Part 16 (1/2)

”It's you, Mr Horsfal,” he mumbled rather thickly, in a voice that seeround; ”didn't know you in the distance”

”Jake,--shake with Mr George Bre to supervise the place and the new store, sao

Hope you oes; but you'll find hiold, boss,” grunted Jake

He held out his horny hand and grasped h:

”Glad toof tobacco from his hip pocket, brushed sorime froan to look runted, as if to hiot the right kind of jaw”

Then he turned to Mr Horsfal ”Guess, when he gets the edges rubbed off, he'll hed loudly

”That's just what I thought ive us the keys to the oil barns and the new store Go and help unload that baggage and truck from the launch You can follow your usual bent after that, for I'll be showing George over the place myself”

I found the prospective store just as it had been described: a large, plain, front room, now fitted with shelves and a counter, and all freshly painted Everything was in readiness to accommodate the stock, most of which was due to arrive the next afternoon Where a door had been, leading into the other parts of the house, it was now solidly partitioned up, leaving only front and back entrances to the store

We spent the afternoon in the open air, inspecting the property, which was perfectly situated for scenic beauty, with plenty of cleared, fertile land near the shore and rich in giant ti, after a cold lunch aboard the launch, ent back to the house and, for the first time, Mr Horsfal inserted a key into the front door of the dwelling proper

I had been not a little curious regarding this place and I was still wondering where it was intended that I should take up ht in his own Klondikish, pork-and-beans-and-a-blanket way, but I hardly fancied hi partner and a possible bedfellow To be candid, I never had had a bedfellow in all my life and I had already made up my mind that, rather than suffer one noould fix up one of the several empty barns which were scattered here and there over the property, and thus retain my beloved privacy

My employer pushed his way into the house and invited me to follow him

I found myself in a small, front room, neatly but plainly furnished

The floor was varnished and two bearskin rugs supplied the only carpeting It had alaned solely for comfort, and a stove with an open front helped to coraphs of Golden Crescent and sos decorated the plain, wooden walls In the far corner, beside a s that side of the wall, on a long curtain pole, there was hung, froreen curtain

I took in what I could in a cursory glance and I marvelled that there could be so much apparent concentrated couide pulled aside the curtain on the wall and disclosed rows and rows of books behind a glass front, books ancient and ion, philosophy, medicine, history, fiction and poetry,--at least a thousand of the any more to fathom what manner of a man he was

My eyes sparkled and explained to K B Horsfal what my voice failed to utter

”Well,--what d'ye think of it all?” he asked at last

”It is a delight,--a positive delight,” I replied simply

As I walked over to the front ondered little that Mrs

Horsfal should have loved the place; and, when I looked away out over the dancing waters, upon the beauties of the bay in the changing light of the lowering sun, upon the rocky, fir-dotted island ahomes of the settlers over there two reat background of mountains in purple velvet,--I wondered less