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 row of stores standing with their hind legs in the water, as it were. Across the river is the grist mill, the planing mill, a sort of manufactory of odds and ends of woodenware, and the secondary hotel…. The depot and railroad are half a mile away, to be reached by travelers in Lafe Fitch’s bus, a huge yellow contraption which can be heard rattling half a dozen blocks away. Prospective travelers wait to put on hats and wraps until they hear its clamor. It is a sort of alarm clock.

The population of Rainbow is something like eighteen hundred human beings, who live pleasantly, deal kindly by one another, and are, for the most part, to be envied. They are folks, good folks, generous folks—as you would discover if trouble or illness came to you in their midst—yet they can be hard, narrow, unyielding when circumstances seem to threaten their preconceived ideas of the manner in which the world should be conducted. There is no caste, no social class, yet there are recognized certain children with whom your children must not be allowed to play…. Rainbow is very meticulous in the protection of its young, and that, in a measure, explains and justifies the story of Angus Burke.

Rainbow was upset, shaken to its foundations, yet, in a strange sort of way, it was proud. It was the possessor of a murder for the first time