Chapter II: Foreword (2)

Lord Emsworth had one of those minds capable of accommodating but one thought at a time--if that; and the possibility that Angus McAllister might decline to return had not occurred to him. It was difficult to adjust himself to this new problem, but he managed it at last. Before nightfall he had made up his mind. Robert Barker, that broken reed, could remain in charge for another day or so, and meanwhile he would go up to London and engage a real head gardener, the finest head gardener that money could buy.

It was the opinion of Doctor Johnson that there is in London all that life can afford. A man, he held, who is tired of London is tired of life itself. Lord Emsworth, had he been aware of this statement, would have contested it warmly. He hated London. He loathed its crowds, its smells, its noises, its omnibuses, its taxis, and its hard pavements. And, in addition to all its other defects, the miserable town did not seem able to produce a single decent head gardener. He went from agency to agency, interviewing candidates, and not one of them came within a mile of meeting his requirements. He disliked their faces, he distrusted their references. It was a harsh thing to say of any man, but he was dashed if the best of them was even as good as Robert Barker.

It was, therefore, in a black and soured mood that his lordship, having lunched frugally at the Senior Conservative Club on the third day of his visit, stood on the steps in the sunshine, wondering how on earth he was to get through the afternoon. He had spent the morning rejecting head gardeners, and the next batch was not due until the morrow. And what--besides rejecting head gardeners--was there for a man of reasonable tastes to do with his time in this hopeless town?

And then there came into his mind a remark which Beach the butler had made at the breakfast table about flowers in Kensington Gardens. He could go to Kensington Gardens and look at the flowers.

He was about to hail a taxicab from the rank down the street when there suddenly emerged from the Hotel Magnificent, over the way, a young man. This young man proceeded to cross the road, and as he drew near it seemed to Lord Emsworth that there was about his appearance something oddly familiar. He stared for a long instant before he could believe his eyes, then with a wordless cry bounded down the steps just as the other started to mount them.

"Oh, hullo, guv'nor!" ejaculated the Honorable Freddie, plainly startled.

"What--what are you doing here?" demanded Lord Emsworth.

He spoke with heat, and justly so. London, as the result of several spirited escapades which still rankled in the mind of a father who had had to foot the bills, was forbidden ground to Freddie.

The young man was plainly not at his ease. He had the air of one who is being pushed toward dangerous machinery in which he is loath to become entangled. He shuffled his feet for a moment, then raised his left shoe and rubbed the back of his right calf with it. "The fact is, guv'nor----"

"You know you are forbidden to come to London."

"Absolutely, guv'nor, but the fact is----"

"And why anybody but an imbecile should want to come to London when he could be at Blandings----"

"I know, guv'nor, but the fact is----" Here Freddie, having replaced his wandering foot on the pavement, raised the other and rubbed the back of his left calf. "I wanted to see you," he said. "Yes. Particularly wanted to see you."

This was not strictly accurate. The last thing in the world which the Honorable Freddie wanted was to see his parent. He had come to the Senior Conservative Club to leave a carefully written note. Having delivered which, it had been his intention to bolt like a rabbit. This unforeseen meeting had upset his plans.

"To see me?" said Lord Emsworth. "Why?"

"Got--er--got something to tell you. Bit of news."

"I trust it is of sufficient importance to justify your coming to London against my express wishes."

"Oh yes. Oh yes, yes, yes. Oh, rather. It's dashed important. Yes--not to put too fine a point upon it--most dashed important. I say, guv'nor, are you in fairly good form to stand a bit of a shock?"

A ghastly thought rushed into Lord Emsworth's mind. Freddie's mysterious arrival--his strange manner--his odd hesitation and uneasiness---- Could it mean? He clutched the young man's arm feverishly.

"Frederick! Speak! Tell me! Have the cats got at it?"

It was a fixed idea of Lord Emsworth, which no argument would have induced him to abandon, that cats had the power to work some dreadful mischief on his pumpkin and were continually lying in wait for the opportunity of doing so; and his behavior on the occasion when one of the fast sporting set from the stables, wandering into the kitchen garden and, finding him gazing at the Blandings Hope, had rubbed itself sociably against his leg, lingered long in that animal's memory.

Freddie stared.

"Cats? Why? Where? Which? What cats?"

"Frederick! Is anything wrong with the pumpkin?"

In a crass and materialistic world there must inevitably be a scattered few here and there in whom pumpkins touch no chord. The Hon. Freddie Threepwood was one of these. He was accustomed to speak in mockery of all pumpkins, and had even gone so far as to allude to the Hope of Blanding as Percy. His father's anxiety, therefore, merely caused him to giggle.

"Not that I know of," he said.

"Then what do you mean," thundered Lord Emsworth, stung by the giggle--"what do you mean, sir, by coming here and alarming me--scaring me out of my wits, by gad!--with your nonsense about giving me shocks?"

The Honorable Freddie looked carefully at his fermenting parent. His fingers, sliding into his pocket, closed on the note which nestled there. He drew it forth.

"Look here, guv'nor," he said nervously, "I think the best thing would be for you to read this. Meant to leave it for you with the hall porter. It's--well, you just cast your eyes over it. Good-by, guv'nor. Got to see a man."

And thrusting the note into his father's hand the Honorable Freddie turned and was gone. Lord Emsworth, perplexed and annoyed, watched him skim up the road and leap into a cab. He seethed impotently. Practically any behavior on the part of his son Frederick had the power to irritate him, but it was when he was vague and mysterious and incoherent that the young man irritated him most.

He looked at the letter in his hand, turned it over, felt it and even smelled it. Then, for it had suddenly occurred to him that if he wished to ascertain its contents he had better read it, he tore open the envelope.

