The Man of Mystery

It had seemed too good to be realized, so she had not told Jap of their meeting. She must not count on it, however--she had been disappointed so often that she dreaded the feeling. Ugh! What frightful cold! Mrs. Toomey ran into the house and forgot the incident.

Later in the afternoon Toomey came home in high spirits.

"They got in!" he announced. "I hardly thought they'd start, such weather. It's twenty-five below now and getting colder."

"Who?" inquired Mrs. Toomey, absently.

"The show people."

"Oh, did they?"

"Might as well take it in, mightn't we?" in feigned indifference.

"How can we? It's a dollar a ticket, isn't it?"

For answer he produced two strips of pink pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket.

"Jap?" wonderingly.

"Yes'm."

"Where did you get the money?"

"I raised it."

"But how?"

He hesitated, looking sheepish.

"On the range."

Mrs. Toomey sat down weakly.

"The cook stove! You mortgaged it?"

"I had to give some security, hadn't I?" he demanded with asperity.

"Who to?"

"Teeters. I got five dollars."

Mrs. Toomey found it convenient to go into the pantry until she had regained control of her feelings.

It was twenty-eight degrees below zero when the doors of the Opera House were opened to permit the citizens of Prouty to hear the World Renowned Swiss Bell Ringers and Yodlers.

The weather proved to be no deterrent to a community hungry for entertainment, and they swarmed from all directions, bundled to shapelessness, like Esquimaux headed for a central igloo. Infants in arms and the bedridden in wheel chairs, helped to fill the Opera House to its capacity, emptying the streets and houses for a time as completely as an exodus.