The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1917-04-05

There Was a Kissing
Trask was so ~astonished by her i'm
pudence that he laughed.
"Why, you little fluffy pullet, I'll tie
you up and drop you in the river!"
"Oh, you will?" said Gloria.
She snatched the poker from the
fire. Trask laughed at it. She hit the
table with it and sparks flew. She
rubbed it on the wooden top of the
table and smoke arose. There was
a kissing sound. Trask shuddered.
Gloria jabbed at him with her red-hot
sword. He could feel the soaring pain
of 1t before it reached him. When 1t
arrived where he was he was not
there. Gloria was q trife conceited
over her success.
And now, what next2 She saw the
rope in his hand. He had brought it
to tie her with. The next idea came.
She gloated q trifie.
you thought you would tie me up,
did you? Well, you al just tie your
self up!"
Trask could hardly believe that any
one would be cruel enough to inflict
such On insulting injury. But Gloria's
arguments were pokes with the poker.
If Trask had been more intelligent
and less confused, and had known how,
he might have tied himself up as the
cabinet tricksters do-so that he could
slip out easily. But this was beyond
him at the time, and Gloria was Wig
liant.
She made him fasten the rope
around q ~stanchion, then knot it about
one wrist, then pass it around him till
he looked like q package Of Gloria's
own tying. The last knots she attend
ed to herself. She set the poker on q
plate within easy reach, and knotted,
and knotted, and knotted. Trask
CRASHED his teeth with rage, but he
could not bulge. He yelled just once,
then she seized a dish towel, whirled it
into a roll and gagged him so that he
could not even gnash his teeth.
Gloria heard footsteps along the
deck overhead. Probably Jed was
coming down. The poker was cold.
There was no time for relocating 1t.
Something must be done at once. She
put out the lamp that Nell had light
ed, she set at the foot Of the stairs
q wicker rocker, she laid it on its side,
and fell back to await developments.
Jed came down the stairs in the
dark. AS he left the last step he put
his foot In the wicker rocker as in q
trap. Jed went on over with a crash
that shook the barge. He was yell
ing that he a being bitten to death
by a wildcat, when Gloria sided past
him, ran up the stairs and out on deck.
She closed the hatch, fastened it and
voted herself three cheers.
She looked about her now and saw
that she was In the middle Of the Hud-
son river and a great distance from
either shore. The view was magni-
ficent in the cleaning, but she had had
erough OF 1t and the hateful tug was
furrowing the water and dragging the
barge farther and farther north.
She saw the tiller of the barge
Hopping idly, and 1t occurred to her
that il she could get free from the tug
she could steer the barge to shore her.
self. Somewhere below was her ia
theirs home. Stas and his father and
mother would be waiting for her. Per-
haps her own father was alarmed. It
was time for her to go home. She
would take her prisoners back to her
father and deliver them to whatever
punishment seemed right.
She had never steered a canal barge,
but she imagined that 1t would be
about the same as a motor boat In
general principles. Fortunately, she
had been carried so far north that the
current would act as engine poweg.
She was delighted with the scheme.
She went forward aid saw the big
hawser sagged In the middle and cut
the water. The tug had buckled down
to Its work, churning up a noisy wake.
She could e the bucks Of the crew
Of the tug where they sat smoking and
solemn and bored to death.
They would have had q good laugh
II they had seen Gloria trying to unite
the knots In that hawser with her lit
tie hands. She was laughing to think
how surprised they would be later
when they discovered by chance that
the barge had disappeared.
When a parcel came home from O
shop Gloria always tried to unite 1t,
then always went for the scissors. So
now, when she saw that she could not
quite unknot the hawser. she looked
for the shears. She found an OK on
deck and attacked the biz rope
she hit everything but the hawser.
and whep she hit that at last 1t was
J Ike hitting a huge rubber hand The