The note was brief, but full of good reading matter.

DEAR GUV'NOR: Awfully sorry, and all that, but couldn't hold out any longer. I've popped up to London in the two-seater, and Aggie and I were spliced this morning. There looked like being a bit of a hitch at one time, but Aggie's guv'nor, who has come over from America, managed to wangle it all right by getting a special license or something of that order. A most capable Johnny. He's coming to see you. He wants to have a good long talk with you about the whole binge. Lush him up hospitably, and all that, would you mind, because he's a really sound egg and you'll like him. Well, cheerio!

Your affectionate son,
FREDDIE.

P.S. You won't mind if I freeze onto the two-seater for the nonce, what? It may come in useful for the honeymoon.

The Senior Conservative Club is a solid and massive building, but, as Lord Emsworth raised his eyes dumbly from the perusal of this letter, it seemed to him that it was performing a kind of whirling dance. The whole of the immediate neighborhood, indeed, appeared to be shimmying in the middle of a thick mist. He was profoundly stirred. It is not too much to say that he was shaken to the core of his being. No father enjoys being flouted and defied by his own son; nor is it reasonable to expect a man to take a cheery view of life who is faced with the prospect of supporting for the remainder of his years a younger son, a younger son's wife and possibly younger grandchildren.

For an appreciable space of time he stood in the middle of the pavement, rooted to the spot. Passers-by bumped into him or grumblingly made detours to avoid a collision. Dogs sniffed at his ankles. Seedy-looking individuals tried to arrest his attention in order to speak of their financial affairs. Lord Emsworth heeded none of them. He remained where he was, gasping like a fish, until suddenly his faculties seemed to return to him.

An imperative need for flowers and green trees swept upon Lord Emsworth. The noise of the traffic and the heat of the sun on the stone pavement were afflicting him like a nightmare. He signaled energetically to a passing cab.

"Kensington Gardens," he said, and sank back on the cushioned seat.

Something dimly resembling peace crept into his lordship's soul as he paid off his cab and entered the cool shade of the gardens. Even from the road he had caught a glimpse of stimulating reds and yellows; and as he ambled up the asphalt path and plunged round the corner the flower beds burst upon his sight in all their consoling glory.

"Ah!" breathed Lord Emsworth rapturously, and came to a halt before a glowing carpet of tulips. A man of official aspect, wearing a peaked cap and a uniform, stopped as he heard the exclamation and looked at him with approval and even affection.

"Nice weather we're 'avin'," he observed.

Lord Emsworth did not reply. He had not heard. There is that about a well-set-out bed of flowers which acts on men who love their gardens, like a drug, and he was in a sort of trance. Already he had completely forgotten where he was, and seemed to himself to be back in his paradise of Blandings. He drew a step nearer to the flower bed, pointing like a setter.

The official-looking man's approval deepened. This man with the peaked cap was the park keeper, who held the rights of the high, the low, and the middle justice over that section of the gardens. He, too, loved these flowers beds, and he seemed to see in Lord Emsworth a kindred soul. The general public was too apt to pass by, engrossed in its own affairs, and this often wounded the park keeper. In Lord Emsworth he thought that he recognized one of the right sort.

"Nice----" he began.

He broke off with a sharp cry. If he had not seen it with his own eyes he would not have believed it. But, alas! there was no possibility of a mistake. With a ghastly shock he realized that he had been deceived in this attractive stranger. Decently if untidily dressed, clean, respectable to the outward eye, the stranger was in reality a dangerous criminal, the blackest type of evildoer on the park keeper's index. He was a Kensington Gardens flower picker.

For, even as he uttered the word "nice," the man had stepped lightly over the low railing, had shambled across the strip of turf, and before you could say "knife" was busy on his dark work. In the brief instant in which the park keeper's vocal cords refused to obey him, he was two tulips ahead of the game and reaching out to scoop in a third.

"Hi!" roared the park keeper, suddenly finding speech. "'I there!"

Lord Emsworth turned with a start.

"Bless my soul!" he murmured reproachfully.

He was in full possession of his senses now, such as they were, and understood the enormity of his conduct. He shuffled back onto the asphalt, contrite.

"My dear fellow----" he began remorsefully.

The park keeper began to speak rapidly and at length. From time to time Lord Emsworth moved his lips and made deprecating gestures, but he could not stem the flood. Louder and more rhetorical grew the park keeper, and denser and more interested the rapidly assembling crowd of spectators. And then through the stream of words another voice spoke.

"Wot's all this?"

The force had materialized in the shape of a large, solid constable.

The park keeper seemed to understand that he had been superseded. He still spoke, but no longer like a father rebuking an erring son. His attitude now was more that of an elder brother appealing for justice against a delinquent junior. In a moving passage he stated his case.

"'E Says," observed the constable judicially, speaking slowly and in capitals as if addressing an untutored foreigner--"'E Says You Was Pickin' The Flowers."

"I saw 'im. I was standin' as close as I am to you."

"'E Saw You," interpreted the constable.

Lord Emsworth was feeling weak and bewildered. Without a thought of annoying or doing harm to anybody, he seemed to have unchained the fearful passions of a French Revolution; and there came over him a sense of how unjust it was that this sort of thing should be happening to him, of all people--a man already staggering beneath the troubles of a Job.

"I'll 'ave to ask you for your name and address," said the constable more briskly. A stubby pencil popped for an instant into his stern mouth and hovered, well and truly moistened, over the virgin page of his notebook--that dreadful notebook before which taxi drivers shrink and hardened bus conductors quail.

