United States or Romania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They all wondered how it would turn out for them, the lumberman and the insurance agent who had not been of the party that day in Smith's coach offering to lay bets that nobody in the mess would draw a number below five hundred. There were no takers. Then they offered to bet that all in the mess would draw under five hundred. Mrs.
Flint, the long-limbed lumberman, from the wilds of Maine, was a conscript who, when government demanded his money or his life, calculated the cost, and decided that the cash would be a dead loss and the claim might be repeated, whereas the conscript would get both pay and plunder out of government, while taking excellent care that government got very little out of him.
I kept that card among my other relics, and hoped to meet Joe again somewhere in the world. He sent me one or two letters, then I went home; the war ended soon after, time passed, and the little story of my Maine lumberman was laid away with many other experiences which made that part of my life a very memorable one.
Scotty done showed one." The lumberman raised. "What are you horning in for?" demanded Pete. "I've got you beat. It's Dewing's hide I'm after." Dewing looked at his cards and stayed. Pete saw the raise and re-raised.
"That's good advice," agreed Allen, and with the help of the lumberman the Spider was hauled ashore, not in the least damaged. The girls were beginning to recover their nerves now, though they were a trifle shaky. "Let's get back to the cabin!" cried Grace. "Oh, I'll never go ice boating again." "Not when the ice is like it was to-day," commented her brother. "Franklin says he warned you."
"See, the water is coming in faster than ever." The lumberman was right, the water had been running in a tiny stream not larger than a child's wrist; now it was pouring in steadily like a cataract. Soon the bottom of the hole had formed a pool several inches deep. "Wait till it fills up and then swim out," suggested Larry. "No, thanks," returned Dick. "We might be drowned by that operation."
This was America in France in every sense of the word. One felt the atmosphere of rush. In the buildings, which should have been left when materials failed, but which had been carried to completion by pioneer methods, one recognised the resourcefulness of the lumberman of the West. Then came a touch of Eastern America, to me almost more replete with memory and excitement.
"You don't have to let us. We'll do it without, Hank!" spoke Paddy, suddenly. At the sound of his voice for up to now Hank had not seen the lumberman the burly guard started slightly. "Paddy Malone!" he gasped. "You back!" "Yes, and I guess Jallow won't be any more glad to see me than you are," was the grim comment. There was no further hindrance to their progress.
Why, he can't ride a horse, and it's absurd to suppose he ever saw any of the Reserve he's in charge of." Welton bestirred himself to good purpose. Inside of two hours a half-dozen men, well-mounted and provisioned, bearing the usual tools of the fire-fighter, had ridden off into the growing brightness of the moon. "There," said the lumberman with satisfaction.
He smiled again as he added, "Add that item to my versatile summary. I'm as good a key tickler as you would be apt to find in a day's journey." "At all events you are a surprising reprobate," admitted the lumberman with a yawn. "Someday, though, I'll challenge you to a sending and receiving tourney. I began in a broker's office, and I'm fairly good myself."
Word Of The Day