Battling the Clouds Part 4

"They are the only Indians who can cure the hides and tan them like that, and the squaws do the bead work."

"I have a notion to buy that for my sister," said Jardin, feeling of the delicate fringes. "She could wear it to a fancy dress ball. I suppose this feather headdress goes with it."

"It is worn with it," said the man. "I will let you have them cheap.

Dress and headdress for fifty dollars."

"All right," said Jardin as coolly as though the man had said fifty cents. "Send them over to the hotel C. O. D. May will have a fit over those."

"I reckon you are sort of all right to get a present like that for your sister," said Frank, as they strolled out. "You must like her a whole lot."

"I don't," said Jardin. "I just have to keep squaring her all the time.

She is an awful tattler, and if I don't keep her squared, she peaches on me. Sisters are an awful nuisance!"

"You are right," said Frank. He had never thought so before but if this wonderful young man thought so, why, it must be true.

Bill said nothing.

Jardin glanced at his wrist watch.

"Lunch time," he announced. "Come on back to the hotel and have something to eat with me."

"That suits me," said Frank.

"Sorry, but I can't accept," from Bill. "I have a couple of errands to attend to for mother and I have been fooling around so long that I will have to be pretty spry. You all go on, and I will get a bite later."

"Well, of course I will stay with you if you think you can't put your errands off for an hour or so," said Frank sulkily.

"I have put it off too long anyhow," said Bill, "but I certainly won't mind if you go."

"No, I will go with you," decided Frank.

"All right then," said Jardin, shrugging his shoulders. "Suit yourself, of course! Perhaps we will meet later." He turned and started back toward the hotel, leaving the boys looking after him.

CHAPTER IV

"Well, I will say he's a peach!" said Frank.

Bill made no reply.

"Don't you say so?" pressed Frank. "Don't you think he is a peach?"

Bill, forced to answer the question, made a frank but reluctant reply.

"No," he said. "I think he is a pill." He shook his head.

"You are a queer one!" said Frank. "It don't look as though you had any sporting blood in you. I suppose because he smokes naughty cigarettes--"

"It isn't that," said Bill, frowning. "He is just plain _foolish_ to smoke. Why, he is undersized and underweight now for his age, and every time he smokes he checks his growth. It is up to him. I bet he has had it explained to him a million times by each teacher and tutor he has ever had just how smoking will harm him and dope up his brain, so if he wants to miss out on athletics and all that, and look like a boiled mosquito in the bargain, let him go to it. _I_ don't care. It's not that I don't like about him. It is the way he thinks and talks. Where does he live when he is at home?"

"Detroit," said Frank.

"You would think he owned the whole world!" grumbled Bill. "And _squaring_ his sister!"

"Oh, well," said Frank, "you have a queer way of looking at things. I don't think you are giving the fellow a fair deal. Perhaps he _does_ talk pretty big, but on the other hand he has a lot to talk about. Think of it: a fellow only the age of us and he has a couple of automobiles of his own and is going to have an airplane. Gee, I am glad I can manage a plane! I have got him there."

"It's all right, I suppose, for him to gab all he wants to about his cars and things. By the time we go back to the Post to-night, if we see him again, I'll bet you he tells us what his father is worth and just how many gold chairs they have at his house."

"You are sore," said Frank loftily.

"What at, for goodness' sake?" demanded Bill. "I wouldn't swap the little Swallow for all the cars he ever had or will have. We have more fun in our little cooped-up quarters over at the School than he ever thought of with his sc.r.a.ps with his sister. I guess I am sore a little, Frank. I am sore because he came b.u.t.ting in and spoiled our whole morning. Let's forget him for awhile. I want to take mother's watch to a jeweller and then we will hunt up a good restaurant and have lunch. It is on me."

Frank followed in silence. He knew Bill was right, but the stranger had dazzled him. He wished bitterly that his father was a rich manufacturer instead of a poor army officer. The traveling they had had, the wonderful sights they had seen all over the world seemed poor in comparison with all the glories Jardin had told and hinted at.

Poor Frank, did not know it, but slowly, ever so slowly, he was making the wrong turn; the turn that led away from the right.

"The trouble with you, Bill," he said, as they loitered over their ice-cream at luncheon, "the trouble is that you are narrow."

Bill groaned. "There you go on Jardin again, I do believe," he said.

"All right; I will tell you what _I_ will do. I will really try to like him, and if he comes around where we are I will be as decent to him as I can be. Perhaps he has a lot of good in him, as you say. _I_ don't want to be unjust."

Frank looked pleased. "I think that is the square thing for you to do,"

he said. "Jardin may turn out to be a good scout in every way. Perhaps he saw the Swallow and was so impressed with it that he wanted to make a big impression to get even. You can't tell the first time you see anybody what they will be like when you get to know them well."

"Well, I gathered that Jardin was here with his father on some oil business, and probably we won't see him anyhow after this afternoon. He won't be apt to come to the Post. Anyway, let's not spoil our whole afternoon. I want to see some more of those Indians, and I would like to go to that p.a.w.nshop without someone tagging along who can buy the place out. I want to buy a little bead bag I saw in the window if it does not cost too much. I think mother would like it to carry with a blue dress of hers.

"Say, you are just like a girl, aren't you?" exclaimed Frank. "I would never know what sort of a dress my mother had on, and she would _never_ get a bag if she depended on _my_ getting it for her."

"I suppose there is a difference in folks," said Bill. "There was a man visiting my uncle back home one time. He broke his leg while he was with us, and mother helped take care of him and amuse him, and say, he could embroider and crochet! He taught mother a lot of st.i.tches."

"A regular sissy!" sneered Frank.

"I thought so," said Bill; laughing at the recollection. "One night when he felt sort of bad I rubbed his back, and his shoulders were all covered with scars. Well, what do you think? A tiger did it. A Royal Bengal tiger like you read about! And I found out that he had hunted every kind of big game there is, and the fiercer, the better. He simply didn't care _what_ he did in the way of hunting. Oh, my; that was a snap for me! When he found out that I was simply crazy to hear his yarns, he used to tell me thrills, I can tell you.

"I didn't think he was such a sissy then. That crochet work looked all right. But it was sort of funny to see him lying there showing my mother how to make a new kind of m.u.f.fler or table mat and remember how he came by a great white scar that showed on his wrist when he stuck his arm out."

"How did he get it?" asked Frank, all attention.

"He got that one in Africa," said Bill, taking a taste of his ice-cream.

"He and another chap had penetrated away into the jungle. They were after a splendid specimen of--"

Bill stopped, looked at the door and attacked his ice-cream.

"Here is little Percy again," he groaned. "Frank, if I don't treat him according to agreement, you are to kick me."

Frank turned. The African jungle faded away. There was Jardin!