"I--I, why, my dear fellow--I mean, officer--I am the Earl of Emsworth."

Much has been written of the psychology of crowds, designed to show how extraordinary and inexplicable it is, but most of such writing is exaggeration. A crowd generally behaves in a perfectly natural and intelligible fashion. When, for instance, it sees a man in a badly fitting tweed suit and a hat he ought to be ashamed of getting put through it for pinching flowers in the park and the man says he is an earl, it laughs. This crowd laughed.

"Ho?" The constable did not stoop to join in the merriment of the rabble, but his lip twitched sardonically. "Have you a card, your lordship?"

Nobody intimate with Lord Emsworth would have asked such a foolish question. His card-case was the thing he always lost second when visiting London--immediately after losing his umbrella.

"I--er--I'm afraid----"

"R!" said the constable. And the crowd uttered another happy, hyenalike laugh, so intensely galling that his lordship raised his bowed head with an indignant glance. And as he did so the hunted look faded from his eyes.

"McAllister!" he cried. "McAllister, my dear fellow, do please tell this man who I am."

Two new arrivals had just joined the throng, and, being of rugged and nobbly physique, had already shoved themselves through to the ringside seats. One was a tall, handsome, smooth-faced gentleman of authoritative appearance, who, if he had not worn rimless glasses, would have looked like a Roman emperor. The other was a shorter, sturdier man with a bristly red beard.

"McAllister!" moaned his lordship piteously.

After what had passed between himself and his late employer a lesser man than Angus McAllister might have seen in Lord Emsworth's predicament merely a judgment. A man of little magnanimity would have felt that here was where he got a bit of his own back. Not so this splendid Glaswegian.

"Aye," he said. "Yon's Lorrud Emsworruth."

"Who are you?" inquired the constable searchingly.

"I used to be head gardener at the cassel."

"Exactly," bleated Lord Emsworth. "Precisely. My head gardener."

The constable was shaken. Lord Emsworth might not look like an earl, but there was no getting away from the fact that Angus McAllister was supremely head-gardeneresque. A stanch admirer of the aristocracy, the constable perceived that zeal had caused him to make a bit of a bloomer. Yes, he had dropped a brick. In this crisis, however, he comported himself with a masterly tact. He scowled blackly upon the interested throng.

"Pass along there, please. Pass along," he commanded austerely. "Ought to know better than block up a public thoroughfare like this. Pass along!"

He moved off, shepherding the crowd before him. The Roman emperor with the rimless glasses advanced upon Lord Emsworth, extending a large hand.

"Pleased to meet you at last," he said. "My name is Donaldson, Lord Emsworth."

For a moment the name conveyed nothing to his lordship. Then its significance hit him, and he drew himself up with hauteur.

"You'll excuse us, Angus," said Mr. Donaldson. "High time you and I had a little chat, Lord Emsworth."

Lord Emsworth was about to speak, when he caught the other's eye. It was a strong, keen, level gray eye, with a curious forcefulness about it that made him feel strangely inferior. There is every reason to suppose that Mr. Donaldson had subscribed for years to those personality courses advertised in the back pages of the magazines, which guarantee to impart to the pupil who takes ten correspondence lessons the ability to look the boss in the eye and make him wilt. Mr. Donaldson looked Lord Emsworth in the eye, and Lord Emsworth wilted.

"How do you do?" he said weakly.

"Now listen, Lord Emsworth," proceeded Mr. Donaldson. "No sense in having hard feelings between members of a family. I take it you've heard by this time that your boy and my girl have gone ahead and fixed it up? Personally, I'm delighted. That boy is a fine young fellow--"

Lord Emsworth blinked.

"You are speaking of my son Frederick?" he said incredulously.

"Of your son Frederick. Now, at the moment, no doubt, you are feeling a trifle sore. I don't blame you. You have every right to be sorer than a gumboil. But you must remember--young blood, eh? It will, I am convinced, be a lasting grief to that splendid young man----"

"You are still speaking of my son Frederick?"

"Of Frederick, yes. It will, I say, be a lasting grief to him if he feels he has incurred your resentment. You must forgive him, Lord Emsworth. He must have your support."

"I suppose he'll have to have it, dash it," said his lordship unhappily. "Can't let the boy starve."

Mr. Donaldson's hand swept round in a wide grand gesture.

"Don't you worry about that. I'll look after that end of it. I am not a rich man----"

"Ah!" said his lordship resignedly. A faint hope, inspired by the largeness of the other's manner, had been flickering in his bosom.

"I doubt," continued Mr. Donaldson frankly, "if, all told, I have as much as ten million dollars in the world."

Lord Emsworth swayed like a sapling in the breeze.

"Ten million? Ten million? Did you say you had ten million dollars?"

"Between nine and ten, I suppose. Not more. But you must bear in mind that the business is growing all the time. I am Donaldson's Dog Biscuits."

"Donaldson's Dog Biscuits! Indeed! Really! Fancy that!"

"You have heard of them?" asked Mr. Donaldson eagerly.

"Never," said Lord Emsworth cordially.

"Oh! Well, that's who I am. And, with your approval, I intend to send Frederick over to Long Island City to start learning the business. I have no doubt that he will in time prove a most valuable asset to the firm."

Lord Emsworth could conceive of no way in which Freddie could be of value to a dog-biscuit firm, except possibly as a taster: but he refrained from damping the other's enthusiasm by saying so.

"He seems full of keenness. But he must feel that he has your moral support, Lord Emsworth; his father's moral support."

