in my editor's ear that the game was up, and that freedom beckoned down the line.

"Tib quickly secured our small stock of gold, and, stealing out among the bushes, we made for the mountain. Soon we heard a great crackling of underbrush ahead of us. Drawing aside, we had the pleasure of seeing the scout making for the village, waving the fragment of the newspaper and crying loudly as he went.

"‘It's farewell to the Tiberian Weekly,' sighed Tib.

"‘It's us to the misty highlands,' I added, and on we went.

"Back of us we could hear a great outcry, but as we neared the top of the rocks it died away. It was now nightfall, and Tib paused and pointed back, where the dusk was chasing itself about the lowlands, and groaned, 'Look! They burn their only monument to liberty. They squelch the freedom of the press!'

"A bright blaze told where the office of the Tiberian Weekly was being sacrificed on the altar of an outraged people.

"And so we left 'em. Tib always said he was going back to square himself, but he never did. And little we recked it would be a long, long time before we gazed on the Green Mountains again.