Page:The purple pennant (IA purplepennant00barb).pdf/48

Rh better part of a half-hour, staring eagerly and fascinatedly at the lighted window across the twilight. The shade still made a yellowish oblong in the surrounding gloom of the otherwise blank wall when his mother's voice came to him from below summoning him to supper and he left his vigil unwillingly and went downstairs.

Dr. Hull had returned and supper was waiting on the red cloth that always adorned the table on Sunday nights. Perry was so full of his strange coincidence that he hardly waited for the Doctor to finish saying grace before he told about the vision. Rather to his disappointment, neither his father nor mother showed much interest, but perhaps that was because he neglected to tell them that he had been thinking of cowboys at the time. There was no special reason why he should have told them other than that he suspected his mother of a lack of sympathy on the subject of cowboys and the Wild West.

"I guess," said the Doctor, helping to the cold roast lamb and having quite an exciting chase along the back of the platter in pursuit of a runaway sprig of parsley, "I guess your cowboy would have looked like most anyone else if you'd had a look at him. Shadows play queer tricks, Perry."

Dr. Hull was tall and thin, and he stooped quite