"Yes, yes, yes!" said Lord Emsworth heartily. A feeling of positive adoration for Mr. Donaldson was thrilling him. The getting rid of Freddie, which he himself had been unable to achieve in twenty-six years, this godlike dog-biscuit manufacturer had accomplished in less than a week. "Oh, yes, yes, yes! Most decidedly!"

"They sail on Wednesday."

"Splendid!"

"Early in the morning."

"Capital!"

"I may give them a friendly message from you?"

"Certainly! Certainly, certainly, certainly! Inform Frederick that he has my best wishes."

"I will."

"Mention that I shall watch his future progress with considerable interest."

"Exactly."

"Say that I hope he will work hard and make a name for himself."

"Just so."

"And," concluded Lord Emsworth, speaking with a fatherly earnestness well in keeping with this solemn moment, "tell him--er--not to hurry home."

He pressed Mr. Donaldson's hand with feelings too deep for further speech. Then he galloped swiftly to where Angus McAllister stood brooding over the tulip bed.

"McAllister!"

The other's beard waggled grimly. He looked at his late employer with cold eyes.

"McAllister," faltered Lord Emsworth humbly, "I wish--I wonder---- What I want to say is, have you accepted another situation yet?"

"I am conseederin' twa."

"Come back to me!" pleaded his lordship, his voice breaking. "Robert Barker is worse than useless. Come back to me!"

Angus McAllister gazed woodenly at the tulips. "A' weel," he said at length.

"You will?" cried Lord Emsworth joyfully. "Splendid! Capital! Excellent!"

"A' didna say I wud."

"I thought you said 'I will,'" said his lordship, dashed.

"I didna say 'A' weel'; I said 'A' weel,'" said Mr. McAllister stiffly. "Meanin', mebbe I might, mebbe not."

Lord Emsworth laid a trembling hand upon his arm.

"McAllister, I will raise your salary."

The beard twitched.

"Dash it, I'll double it!"

The eyebrows flickered.

"McAllister--Angus," said Lord Emsworth in a low voice. "Come back! The pumpkin needs you."

In an age of rush and hurry like that of today, an age in which there are innumerable calls on the leisure time of everyone, it is possible that here and there throughout the ranks of the public who have read this chronicle there may be one or two who for various reasons found themselves unable to attend the annual Flower and Vegetable Show at Shrewsbury. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe of Badgwick Hall was there, of course, but it would not have escaped the notice of a close observer that his mien lacked something of the haughty arrogance which had characterized it in other years. From time to time, as he paced the tent devoted to the exhibition of vegetables, he might have been seen to bite his lip, and his eye had something of that brooding look which Napoleon's must have worn after Waterloo.

But there is the right stuff in Sir Gregory. He is a gentleman and a sportsman. In the Parsloe-Parsloe tradition there is nothing small or mean. Halfway down the tent he stopped, and with a quick manly gesture thrust out his hand.

"Congratulate you, Emsworth," he said huskily.

Lord Emsworth looked up with a start. He had been deep in his thoughts.

"Thanks, my dear fellow. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you very much." He hesitated. "Er--can't both win, if you understand me."

Sir Gregory puzzled it out.

"No," he said. "No. See what you mean. Can't both win."

He nodded and walked on, with who knows what vultures gnawing at his broad bosom? And Lord Emsworth--with Angus McAllister, who had been a silent witness of the scene, at his side--turned once more to stare reverently at that which lay on the strawy bottom of one of the largest packing cases ever seen in Shrewsbury town.

Inside it, something vast and golden beamed up at him.

A card had been attached to the exterior of the packing case. It bore the simple legend:

PUMPKINS. FIRST PRIZE.

THE MILKY WAY

_By_ Stewart Edward White

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

Stewart Edward White, one of the best-known of American authors, was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on March 12, 1873, grew up in lumber camps, and has been an adventurer, explorer, and hunter all his life. At his home, Little Hill, Burlingame, Calif., a separate building houses his trophies from Alaska and elsewhere, including three African expeditions. Readers will scarcely require to be reminded of such novels as _The Blazed Trail_, _The Silent Places_, _The Riverman_, _The Leopard Woman_, the California trilogy, _Gold_, _The Gray Dawn_ and _The Rose Dawn_, _The Glory Hole_, etc., or of such stories as _Arizona Nights_.

For some years Mr. White has owned a yacht on which during the summer months he has cruised off the coast of British Columbia; and it will be apparent to readers of this story that it may be based on an actual occurrence only slightly varnished. I have refrained from asking Mr. White as to the facts, if any. The story, which first appeared in Collier's for June 6, 1925, was read at one-thirty in the morning by an editor who had spent the whole evening with manuscripts and was intolerably weary. After he had got over laughing he found himself quite rested and decided that perhaps others might experience the same beneficial result.

THE MILKY WAY[1]

[1] Copyright, 1925, by Stewart Edward White.

Somewhere along the British Columbia coast a well-found schooner yacht moved in a thick, lazy mist. Glenn Walker, the owner thereof, Aline, his comparatively recent wife, and Jimmy Forbes, together with the mate, were all gathered about the wheel, combining their skill and knowledge. The crow's nest aloft was occupied by a lookout man. A sailor near the after hatch at intervals worked a crank that actuated a bellows that, in turn, emitted a long, hollow groan. In addition, Walker from time to time pulled the air-whistle cord. Then the entire yacht fell silent, and everybody listened intently for an echo that should indicate the proximity of islands and rocks. Throughout all the ship's company was that nervous, intent, uneasy alertness that is aroused only by a fog in uncertain, broken, or unknown waters. Even Sam, the negro cook, had deserted his galley and, an unusual solemnity adding a quite superfluous shadow to his countenance, was gazing ahead.

