Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 148: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

bd Satta fe _ ~~, =e oe ee ee! eae) ee eb net soe ods 0 DD ies alata eat tae a | le i a et, Oe eee ee i, 6 Oe ote tie Be i ee ee a Me i of ®t 2 oe! 6 ee Dads aot OR i . ier j — ee — 3 SPP IT ee ro AP race Meer hy ONAN Gea “ . : e? : aes | i By KARL W. DETZER INNA PETERSON pushed open the door of Johnnie Clause’s gen- eral store and stepped inside. A bridal train of snow blew in at her heels. It was mid-December. ‘The store, which was also the Cathead village post office, blurred opalescent with pipe smoke, that ‘lifted in clouds and lay like muslin swaths along the ceiling. — At the tobacco counter a handful of fish- ermen. discussed small matters with momen- tous sighs, grunts and reflective silences. Casper Clause, whose son Johnnie had de- serted the lakes for business, bit tight on his pipe when he saw Minna enter and blinked his single eye. He shook his head, set flat on his shoulders as if he never had possessed a neck; the others took his warning and nodded. “ *Ev’n’, Mis’ Minna,” he said. “ Ry’n’, Casper. ’Ev’n’ the rest of you boys.” Minna slapped the snow from her mittens. ‘‘ Mail in yet? Well, no wonder, all this weather on the road. Seen Robin?” she asked. : “Why, not exactly,’ Casper Clause grumbled as if muffling a lie might make it less a lie. “Was you lookin’ around the shanty? He was there a bit ago, fore dark.” “T’ve been there,” answered Minna. “He must be up the beach or something. I thought he’d be all petered out after that big haul he made to-day. Most men ’d be! Seven hundred pounds of trout in one lift of the nets, and with a blow comin’ on! What ’d you lift to-day, Ernie?” A lean, spare fisherman in stained yellow slicker and wilted sou’wester looked up un- easily. No trout that ever came to his nets bore a more impassive face than Ernie Jaynes’s, no dogfish an uglier. His eyes were set close, on either side of a nose that seemed to have continued growing after the rest of his slivery body had stopped; as he looked at Minna Peterson his little mouth drew down in a chilly sort of smile. “Why, Mis’ Minna—we pulled just four hundred pounds Four eighty—four eighty- six to be particular.” | 302