felt hat as he stood looking at the wrecked runabout; his comrade, still clutching a cigar between his teeth, continued to examine the car.

“Hell!” remarked the short, thickset man.

“It’s going to rain like it, too,” added the other. The thunder boomed again beyond Gayfield hills.

“What do you know about this!” growled the thickset man, in utter disgust. “Do we hunt for a garage, or what?”

“It’s up to you, Eddie. And say! What was the matter with you? Don’t you know a bridge when you see one?”

“That damn girl––” He turned and looked at Ruhannah, who was dragging the big flapping pickerel over the parapet by main strength.

The men scowled at her in silence, then the one addressed as Eddie rolled his cigar grimly into the left corner of his jaw.

“Damn little skirt,” he observed briefly. “It seems to worry her a lot what she’s done to us.”

“I wonder does she know she wrecked us,” suggested the other. He was a stunted, wiry little man of thirty-five. His head seemed slightly too large; he had a 54 pasty face with the sloe-black eyes, button nose, and the widely chiselled mouth of a circus clown.

54

The eyes of the short, thickset man were narrow and greyish green in a round, smoothly shaven face. They narrowed still more as the thunder broke louder from the west.

Ruhannah, dragging her fish over the grass, was coming toward them; and the man called Eddie stepped forward to bar her progress.

“Say, girlie,” he began, the cigar still tightly screwed into his cheek, “is there a juice mill anywhere near us, d’y’know?”

“What?” said Rue.

“A garage.”

“Yes; there is one at Gayfield.”

“How far, girlie?”

Rue flushed, but answered:

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