Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 15 ment, slavishly devoted to Emmy Garrett and slavishly subservient to Bije und Si Stork. Cabot saw him freluently, but had few words with him, itor the boy was usually trotting after 3ije like a spaniel. Jim came to the Stork cabin one afterloon when Cabot was working in the ield. He started, it seemed, to go to -labot, but Bije hailed him from the ::abin and called him to his side. The •ooy had a paper in his hand, and, after i moment of low talk, Bije boxed his ;ars, and took the paper from him. ij A few minutes later, Emmy, sitting jn the doorstep of her cabin, saw Bije ^talking up the footpath. "Howdy. Bije!" she called indifferntly. "Where's Bent Cabot?" i "Ye sent Jim over fer *im, didn't ye?" . nquired the man. Emmy nodded. "Didn't wanter come, I reckon," she drawled. "I reckon so." said Bije. "Bent Cajot, he's too much took up with 'imself :er bother 'bout other folks. He said fer me to tell yer he'd see ye some bther time." Emmy sniffed contemptuously, and laughed, but the laugh was unnaturally larsh. Old Hiram heard Bije's voice, and came out, and, after a while, as the two men chatted, the girl slipped quietly away. She walked resolutely to the Stork cabin, to see for herself if Cabot was too busy to heed her request, and she experienced an unpleasant disappointment when she saw that the garden was not claiming his attention. She went past the cabin and through the woods beyond without seeing him, but as she neared the main road she heard his voice, with other voices. Quietly concealing herself behind bushes, she stole forward, and her staring eyes fell upon the uncommon sight of an automobile standing in the highway— one of the half dozen, or less, of such conveyances that ventured into the perilous mountain roads during a sea1 son. Cabot was leaning against the door of the touring car, chatting animatedly with the occupants, two of whom were women, and Emmy noted, with fierce resentment, that Cabot was laughing, and thoroughly at ease with the city people. She muttered angrily to herself, crept hack into the woods, and ran for home. "Look a-here, Emmy !" called the old man, as she started to enter the cabin, "what's all this I hear 'bout you sparkin' with that city feller? Bije, he says ye're always hangin' round over to his place when Bent Cabot's workin' in the garden patch. I don't care if the feller comes here an' sets on the doorstep of an evenin', but I won't have ye taggin' round after him. Yer spoke for, already, Emmy, and Bije is yer man!" "That's a fac', an' ye know it, gal !" said Bije, gazing at her flying hair and flushed cheeks with ardent admiration. born an' raised up right here, an' I don't 'low I'm ever goin' away. When I get ready ter pick my man, it won't be no city feller, I reckon." "The gal's got a head on them shoulders, Bije!" chuckled old Hiam. "Don't ye s'pose, Emmy, that Bije'll be 'bout the right feller when the time comes?" Emmy bit her lip, and twisted the corners of her apron nervously. She scowled angrily as she thought of the picture she had just seen, of Cabot talking and laughing with the city people in It was brute force and wild-animal tactics. "I may be spoke for, but I ain't spoke myself !" Emmy declared hotly. "You watch out, Emmy," said Bije, "or that feller'll shore get to thinkin' yer dead set fer 'im. An' he ain't got no kind o' use fer you, gal. His daddy was a stuck-up, no-'count city feller. You 'low to yerself that he's in love with yer, an' ye'll get laughed at pretty soon. He'll go off to the city, an' ye'll never see 'im again." Emmy shrugged her shoulders magnificently. "Bent Cabot!" she exclaimed disdainfully. "What would I ever care 'bout him, I wanter know? I jes' go over ter make game o' him an' his swell clothes. S'pose I'd want a feller like him to care anything 'bout me? I was the automobile, after he had sent word to her that he had no time to see her that day. Still scowling, she glanced at the burly Bije, and wondered, dully, if Cabot would be sorry when he heard that she was going to marry Bije. She would like to tell him that Bije was a man — different from city chaps that wore swell clothes. "I reckon it will be Bije, when the time comes," she said suddenly, scarcely realizing the significance of the words. Stork uttered a whoop of exultation, and lurched toward Emmy to seize her in his great arms, but she gave a little cry of alarm, and darted past him, into the cabin. Heavy clouds gathered over the moun