Page:Sunset volume 32.pdf/374

An Hour of Virtue: Theo. Brand

379 an' Neils certainly makes a nice little split on account o' this here codfish deal."

"Gib," chattered Scraggs, "what's the matter with reorganizin' the syndicate?"

"Be a good feller, Adelbert" pleaded McGuffey.

Mr. Gibney was never so vulnerable as when one he really loved called him by his Christian name.

He drew an arm across the shoulders of McGuffey and Scraggs, while Neils Halvorsen stood by, his yellow fangs flashing with pleasure under his walrus moustache.

"So you two boys're finally willin' to admit that I'm the white-haired boy, eh?"

"Gib, you got an imagination an' a half. I gotter admit it."

"Thanks, Scraggsy. An' you're willin' to admit that while that there clairvoyant might have helped some, the game'd been deader than it is if it hadn't been for my imagination."

Captain Scraggs nodded sadly.

Mr. McGuffey slapped the commodore on the back affectionately.

"Aye bane buy drink in the Bow-head saloon" announced Neils Halvorsen.

"Scraggsy! Mac! Your fins! We'll tow the barge, an' we'll reorganize the syndicate an' forget the past. An' in order to seal our friendship anew, let us accept the invitation o' this humble member of our syndicate an' pour a small libation on the altar of our personal regards. Remember the motto o' the syndicate:

"You don't mean we gotter drink outer a lovin' cup, do you?" demanded McGuffey.

Captain Scraggs shook his head and sighed.

"No imagination in Mac" he announced. "Not a dog-gone speck."

HE day was intensely hot, and the air seemed filled with pennants of gauze, trembling as though moved by unseen hands beckoning a breeze, a day such as is usually replete with the banal inquiry "Is it hot enough?" A man arrived in a suburb of the capital city with a large band of sheep. The animals, worn, weary and irritated from the dust and heat, ran into the first shade that offered, and with the obstinacy of which all sheep, under the misnomer of innocence, are capable, refused to travel farther.

To reach their destination at the stockyards required passing through the city, as no open way led around one side and the river was barrier on the other. But this would have been easily accomplished, the streets being wide and not much crowded, had the stockman possessed a good dog. It was the simple matter of having none that made all the trouble. Trouble there certainly was, and enough of it. At three in the afternoon, and after many long hours in the sun, the sheep were unwilling to leave the good shade of those great Sacramento elms