The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1925-10-23

before he left he recalled that an
errand of mercy lay at the bottom of
! his visit.
II dropped into Browns the other
| day." he said. Mrs. Brown is bit
| fed up. Staring out of the window,
and all that kind of thing. Poor old
Brown is quite useless; worse than
l am, if that is possible, but his wife
has quality in her that will count If
she doesn't go under first She needs
| you two girls over there now and
again, just to put bit Of sunshine
in her soul. Now just hitch up the
oxen tomorrow and slip over TO Sec
| ton Four and jolly her out of the
| dumps"
| well, suppose we do" Jack agreed.
| But how about you keeping up your
end of the social service? Why wish
| it all on to us?"
81 don't follow you. I have already
been to the Browns"
But not to Mrs Atoms, so far as
we can learn. Mrs. Brown may have
no monopoly of loneliness"
Perhaps it was only Imagination,
but it seemed to me that Spoofs face,
usually so frank and open, suddenly
became a mask. But he came back
quickly and easily.
Il could hardly do that, don't you
thing"
"Why not" said Jean, as ingenu-
| Gus as ever.
why, it would hardly be the thing
its not in Accord
You mean it isn't DONE" / sup
piled.
Exactly. But of course / know
I'm a greenhorn yet, even though
am beginning to ripen in spots. That
reminds me, I've had another letter
from the governor. He wants me to
shoot him a young chinook"
"A chinook %
Yes. When | wrote him a recent
treatise entitled AN Incident in q Hay
Field, or, How About a Check for a
Hundred Pounds'-you will remember
the time-I covered the ragged edge of
my purpose with a dissertation upon
the prairie climate. l told him that it
consisted of a melange of everything
from Naples at it's best to Norway
at it's worst-from sleepy kittens pur-
ring in the sun to wild she-tigers raging
/ through the jungle. From climate l
moved to grass by easy stages, and
from grass to hay, and from that to
the matter of one hundred pounds.
| On the way / explained that this part
of the country is not really in the
chinook belt. although occasionally one
| came down this far. So now am COM
| missioned to shoot for the governor a
young chinook. He thinks the skin
would look a bit of all right on the
library floor, don't you known"
"And, of course, you will shoot one?'
| "a request from ones immediate
paternal ancestor, accompanied by a
draft for hundred pounds, is not to
be lightly disregarded.'
LET me Think" said Jack, and for
few moments we remained silent to
| give his mind elbow room.
81 have y" he suddenly exclaimed
HAS your governor ever seen a bad
ger?'
Not likely except possibly at the
ZOO"
''We must take that chance You
must shoot badger, Spool, which we
| ,,,;n lxy oh oh Nd
send it to your governor in time for
Christmas"
81 think it is wicktd to do that,
said Jean, whose sympathies were al
ways with the underdog. mo doubt
Mr.-Mr. Spool, senior, is a delightful
old gentleman, and it isn't fair. Fancy
someone from America visiting him and
| Mr.. Spool goes showing off the chinook
which his son shot on the banks OF
the Saskatchewan. Chinook nothing
says the visitor. That's a badger, as
common as rabbits, almost, and
would describe your son as another
prairie animal, smaller than a badger
with two stripes down its back"
"Oh, listen to Miss Prim - Marjorie
interrupted. "Who would think she
had letter from her mother asking II
she was canning any buffalo beans?'
1t was not until Spoofs tall form
had dissolved out of view in the star
light that it occurred to me how skill
fully he had changed the conversation
from the subject of Mrs. Alton. Il
| ;x,I, oh
We did as Spool suggested. Early
the next afternoon we hitched Bucl
and Bright to the wagon and wende(
our slow way southwestward, Jack an6
| taking turns in the explanatory eXer
cises by means of which the oxen were
kept in motion. The prairie now wa.
very brown and bare, and only thu
more hardy gophers remained about tt
whistle saucily at our carry-all lumber
ing by. The dazzling sunshine seemed
TO have lost it's force, and there wa!
presage of coming winter in the air
We dropped into silence save for thu
noises of our locomOtion.
''The world seems to have died." sait
Jean after a, long period of thought
fulnesS.
The expression was an appropriate
one. The world was, actually, dead
Every blade of grass was a stark litti
corpse, swaying ghostily to the stir o
the cold air. Soon the shroud of win
ter would be woven about them, flax
by flake mantling them all in its cold
white tomb.
But in the spring it will live again,
lean continued, after pause. 'Tha