"The worst of it is these confounded currents," observed Walker impatiently, breaking the silence. "You can figure out where you ought to be all right, but you can't tell where the currents may have set you! We ought to be hearing from Disaster Point about now." He pulled the whistle cord. All listened. Nothing! "Nice, cheerful optimist named this country!" he grumbled. "Disaster Point; Desolation Sound; Wreck Reef; Beware Passage; Destruction Point; Grief Point----"

Nobody replied. All understood that the skipper was merely relieving pressure.

The sailor mechanically cranked his machine. In answer to its hoarse shout a booming bellow blared through the mist dead ahead. Walker's hand jerked to the engine-room bell. The yacht came to a quivering standstill. The water fell quiet under her counter as the reverse ceased to operate. She lay gently rocking in the smooth swell. All listened.

Nothing! Walker waved his hand toward the sailor operating the fog horn.

It squawked; and almost immediately was answered from out the mists.

"No lighthouses up here, as I remember it," stated Walker, but in a note of inquiry.

"No, sir; none," rejoined the mate positively.

"Doesn't sound like any ship's foghorn I ever heard, though."

"No, sir; more like a fixed signal."

The mate took two steps to their own foghorn, thrust the sailor aside, and manipulated the crank, one long blast, followed by three short ones. After a short interval he was answered; but, as before, only by the single long-drawn-out note.

"Private signal; not in the books," he explained. "But everyone navigating this coast knows it. Either that fellow's a cod-headed fool or we're up against a fixed signal."

"Maybe it's a new establishment," suggested Jimmy Forbes.

"What I was thinking, sir. But why isn't it reported in this year's 'Information for Mariners'? They don't grow these things overnight."

Walker rang again, and the yacht's auxiliary engines fell silent.

"I don't hear any engine," he voiced the result of a short interval of listening. "I'd better start up again and keep under control." He signaled the engineer, and the yacht began to creep forward at a snail's pace.

Jimmy Forbes and Aline sauntered forward to the bitts. Jimmy clenched his pipe in his teeth, his hands were deep in his pockets, and his face was alight. She glanced up at him.

"What is it?" she asked, struck by his expression.

"My psychic antennæ are vibrating," said he. "I smell adventure."

"Fog thinning aloft, sir," came the sailor's voice from the crow's nest.

The invisible horn continued to blare at intervals, but the exact direction or distance of its source was rendered uncertain by the peculiar and baffling acoustic properties of the fog. At each repetition everybody aboard the yacht strained his ears, and at each silence exchanged low-voiced opinions, all different.

With the shattering effect of an explosion the lookout man's voice came again from aloft. The effect was of the release from a spell, a pearl-gray clogging muffled spell cast on sight and sound by the spirit of the fog.

"Cow ho!" cried he.

A moment's incredulous silence was broken by an exasperated bellow of inquiry from both Walker and his mate.

"Cow ho!" the sailor obligingly repeated.

"You triple idiot," shouted Walker, "what are you talking about?"

"It's a cow, sir," explained the lookout man.

"I can see her above the fog. She's standing on a sort of high peak of rock that sticks up. Five points to sta'board, sir. She's a spotted cow," he added after a moment, "and she's got a calf with her."

"What in the name of Peter the Hermit do you suppose I care for her color or her calf?" roared Walker, exasperated.

The mate was already eagerly searching the chart.

"It must be this little group here, sir," he indicated. "We've been set west'ard by the tides."

"No bottom at ten," sang out the leadsman, who unbidden had cast his lead.

In the bow Aline was looking at her chuckling brother. "You knew it was a cow!" she accused him.

"I told you my psychic antennæ were quivering. You see, each and every living thing has its own special aura which it emanates, or in the midst of which it lives, so to speak. When two living things come near enough to one another the auras contact or perhaps slightly intermingle. One who--like me--is sensitive or especially trained in the occult lore of the East is aware of the fact, and may even identify the nature of that aura. It's very simple." He caught her accusing eye. "And then, too," he continued, "it sounded like a cow."

The fog continued to thin overhead, while still remaining opaque below, as is often the habit of fogs. Dazzling bits of sky became visible, like blue jewels set in cotton wool. Those on deck shortly became possessed of the vision that had earlier been vouchsafed the lookout man, nearer heaven. On a flat-topped spire of rock stood a veritable spotted cow, with a smaller but gangle-legged replica of herself snuggled alongside. The spire lifted sheer from the rolling fog clouds below. Its top was perhaps ten feet across; its sides apparently almost precipitous. The cow was as though upon an altar. There needed only a few seraphim or cherubim leaning their chins over the clouds below to complete an entirely appropriate setting. The idea was put forward by Aline.

"Should the cherubim be small chubby calves' heads with wings?" she inquired. "Or perhaps little fat pigs?"

Appropriate leisure for the admiration of the spectacle was, however, denied them. The spell was broken by the sudden appearance alongside of an agitated man in a small boat. He was a stockily built person, with a round red face, a shock of brown hair, and an anxious and serious eye.

"Say," he called without preliminary, "can some of you fellows help me with my cow?"

"What's the matter with your cow?" asked Walker.

"I can't get her down. She's clumb up atop and she can't get down. I never knew a more gentle cow, but I can't do nothing with her. She never acted this way before. Something must have scared her; and then she had her calf, and now she's gone crazy. If my piston-rod bearing hadn't give out, me and my partner'd have done something, but as it is she ain't had a drop or a bite for two days except what I've got up to her, and what with a new calf--by golly, you fellers come along just right!"

