Licking Valley courier., 1921-12-22
! Consented to Let tn. Fires Die Down..

! Consented to Let the Fires Die Down.
old Cinnabar stays right where she is
and soaks till kingdom come"
mo skin of Of mei" / yelped, with
q sort Of wild laugh. "Listen-both
Of you" and then told them the en-
tire heart-breaking story of Cousin
Percy's letter and my grandfather's
Joke; Of my starting out on the fan
tastic search for the girl, horse and
q dog-a search which would doubtless
have failed before 1t had fairly begun
II hadn't happened to ride in Pull
man smoker with the man, Charles
Bullerton.
remembered afterward that / had
got just that far-to the naming of
Builerton-when Barney, the pie-faced
collie, got up from his corner of the
hearth. stalked to the door and began
to growl. The next minute we heard
q horses sh-r-r-. and Daddy Hiram
rose, pushed the dog aside and opened
the door. Then Jeanle and /, still
sitting before the FIRE, heard him say
grufiy: well, hello, Charley Butler
ton What in Sam Hill are you doln'
mp In this neck o. woodsT
I turned to look at Jeanle-and
missed. In the moment when I had
glanced aside she had vanished.
When Bullerton came In, which was
after Daddy Hiram had lighted the
lantern and shown him where to put
his horse. he didn't seem half as much
surprised to find me sitting before the
Twombly house fre a. I thought he
might have been.
well. welll-look who's herer' he
bantered. "How are you, Broughtoni
This old world isn't so Internally big
- II might be, after all, is itf Who
would have thought that our next
meeting would be in such an out-of.
the.way corner Of the universe as this
j hope you've been we'll and clipper
all these weeks"
l said what I was obliged to, and
wasn't any too confoundedly cordial
about II, either, guess.
Bullerton drew up a chair and began
% talk, much as II we'd Invited him to
about his Woodworking year In South
America; about the fabulously rict
mines In that far-away Utopia OF tn,
gold-diggers; about his voyage up from
the Isthmus; about the oddness OF hi
meeting me on the train, combined
with the more excruclatlng oddness o
hitmeetlng me again, here In the East
srn Tlmanyonis; things like that
He was Just comfortably surginI
along In the swing Of II when a doc
opened behind us and he jumped u
with another "Well, well, look who
iherel" and when l turned, he wa
holding Jeanie's two hands In his an
lbraylng over her like wild ass Of tn
plains. And, II youll believe me, tina
girl had gone and changed her dress
That is what she went to do when sh
slipped out and left me to stare at he
empty chair. after she had heard he
father say, swell, hello, Charley Bu
ierton |"
II was all Off with me from th,
time on. For what was left OF I'll
evening. Bullerton played solo.
got full-up on the performance nbo'
: nine o'clock, AND climbed my ladd'
and went to bed, muflling my head
the blankets so that wouldn't hay
2 10 lie there and listen to the bagpiI
drone Of Bullerton's voice In the roo
below.
NhopeAyTwlthout the least shadow
reSe the hope, of course-th'
the Next morning would show me
hole In the atmosphere In the spa'
that Bullerton had occupied. 81
there was no such luck. He was pre-
ent at the breakfast table, as larl
a. life and twice as talkniive.
] made my escape from the cab
a. soon as could and tramped ov'
to the mine. A glance into the sha
showed the black pool in its depths
placid and untroubled Us u we hqdu