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ERY OF THE BLUE GOOSE 



By DAN BEARD 



CHAPTER VII 



THE LANDSLIDE LOCKED IN 



{Continued) 



AM 



m 



as 

 thought 



materialistic 

 as a 

 young medical stu- 

 dent, and as free 

 from superstition 

 as the late Mr. Rob- 

 ert I n g e r s o 1 1. I 

 would rather face an 

 army of ghosts than 

 one live man with a 

 gun, or a park full of 

 wizards than one 

 half-grown grizzly 

 cub. 

 Of course, the reader will immediate- 

 tely claim that the gigantic figure of the 

 Wild Hunter was merely an example of 

 the well-known Hartz Mountain illusion 

 and that what I saw was nothing but the 

 shadow of the real man cast upon a fog 

 or cloud bank. Well, it is ec*sy to think 

 of this explanation as you sit in a com- 

 fortable chair before the fire with your 

 book; it is a different story when all 

 alone in a solemn, silent, mysterious 

 wilderness. 



One glance at that shadowy man and 

 bird would have been sufficient cause 

 to send some of my critics scrambling 

 down the mountain at such a rate of 

 speed as to seriously endanger their life 

 or limb and there is reason, to believe 

 that if they did reach camp it would 

 not be with their rod and fish in hand. 

 Big Pete's remarks regarding the 

 "pesky mess of yaller fish" must not be 

 taken too seriously. Even when I con- 

 fine myself to my short-hand notes of 

 actual conversation the difficulty I en- 



counter is that the printed quotation 

 often conveys an entirely different im- 

 pression from the one intended by the 

 speaker. This is because cold type is in- 

 capable of reproducing the gestures, 

 pose of body and expression of face 

 which accompanied the spoken words, 

 and has as much to do with their mean- 

 ing as the words themselves. The con- 

 versation of the rudest clown, when in- 

 spired by true love, is composed of the 

 sweetest poetry, contains the deepest 

 meaning and is tinged with the great 

 mysticism of creation; nevertheless, a 

 verbatim report of any man's love-mak- 

 ing, be he ever so highly cultured, 

 would read like meaningless idiotic 

 drivel. 



Fortunately this is not a love story, 

 but the reader must understand that 

 Big Pete's caustic remarks about my 

 "pesky" string of yaller fish were ac- 

 companied with a merry twinkle in 

 Pete's deep blue eyes, for he was a 

 sportsman through and through. 



Because the conversation and sayings 

 of Big Pete are here recorded at con- 

 siderable length, the reader must not for 

 one moment suppose that Darlinkle was 

 given to talkativeness ; on the contrary, 

 he was remarkably silent and self-con- 

 tained. An ordinary New York club 

 man can utter more words in an hour 

 than Pete did in a week, but he could 

 not say as much if he let his tongue 

 wag for years. Big Pete often went 

 longer without speaking than the club 

 man can without a cocktail. Occasion- 

 ally, however, the big fellow would tin- 

 limber his tongue, and it was then gen- 

 erally to some purpose. 



Once when I was among a herd of 



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