"With the permission of the owner, here," struck in Jimmy, who, in common with the entire yacht's company was leaning over the rail, "I would propose that you come on deck and embroider with the glittering high lights of lucidity your suggestive but somewhat obscure narrative."

The man stared at him. "Huh?" he ejaculated.

"Come aboard and have a drink and tell us about it."

The owner of the cow, painter in hand, immediately swarmed over the side. The attentive steward dived below to reappear with a bottle and glasses.

"Better drop your hook," suggested the stranger, his eye on the bottle.

"Is there good bottom here?" queried Walker doubtfully.

"Sure. And good shelter. You're in Graveyard Cove."

"By the mark, seven!" sang out the leadsman hastily.

"Let go the anchor!" commanded Walker sharply.

"The cow," Jimmy Forbes was observing, "is, as perhaps you know, a sacred animal among the Hindus. It therefore possesses for me, as a humble Follower of the Path, a peculiar interest and significance. The sight of one of these animals elevated to a position that I can only regard as symbolical is significant of more than chance. I can see in this concatenation of circumstances an interweaving of the threads of Karma which may----"

"Give me that bottle!" Aline interrupted him severely.

She removed the cork and handed it, together with a tall glass from the tray, to the newcomer. Jimmy sighed.

"Blinded," he murmured--"not so particularly to my occult lore as to the alcoholic habits of the local native."

The glass was intended for high-balls, the soda for which was ready on the tray. The man filled it three fourths full of whisky. This he at once prepared to drink.

"Don't you take any water?" gasped Aline.

"Not if the whisky is good, ma'am."

He drank it in long gulps, set down the glass without a shudder and, thus fortified, gave an account of himself. He lived, it seems, with his partner on another small island a few miles distant. They ran a cattle ranch. Jimmy pricked up his ears at this statement.

"How many head of stock have you?" he asked.

"Eleven," said the man. "We had twelve last year, but we killed one for beef."

The spotted cow, being about to calve, and the grass becoming scant on the "ranch" the idea had occurred to him to transfer her to this island for better forage, and he did so.

"How?" asked Aline.

"In my gas boat, ma'am."

"But how?"

"I just put her in the cockpit and brought her over."

"I don't see how in the world----"

"It was easy enough, ma'am. I never knew a more gentle cow. Only trouble was, it was choppy and she got seasick some."

The crossing and the landing had been successfully accomplished. All seemed to be going well. Then trouble began.

The cow, after falling too eagerly on the new feed, had been seized by a sudden panic.

"I can't think what ailed her," complained the man. "There wa'n't nothing I could see to scare her. But she begun to run around and bellow and curl her tail, and I couldn't do nothing with her nohow. And she's the gentlest critter I ever see. I quit trying to get nigh her, because I didn't want her to run around and get het up--she with her calf, you see--but that didn't do no good. And how she done it, I don't know, but somehow she managed to scramble right up to the top of the island. Why, a goat couldn't hardly make it! Once she got up there she quieted down, but there she was! She can't get down nohow, and I can't figger no way to get her down. She's had her calf up there, and there ain't no food or water, so I had to carry up what I could, and she just stands there and bellers. And then when I started to go get my partner to figger something out, my engine breaks down; and I ain't got no small boat with me, and there I am."

"In your estimate of your cattle holdings, did you include the calf?" inquired Jimmy.

"Huh?"

"Have you eleven head counting or not counting the calf?"

"The calf makes twelve."

"What on earth has that to do with it?" demanded Aline.

"I was just figuring whether it meant a nine or an eight and a half per cent loss," submitted her brother meekly. "At any rate, a heavy loss for any large industry."

The stranger looked at Jimmy suspiciously, but otherwise ignored him.

"You can just bet I was glad to hear you fellows whistling," he concluded his narrative.

The fog was now returning into the invisible. There was no motion, just a withdrawal as though into a fourth dimension without disturbance of the three in which we live. The surroundings were becoming distinguishable.

The yacht was shortly seen to be at anchor in a crescent-shaped bight with long rocky arms on either side. A sparsely wooded shore rose close by in a series of low rocky terraces to the central spire on the top of which stood the spotted cow and her calf. The spire was perhaps ten feet high above the last terrace, and seemed to afford various small hand- or footholds in the shape of miniature ledges and crevices, but would appear to be, as the cow's owner had said, problematically scalable to even the skiptious goat.

"Do you mean to say that cow actually climbed up there?" demanded Walker, after surveying the situation.

"I don't think she flew," said the man, and he said it seriously, which pleased Aline.

"Well, let's go ashore and look things over," suggested Walker. "I expect we'll have to help out."

"Any objection to the men landing, sir?" inquired the mate. "Good chance to stretch their legs."

"None. But leave one aboard."

The small boats were put overside, and shortly the ship's crew stood on the island. They ascended by a series of broad shallow terraces, where they grouped themselves at the foot of the spire and looked up. The cow looked down.

"It's plain enough where she got up," observed Walker after a pause--"she could do it if she scrambled hard and kept scrambling. And it's equally plain why she doesn't get down. But I believe she might be led if it were done carefully."

"I figured that," agreed the cow's owner, "if she'd come down gentle; but she's all het up and excited. And she's the gentlest critter I ever see. You can do anything with her. But now I can't even get a rope on her."

A deprecating cough called attention to the steward.

"Beg pardon, sir, but, if I might try? You see, sir, I was cow hand for two years in the Argentine pampas, and I learned methods."

"A hundred and sixty-seven," murmured Aline.

Jimmy raised an inquiring eyebrow in her direction.

"It's Johnston's age," she explained to him aside, "according to the number of years he says he has done different things. He was a hundred and sixty-five yesterday."

