Corliss looked up inquiringly and opened it. The paper was yellow with
age and rotten from the weather-wear of trail, while the text was
printed in Russian. "I didn't know you were a Russian scholar, Del,"
he quizzed. "But I can't read a line of it."
"Neither can I, more's the pity; nor does Whipple's woman savve the
lingo. I got it from her. But her old man--he was full Russian, you
know--he used to read it aloud to her. But she knows what she knows
and what her old man knew, and so do I."
"And what do the three of you know?"
"Oh, that's tellin'," Bishop answered, coyly. "But you wait and watch
my smoke, and when you see it risin', you'll know, too."
Matt McCarthy came in over the ice Christmas week, summed up the
situation so far as Frona and St. Vincent were concerned, and did not
like it. Dave Harney furnished him with full information, to which he
added that obtained from Lucile, with whom he was on good terms.
Perhaps it was because he received the full benefit of the sum of their
prejudice; but no matter how, he at any rate answered roll-call with
those who looked upon the correspondent with disfavor. It was
impossible for them to tell why they did not approve of the man, but
somehow St. Vincent was never much of a success with men. This, in
turn, might have been due to the fact that he shone so resplendently
with women as to cast his fellows in eclipse; for otherwise, in his
intercourse with men, he was all that a man could wish.
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