News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1916-10-25

now whipped its skirts away, disclos
/ Ing legs straight and slender and gra
+ ciously modelled. She was dressed, /,
seemed, for bathing.>
Whitaker turn to go, and turning LET
| his gaze sweep up from the beach and
| along the brow Of the bluff. He paused
browning. Some twenty feet or so dis.
| tant the legs of man, trousered and
booted, protruded from hollow be-
tween two hummOcks of sand. And
| the toes of the boots were digging into
| the sand, indicating that the man was
| lying prone; and that meant (if he
were neither dead nor sleeping) that
he was watching the woman on the
| beach.
Indignation, righteous Indignation,
warmed Whitakers bosom. 1t was ali
very well for him to catch sight of
the woman through her cottage win
dow, by night, and to swim over to the
but what right had anybody else to
constitute himself her shadow? Be-
sides, it was possible that the man
was Drummond.
He strobe forward and stood over
the man, looking down at his back. 1t
was true, as he had assumed-the fell
low was watching the woman. And
his back was very like Drummond's.
A little culver Of excitement mingled
with anticlpative satisfaction ran
4 81, l,;, I,c thn 1oxyS-
terry was TO be cleared up, his future
relations with the pseudo-suicide de-
fined and established.
Deliberately he extended his bare
foot and nudged the mans ribs.
"Drummond % he said in a
clear voice, decided but unaggressive.
With an oath and what seemed a
single, quick notion the man jumped
to his feet and turned to Whitaker a
startled and infamed countenance.
"Nyhat the devil !" he cried angrily.
"Who are you? What do you want?
What d'you mean by coming round
here and calling me Drummond?"
He was no more Drummond than he
was Whitaker himself.
''For that matter" - something
clicked in Whitaker's brain and sub
consciously he knew that his temper
was about to toke the bridge-''what
do you mean by spying on that lady
yonder?"
1t being indisputably none of his
concern, the unfairness Of the question
only lent it offensive force. The man
made this painfully clear through the
medium of an intOlerable epithet and
an attempt to land his right fist on
Whitaker's face.
The face, however, was elsewhere
when the fist reached the point for
which 1t had been aimed; and Whit
aker closed in promptly as the fellows
body followed his arm, thrown off bal
ance by the momentum of the unob-
structed blow.
What followed had entered into the
calculations of neither. Whitaker felt
himself suddenly falling through air
thick with binding, choking cloud of
dust and sand. The body of the other
was simultaneously wrenched violently
from his grasp. Then he brought up
against solidity with "A bump that
seemed to expel every cubic inch of
air from his lungs. And he heard him
self cry out sharply with the pain of
his weak ankle newly twisted. E.
He sat up, gasping for breath,
brushed the sand from his face ana
eyes, and as soon as his whirlng wits
settled a little, comprehended what
had happened.
Half buried in the debris of mini
allure landslide, he sat at the foot of
the bluff. Immediately above his head
a ragged break showed where the sand
held together solely by beach grass
had given way beneath the weight of
the antagonists.
A little distance from him the other
man was picking himself up, apparent
ly unhurt but completely surfeited
Without delay, with not even so much
as glance at Whitaker, he staggered
off for few PAGES, then settled into
heavy, numbering trot westward
along the beach. He did not wish the
woman to recognize him; therefore he
was putting himself out of her way.
For she was approaching.
When Whitaker caught sight of her
she was already close at hand. She