Receiving permission, the steward procured a rope and rapidly climbed to the miniature plateau, to the farther edge of which the cow promptly retired with her calf behind her.

"You see," he said modestly, addressing the multitude from his vantage point, "it's partly confidence and partly secret master words which have been known to animal tamers from time immemorial."

"If you know any secret master words, you'd better say them quick," warned Forbes suddenly.

Without waiting for the secret words, and disregarding the confidence entirely, the cow uttered a bellow and dashed at the steward. The latter, caught unawares by this unsportsmanlike conduct, recovered his wits only in time to dodge sidewise and escape impalement by the skin of his teeth. Now ensued a brief but lively game of tag within most inadequate boundaries. The cow was It, but seemed likely not long to remain so. Before the spectators could either formulate an idea for rescue or even make a move toward it, Johnston, escaping death thrice by a hand-breadth, was seen to topple for a moment on the far edge, throw up his hands, and disappear.

Cries and movements. Above the confusion rose the roaring voice of the cow's owner:

"Can he swim?"

Several voices answered him in the affirmative.

"Then he's all right. The cliff is straight up on that side into deep water. They's no rocks there."

Two men tumbled into the dinghy and rowed madly around the nearer of the two points. Suspended action for a short interval. Shortly it reappeared, and all could see that Johnston sat now in the stern sheets, streaming sea water. His remarks could not be distinguished at the distance, but from his posture, gestures, and the sound of his voice it was evident that he was addressing the spotted cow.

"Undoubtedly the secret words, though a trifle belated," observed Jimmy. "The creature should now be quite tamed."

"I never see her act up so before," said the cow's owner. "She's the gentlest critter----"

"Well," urged Walker genially, "any more volunteers? Any more buckaroos in this outfit?"

He ran his eye over the crew, grinning cheerfully at them. They grinned back, glanced at one another, shook their heads.

"No? Well, come on, boys, let's see what we can do."

He was warming up to the situation. He had been sitting on a rock, like Aline and his brother-in-law, as a spectator. Now he rose and became the central figure--with due deference to the cow.

"Johnston has the right idea--in a way," said he. "The first thing is to get a rope on her. Got to get hold of her. I don't know much about cows, but I do know that with a rope around the base of the horns you can do most anything with them, and around the neck is no good. That right?" he asked the cow's owner. "By the way, what's your name?"

"My name's Teller. Yes, that's right."

"Any of you men throw a lariat? No? How about you? You're a ranchman."

"I ain't never tried."

"Well, I can't either--to amount to much. But I've had to catch my horse a few times down in the cow country. Get me a stout line. I think I can make a running noose."

Armed with his impromptu lasso, he started toward the rock.

"You aren't going up there?" cried Aline, alarmed.

"Don't worry; I have the greatest respect for the old girl."

He made his way to a point just below the little plateau, assured himself of a good foothold, whirled the loop around his head, cowboy fashion, and began to cast. The cow backed away to the far edge, planted her feet and snorted. The position was awkward, Walker's skill negligible, and the cow proved to be unexpectedly clever in ducking. Again and again he hurled the rope, dragged it back empty, and reformed the loop. Sometimes the loop would not spread, sometimes the rope fell short, at encouraging moments it fell across the cow, twice it actually settled over the horns and the attentive bystanders uttered a yell, but before Walker in his unfavorable position could take in the slack the cow lowered her head and flipped her horns and the wide loop slipped off. By now the sun was shining brightly. Walker took off his coat and wiped his brow.

"Gosh, this is hot work!" he remarked.

After the hundredth cast or so, he paused for a rest.

"I'm afraid I'm no Buffalo Bill," he confessed after another series of failures. "One of you row off and tell that ineffable ass, Johnston, to come back--to come ashore and have a try at this. He ought to know how to throw a lasso if he was with the Argentine Gauchos for two years."

While one of the men was gone in the dinghy Walker leaned against the rock, resting. Presently the emissary returned.

"Johnston says they didn't lasso them down where he was," reported the man, grinning. "He says they used bolos."

"Humph!" grunted Walker. "He's better read than I imagined."

He took up the rope again and hurled the loop carelessly and disgustedly in the general direction of the cow. It settled about the animal's horns.

"Stand by!" "Haul her!" "Take in your slack!" broke out a chorus of yells.

The loop tightened. Walker descended from his elevated perch, bringing with him the end of the long line.

"Now you've got her, what are you going to do with her?" murmured Forbes.

But Walker, now wholly in the spirit of solving a difficult problem, had his ideas.

"Get the calf down, and she'll follow of her own accord," he replied promptly. "Here, some of you fellows take the end of the rope and keep her from charging at me, and I'll see what can be done."

The cow securely tethered to one end of the plateau, Walker ventured to mount to the other. Then ensued a game first of blandishment--futile--then of dodge. The calf had been instructed by Mother to view all proceedings with suspicion; on no account to do anything he was expected to do; and to distrust all creatures that did not progress on four legs. Infantile as he was, the calf had understood and obeyed perfectly, a wonderful example to the young independents of other species.

"That won't work," confessed Walker at length, descending the cliff.

"If you did get the calf, probably the cow wouldn't be calm enough to pick her way down so difficult a path," consoled Aline. "Your flannels are a sight!"

"There's something in that," assented Walker. "Darn my flannels."

"She's always been the gentlest critter I ever----"

"Well, she's reformed now," Walker cut him short. "Any suggestions, anybody?"

The two groups had gradually drawn together until now master and crew were gathered close. Nobody said anything for a moment.

