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At the far edge lay a pair of saddlebags, such as form the only

practical equips, made from the undressed hide of a brindle cow, and they

were fat with tight packing A pair of saddlebags lying unclaie curiosity But in this

instance they gave only the prefatory note to a stranger story Near

the tubes of

soft rotesquely twisted and stained, and beside the box was

a strangely shaped plaque of wood, smeared with a dozen hues That this

plaque was a painter's sketching palette was a thing which she could

not know, since the ways of artists had to do with a world as remote

from her own as the life of the ue mysteries that made up the wonderful life of "down below" Even

the na

definite to this girl who could barely spell out, "The cat caught the

rat," in the prie jointed tripod, and upon it was some sort of sheet What it all

meant, and as on the other side of the sheet becas been left here in such

confusion? If there was a man about ned them he would doubtless

return to clai about the broken bed of

the creek, searching for a spring, and that would not take long No one

drank creek water At any ency held untold terrors for her shyness, and yet to turn her

back on so interesting a ly,

she crept over, eyes and ears alert, and slipped around to the front of