As he entered the store to make his purchases a fox-eyed man saw him and stepped quickly behind the huge stove which had not as yet been taken down for the summer.Bridge made his purchases, the volume of which required a large gunny-sack for transportation, and while he was thus occupied the fox-eyed man clung to his coign of vantage, himself unnoticed by the pur-chaser.When Bridge departed the other followed him, keeping in the shadow of the trees which bordered the street.Around the edge of town and down a road which led southward the two went until Bridge passed through a broken fence and halted beside an abandoned mill.
The watcher saw his quarry set down his burden, seat himself beside it and proceed to roll a cigaret; then he faded away in the darkness and Bridge was alone.
Five or ten minutes later two slender figures ap-peared dimly out of the north.They approached timidly, stopping often and looking first this way and then that and always listening.When they arrived opposite the mill Bridge saw them and gave a low whistle.Immedi-ately the two passed through the fence and approached him.
"My!" exclaimed one, "I thought we never would get here; but we didn't see a soul on the road.Where is Giova?""She hadn't come yet," replied Bridge, "and she may not.I don't see how a girl can browse around a town like this with a big bear at night and not be seen, and if she is seen she'll be followed--it would be too much of a treat for the rubes ever to be passed up--and if she's followed she won't come here.At least I hope she won't.""What's that?" exclaimed The Oskaloosa Kid.Each stood in silence, listening.
The girl shuddered."Even now that I know what it is it makes me creep," she whispered, as the faint clank-ing of a distant chain came to their ears.
"We ought to be used to it by this time, Miss Prim,"said Bridge."We heard it all last night and a good part of to-day."The girl made no comment upon the use of the name which he had applied to her, and in the darkness he could not see her features, nor did he see the odd ex-pression upon the boy's face as he heard the name addressed to her.Was he thinking of the nocturnal raid he so recently had made upon the boudoir of Miss Abigail Prim? Was he pondering the fact that his pock-ets bulged to the stolen belongings of that young lady?
But whatever was passing in his mind he permitted none of it to pass his lips.
As the three stood waiting in silence Giova came pres-ently among them, the beast Beppo lumbering awk-wardly at her side.
"Did he find anything to eat?" asked the man.
"Oh, yes," exclaimed Giova."He fill up now.That mak him better nature.Beppo not so ugly now.""Well, I'm glad of that," said Bridge."I haven't been looking forward much to his company through the woods to-night--especially while he was hungry!"Giova laughed a low, musical little laugh."I don'
think he no hurt you anyway," she said."Now he know you my frien'.""I hope you are quite correct in your surmise," re-plied Bridge."But even so I'm not taking any chances."o o o Willie Case had been taken to Payson to testify be-fore the coroner's jury investigating the death of Giova's father, and with the dollar which The Oskaloosa Kid had given him in the morning burning in his pocket had proceeded to indulge in an orgy of dissipation the mo-ment that he had been freed from the inquest.Ice cream, red pop, peanuts, candy, and soda water may have diminished his appetite but not his pride and self-satisfaction as he sat alone and by night for the first time in a public eating place.Willie was now a man of the world, a bon vivant, as he ordered ham and eggs from the pretty waitress of The Elite Restaurant on Broadway; but at heart he was not happy for never be-fore had he realized what a great proportion of his anat-omy was made up of hands and feet.As he glanced fearfully at the former, silhouetted against the white of the table cloth, he flushed scarlet, assured as he was that the waitress who had just turned away toward the kitchen with his order was convulsed with laughter and that every other eye in the establishment was glued upon him.To assume an air of nonchalance and thereby impress and disarm his critics Willie reached for a tooth-pick in the little glass holder near the center of the ta-ble and upset the sugar bowl.Immediately Willie snatched back the offending hand and glared ferociously at the ceiling.He could feel the roots of his hair being consumed in the heat of his skin.A quick side glance that required all his will power to consummate showed him that no one appeared to have noticed his faux pas and Willie was again slowly returning to normal when the proprietor of the restaurant came up from behind and asked him to remove his hat.
Never had Willie Case spent so frightful a half hour as that within the brilliant interior of The Elite Restau-rant.Twenty-three minutes of this eternity was con-sumed in waiting for his order to be served and seven minutes in disposing of the meal and paying his check.
Willie's method of eating was in itself a sermon on efficiency--there was no lost motion--no waste of time.
He placed his mouth within two inches of his plate after cutting his ham and eggs into pieces of a size that would permit each mouthful to enter without wedging;then he mixed his mashed potatoes in with the result and working his knife and fork alternately with bewild-ering rapidity shot a continuous stream of food into his gaping maw.
In addition to the meat and potatoes there was one vegetable in a side-dish and as dessert four prunes.The meat course gone Willie placed the vegetable dish on the empty plate, seized a spoon in lieu of knife and fork and--presto! the side-dish was empty.Whereupon the prune dish was set in the empty side-dish--four deft motions and there were no prunes--in the dish.The en-tire feat had been accomplished in 6:34 1/2, setting a new world's record for red-headed farmer boys with one splay foot.