"How about shoving her off the side where Johnston took the high dive?" at length ventured one of the men.

"She'd bust herself wide open falling from that high up!" hastily interposed Teller in alarm.

"How about shoving her off and then lowering her down with the rope around her horns, then?" amended the author of the suggestion.

"We could all tail onto the rope on this side, run it over the top, and then slack away," interposed another.

They gathered in a close group and discussed ways and means. It was agreed that a roller of some kind would be needed to pass the rope over so it would not chafe through. Also some sort of padded poles for the shoving. Nobody seemed to fancy doing any shoving with the naked hands. Also a selected squad to shove, and another to pull. The plan gathered complications, fantastic nautical complications of men accustomed to the sea but not to cows. Teller, who had been listening with more and more bewilderment, finally dashed the whole scheme.

"With her scraping and bumping down that clift," said he, "she'd break a leg sure."

"We'll have to rig some sort of crane to sling her from," put in the mate, who had heretofore remained silent. "Then we can run her over and let her down easy."

"That's the idea!" cried Walker.

A new committee of the whole was formed. Three men held the cow back by the rope while all the rest swarmed up the cliff to examine the engineering possibilities. Cranes were more in line with a sailorman's experience. The matter of a suitable foundation and pivot was soon determined. There would need to be two stout timbers; one upright and firmly guyed; the other attached loosely to its foot like a boom. A block on the end of each through which ropes could be rove would permit manipulation either up or down or sidewise. Then reeve the cow's rope through the end of the boom, hoist her off her feet, sling her sidewise into space, and lower away!

This masterpiece of planning by a dozen eagerly interested small boys--for this is what they had all become--was no sooner rounded out in all details than an obvious and damning fact ruined it. On the little island there grew no trees big enough to furnish materials! There were no trees big enough--so Teller admitted--on any of the islands near by.

At this realization a consternation blank of everything but baffled irritation fell upon the spirits of the multitude. With one accord all stared at the cow; with one accord all cursed the cow. One or two even cursed Teller for daring to own the cow. Teller was quite meek, but very anxious and worried; and only muttered that she was the gentlest cow he had ever known. Which, of course, helped.

"Better shoot the fool and use her up for beef and be done with it!" sighed Walker wearily.

Into this lull obtruded the splash of oars. It had not been noticed that some time previous Sam had withdrawn. Now he was to be seen, in full white regalia, his bulk nearly filling the little dinghy, placidly paddling to shore. He beached his craft, deliberately shipped his oars, heaved himself on the strand, and approached.

"Lunching," he remarked with dignity, "is served. Gittin' cows down offen rocks is no job on an empty stummick."

"Good Lord! It's two o'clock!" cried Walker, glancing at his wrist watch, "Sam has the right idea. Get aboard and feed."

The cow, released from pressure, advanced to the edge of the little plateau, dragging her rope after her. She stared down at them with the unfocused bulging-eyed imbecility of the rattled bovine.

"Bla-a-a-a!" she bellowed, and in the cry there seemed to be a note of sneering scorn.

"Make it snappy!" ordered Walker. "A half hour. Teller, you go aboard and eat with the men. I'm going to get that cow down if it takes a leg!"

Lunch was, to Sam's scandal, quite devoid of customary formalities. Walker swallowed his food hastily and without further comment. Then suddenly he bellowed for Johnston.

That astonished individual, accustomed to being summoned gently and electrically as though by the lascivious pleasings of a lute, popped in with unwonted haste.

"Bring that man Teller in here--the cow man," commanded Walker.

"In here, sir?"

"I said here!"

Johnston popped out again, looking slightly scandalized.

"Sit down," invited Walker when the ranchman had been ushered in. "Tell me, how deep is the water on the other side of the island just under the cliff?"

"It's about eight or ten fathom."

"Sure?"

"Yes, I've caught cod there."

"Any rock or shoals?"

"No, she runs off sheer and clean."

"How close in could a craft like this get?"

"Lord, you could tie up to the clift if you wanted to."

Walker hit the table with satisfaction.

"All right," he cried. "I've got it! It's as simple as falling off a log. We'll take the yacht around there right under the confounded cow. We'll use our mainmast as our upright and our main boom as the spar."

"You can't raise it high enough," interposed Forbes quickly.

"Can't, eh? Well, to make sure, we'll hoist it and chock it high enough up."

"It'll mar your mast."

"Hang the mast! I wish it was taller. We can't hoist her clear, but we can pull her off sideways and catch her weight as she comes off the plateau. It'll work perfectly, if only the weather will continue calm."

He was as eager as a boy. Leaping from his seat, he ran on deck. The crew, already fed, were up from below.

"I've got it worked out," he told them rapidly, and detailed his scheme.

"They's nigh a twenty-foot tide in these waters, sir," said the mate, "so if you pull her off at high tide you'd gain that much on her."

"Good man!" cried Walker. The mate had already dived for the tide-tables. They flipped the pages. "Here we are, Port Simpson--it won't be far off Port Simpson--tides here--high water 19.7 feet at 22:48--why in blazes don't they say 10:48 P.M. and be done with it? We can't do it to-day. It's 19.5 feet to-morrow morning. We'll do it then. It'll take us the rest of the day to get rigged, anyway."

Walker underestimated the activity of sailormen at work on a job they really understand and in a cause that has enlisted their fervent interest. The boom was raised a little higher up the mast; the gaff was unshipped and lashed to the boom where it would lend most support; the necessary blocks and running gear were installed; the contraption was swung and tested and pronounced satisfactory by the middle of the first dogwatch. Satisfied that nothing more could be done until the next day, Walker went below to remove the signs of toil.