Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/156

 ease on a bed to one of the posts of which his right leg was bound. He was reading a newspaper.

"Get a move on you, Meldrum," young Rutherford said jauntily, with an eye on his prisoner to see how he took it. "I 've got inside information that I need some hot cakes, a few slices of bacon, and a cup of coffee. How about it, Dave? Won't you order breakfast, too?"

The man on the bed shook his head indifferently. "Me, I'm taking the fast cure. I been reading that we all eat too much, anyhow. What's the use of stuffing—gets yore system all clogged up. Now, take Edison—he don't eat but a handful of rice a day."

"That's one handful more than you been eating for the past three days. Better come through with what we want to know. This thing ain't going to get any better for you. A man has got to eat to live."

"I'm trying out another theory. Tell you-all about how it works in a week or so. I reckon after a time I 'll get real hungry, but it don't seem like I could relish any chuck yet." The cattleman fell to perusing his paper once more.

Royal Beaudry had never met his father's friend, Dave Dingwell, but he needed no intro-