The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1913-03-26

he aware OF the nature OF che article
he has stolen, and II is very danger
GUS"
"What on earth is III"
at is q fairly large-sized stick OF
dynamite"
The youth might have been discuss
ing a fancy dance, so suave and polite
was he. Jim interrupted rudely.
Dynamite, is Il? Good. II it's old
Csatelard, he ought to blow up. Serve
him right"
"Tm surprised and panied at your
words, my dear friend. No soul is
utterly"
Eyes. II is. Which way did he go?
Where Is he?"
/ 81 don't know. The manager sent
me to inform the sheriff"
at won't do any good. But you'd
better go. all the same"
The judge in chancery went on his
dignified way. He would not have
hurried II he had heard Angel Ca
briefs trump. The news he had
brought was in the class to be consid-
cred important IL true, but there was
nothing in 1t to alter Jimmy's plans.
He took the shortest cut to the shore,
found a flat-bottomed punt that was
regarded by the village as general
property, and pushed off.
The Sea Gull was tidy craft, and
looked very gay with even the half Of
her festival flags on view. But the
gaiety did not beguile Jim's damp
cned spirits. He went aboard feeling
that he'd like to rip the idiotic things
down; but the yacht, at least, offered
place where he could think. The
sunset light on the water blazed YER
milion-just the color that Jim all at
once discovered he hated. He looked
down the companionway, but finally
he decided to stretch out on deck for
few minutes rest. He was very
tired.
Off on the stern was a vague mass
which proved to be a few yards of
canvas carefully tented on the floor.
Some gimcrack belonging to the ships
ornamentation had been freshly gild-
ed and left to dry, protected by an old
sail-cloth. This, weighted down by a
rusty marlinspike, spread couchwise
along the taffrail, and offered to Jim
just the bed he longed for.
He lay down, face to the sky, and
gave himself up TO thoughts that we're
very dark indeed. He had been
thrown down, unexpectedly and quite
hard, and that was all there was to it.
Agatha, lovely but inexplicable maid,
was not for him. She had been re-
ceptive-yes, that was the word; and
he had been fool-that was the plain
truth. He might as well face it at
once. He had been idiot enough to
think he might win the girl, just be-
cause they had been tossed together
in mid-ocean and she had chung to
him. The world wasn't an ocean; it
was a spiritual stock-exchange, where
he who would win must bid very high
indeed for the prizes of life. And he
had so little to bid!
| Communing thus with his unhappi-
ress, Jim utterly lost the sense OF
time. The shameless vermilion sun
set went into second mourning and
thence to nuns gray, before the figure
on the sail-cloth moved. Then, through
senses only half awake, Jim heard a
light sound, like scratch-scratch on
the hull of the yacht. Chamberlain,
no doubt, just rubbing the nose of his
tender against the Sea Gull. Jim was
in no hurry to see Chamberlain, and
remained where he was. The Eng
lishman would heave in sight soon
enough.
But though Jim waited several min
utes, with half an eye cooked on the
stairway, nobody appeared. The wind
was still, the sea like glass; not a
sound anywhere. Struck by some
thing of strangeness in the uncanny
silence, jim sat up and called Alloy
Chamberlain" There was no answer
But in the tense stiffness there was a
sound, and it came from below-the
sound of a mans stealthy tread
Jim sprang to his feet and made
the companionway at bound. He
listened an instant to make sure that
he heard true, cleared the steps, and