Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/43

 But besides ships that Mr. King had made, there were pictures in the house that he had painted—gorgeous, oily canvasses. George turned and looked the inventor all over again with an entirely new respect.

"Wisht I could see you paint one," murmured the boy, but even as he said it, his roving eye was lost in other wonders.

At length they came to a desk-like table with a raised slope to part of it. On this were draughting materials, pencils, erasers, rules, compasses, and strange, cloth-like paper, semitransparent—things the boy's fingers itched to get hold of at once.

"Here's where I borned her!" announced Mr. King with an exaggerated gesture and his most beaming smile.

"Gosh!" sighed the boy, and stood gazing. "Gosh! There—there's a lot more to it than I thought," he confided after a time—"to building horseless wagons."

Charlie King nodded approvingly. The ships, the pictures, the armor, the butterflies—nothing had knocked it out of the kid's head. He wanted to build horseless wagons, and he was yet a boy. But, at that, the horseless wagon was far younger than he. He was half-grown. The horseless wagon was just born.

"Tell you, George," suggested King confidentially and encouragingly. "The horseless