ce
landed me right into one large hole, and I am reaching out for a hand
from you."

"Here it is," and I reached over and left a smear of loam across the
back of his hand, while I brought away a brown circle around my wrist
that the responsive grasp of his fingers left. "Do you want me
single-handed to get the bluff line chosen?"

"Not quite, but almost," he answered with another laugh. "You would if
you tried. I haven't a doubt. Do you remember the talk we had the other
night about its seeming inhospitable of you not to invite the other
gentlemen in the Commission over to see you when you invite Hall and his
father? And you know you had partly planned some sort of entertainment
for the whole bunch. You had the right idea at the right place, as you
always do. As you said, we don't want Bolivar to see us with what looks
like a grouch on us at their good fortune, and I think that as the
Commission are all to be here as the guests of a private citizen,
Glendale ought to entertain them publicly. There is no hope to get the
line for us, but I would like those men at least to see what the beauty
of that bluff road would be. The line across the river runs through the
only ugly part of the valley, and while I know in the balance between
dollars and scenery, scenery will go down and out, still it would be
good for them to see it and at least get a vision of what might have
been, to haunt them when they take their first trip through the swamps
across the country there. Now, as you are to have them anyway, I want to
have the whole town entertain the whole Commission and Bolivar with what
is classically called among us a barbecue-rally, the countryside to be
invited. Bolivar is going to give them a banquet, to be as near like
what the Bolivarians imagine they have in New York as possible, and Mrs.
Doctor Henderson is to give them a pink tea reception to which carefully
chosen presentables, like you and me, are to be invited. You remember
that circus day in July?--a rally will be like that or more so. What do
you think?"

"Oh, I think you are a genius to think about it," I gasped, as I sat
down on a very cruet Killarney branch and just as quickly sat up again,
receiving comforting expressions of sympathy from across the bush, to
which I paid no heed. "Those blase city men will go crazy about it. We
can have the barbecue up on the bluff, where we have always had it for
the political rallies, and a fish-fry and the country people i