Bonners Ferry herald. [volume] (Bonners Ferry, Idaho) 1904-current, 1916-03-31

him of his plug tobacco. And his plug
tobacco took him as straight back to
the bush as though the unsound floor
had changed under their feet into .
magic carpet.
You simply have 1t put down to the
mans account in the station books.
Nobody keeps ready money up at the
bush, not even the price of plug like
this; but the chap I'm telling you
about q can see him now, with his
great red beard and freckled fsts) he
swore | was charging him for half
pound more than he'd ever had. We
fought for twenty minutes behind the
wood-heap; then he gave me best, but
had to turn in till l could see again"
You don't mean that he"
Blanche had looked rather disgust
ed the moment before; now she was
all truculent suspense and indigna-
ton.
Beat me?" he cried. Good Lord,
no; but there was none too much in
it."
Fires died down in her hazel eyes,
lay lambert as soft moonlight, flick
cred into laughter before he had seen
the fire.
I'm afraid you're a very dangerous
person." said Blanche.
you've got to be-" he assured her;
tits the only way. Don't take word
from anybody, unless you mean him to
wipe his boots on you. | soon found
that out. I'd have given something to
have learned the noble art before l
went out. Did | ever tell you how 1t
was | first came across old Venus
Potts?"
He had told her at great length, to
the exclusion OF about every other
topic, in the second of the annual let
ters; and throughout the series the in
evitable name of Venus Potts had sell
dom cropped up without some allusion
to that Homeric encounter. But it was
well worth while having 1t all over
again with the intricate and picturesque
embroidery of a tongue far mightier
than the pen hitherto employed upon
the incident. Poor Blanche had almost
to hold her nose over the primary
cause of battle; but the dialogue was
delightful, and Cazalet himself made
a most gallant and engaging figure as
he sat on the sill and reeled 1t out
Twenty minutes later, and old Venus
Potts was still on the magic taps
though Cazalet had dropped his boast
ing for a curiously humble. eager and
yet Intellectual vein.
"Old Venus Potts." he kept ejacu
lating. You couldn't help liking him
And he'd like you. my world"
rs his wife nice?" Blanche wanted
to know; but she was looking so in
tently out her window, at the opposite
end of the bow to Cazalet's, that 9
man OF the wider world might have
thought of something else to tall
about.
Out her window she looked past Z
willow that had been part OF the ole
life, in the direction of an equal,
typical silhouette of patient anglerl
anchored In a punt; they had no
raised rod between them during al
| lillb tlllt that DlduCuc ndQ DCOh Odh Al
Australia; but as a matter of fact she
never saw them, since, vastly to thu
credit of Cazalet's descriptive powers
she was out in Australia still.
Nelly Potts?" he said. "Oh. a. joll,
good sort; you'd be awful pals"
Should WEI" said Blanche. just
smiling at her invisible anglers.
81 know you would" he assured hel
with immense conviction. "Of course
she can't do the things you do; bu
she can ride, my word So she ough
to. when she's lived there all her life
The rooms aren't much, but the veran
das are what count most; they're bet
ter than any rooms"
She was still out there, cultivatint
Nelly Potts on a very deep veranda
though her straw hat and straw hal
remained in contradictory evidence
against a very dirty window on tn,
Middlesex bank of the Thames. L
was a shame of the September SUI
to show the dirt as it was doing; no
only was there a great steady pool o
sunshine on the unspeakable floor, blu
a doddering reflection from the rive
on the disreputable ceiling. Cazale
looked rather desperately from one t.
the other. and both the calm pool anC
the rough were broken by shadows
one more impressionistic than tn,
other OF a straw hat over a stack o
straw hair, that had not gone out t.
Australia-yet.
And of course just then q steI
sounded outside somewhere on some
gravel. Confound those caretakers
/ What were they doing, prowlint
about?
Il say, Blanchiel" he blurted out &c
do believe you'd like 1t out there. q
sportswoman like you! believs
you'd take to it like duck to water"
CTo BE CONTINUED)