n
the track. Beats anything how passengers chucks things off. Mike Smith
'most got killed last week with an empty bottle. Lucky he had his big
muskrat cap on. May be ye'd like to see it, Miss Sophy? Guess my old
woman wouldn't have no use for it as it don't seem to have any picters
in it."

He was about to place it on the counter when one of the men took it
from his hand and held it under the hanging oil lamp.

"Why!" he chuckled, somewhat raspingly. "It's just what Sophy needs
real bad. Ye wants ter study that real careful, Sophy. It'll show ye
as there's just as good fish in the sea as was ever took out of it."

The girl leaned far out over the counter and snatched the paper away
from him.

"Yes, there's just as good fish as that there Ennis lad," repeated the
man.

A single glance had acquainted Sophy with the title. It was the
_Matrimonial Journal_. She flung it down to her feet, angrily.

"You get out of here with your Ennis!" she cried. "I wouldn't--wouldn't
marry him if he was the last man on earth. I--I just despise him!"

"And that's real lucky for ye," snickered the man. "I heard him
say--lemme see--yes, 'bout three-four days ago, as he wasn't nowise
partial ter carrots. It's a wegetable as he couldn't never bear the
sight of."

The girl's hand went up to her fine head of auburn hair and a deep red
rose from her cheeks to its roots. Her narrow lips became a mere slit
in her face and her steely eyes flashed.

"And--and he's the kind as thinks himself a gentleman!" she hissed
out. "Get out o' here, all of ye! There ain't a man in Carcajou as I'd
wipe my boots on. Clear out o' here, I tell ye!"

The three men left, Pete silently and disapprovingly, the other two
guffawing.

"I don't believe as how that lad Ennis ever said anything o' the
kind," declared the foreman. "He's a fine bye, he is, and it ain't
like him."

"Of course he didn't," the village joker assured him. "But 'twas too
much of a chance ter get a rise out er Sophy for me to lose it. Ain't
she the hot-tempered thing? Just the same she wuz dead sot on gettin'
him, we all know that, an' she's mad clear through."

"Well, I don't see as yer got any call ter rile the gal, just the
same," ventured Pete. "Like enough she can't help herself, she can't,
and just because she got a temper like a sorrel mare ain't no good
reason ter be hurtin' her feelin's."

But the other two chuckled again and started towards the big
boarding-house, whose ce