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Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker, showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to break the umbrella of his rival found in the vestibule of his girl's house, then going out and praying for rain!
It ran: "Get after Lessard and see if he won't send an escort with you to Writing-Stone. If he does, and you find anything, I needn't warn you to be careful. I don't think he believed our yarn, at all. If he refuses to act, stay here till I get out. This money will hold you for a while. It's all I could rustle. If you need more, maybe Bat can stake you he will if he can." That was all.
"Much obliged to the young gentlemen, but I've had my dinner," he answered; "however, I'll come and have a talk with them, if you think they'll like it. May be, I'll spin them a yarn or two, which will do to pass the time while they are sniffing in the breezes, which they don't get much of while they are away up the country."
It had log walls, bare rafters overhead, a tall old-fashioned clock in a corner, a canoe cradle, a great spinning-wheel on which the ladies, dressed like the women of the olden times, spun yarn, and gourds used for drinking vessels.
"He's heard something of the yarn, and wants to know the facts," he said; "so we came along to you." Taking the remark to apply to what she herself had in her mind, Mrs. Taylor put her hand on Tony's arm and smiled. "Why, there's nothing to fret about," she said. "It isn't your loss; it's hers, if she's that sort of girl. Let her please herself, I say; and if she's fool enough "
Bud's eyes were following the horses as they moved away in the wake of the barn-hand. "It's pretty bad?" "An' gettin' worse." Bud's eyes came back to his partner's face. They gazed steadily into it. "Can't you tell me now? Evie's in there with Nan," he added significantly. Bud shook his head. "It's a big yarn, an' needs time. But " He paused, searching the other's face. "Go right on."
"You mean that Indian rig?" "Yes." "Hullo, I reckon I smell a mouse!" laughed the senator's son. "I heard you giving Hans that yarn about us training to fight Indians." "Did you indeed." "I did indeed; and I heard Hans say that he wanted nothing to do with the Indians." "Well, he's going to have something to do with at least one Indian," grinned Tom. "What do you say I get the suit?"
It was Jeff who put the question, and Bud, looking on, saw the steely gleam that lit the man's eyes as he spoke. But Ju's amiability was passing. He was getting tired of a subject which dealt with another man's profit. He rolled his cigar across his mouth. "Here. Guess I best tell you the yarn as we know it. Y'see," he added regretfully, "we ain't learned a heap 'cep' jest the racket of it.
Then, after an hour or so's yarn on the cool, clean awninged deck, they would take a regretful departure, and would go over the ship's side laden with good things from the sailors, the latest newspapers from home, smokable tobacco, and good canteen stores.
Shorthouse, deep in some involved yarn of the South Seas that was meant to be full of cheer and sunshine, and yet only succeeded in making a ghastly mixture of unnatural colouring, seemed to care little whether I listened or not. He made no appeal to me, and I made one or two quite irrelevant remarks which passed him by and proved that he was merely uttering sounds.
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