The Man From The Bitter Roots

Miss Dunbar noted that the hand was warm and soft and chubby; nor was this dapper, middle-aged beau exactly the man she had pictured as the hero of a thrilling rescue. He looked too self-satisfied and fat.

"Now what can I do for you, my dear young lady?" Mr. Sprudell drew up a chair with amiable alacrity.

"We have heard of you, you know," she began smilingly.

"Oh, really!" Mr. Sprudell lifted one astonished brow. "I cannot imagine----" He was thinking that Miss Dunbar had remarkably good teeth.

"And we want you to tell us something of your adventure in the West."

"Which one?"

"Er--the last one."

"Oh, that little affair of the blizzard?" Mr. Sprudell laughed inconsequently. "Tut, tut! There's really nothing to tell."

"We know better than that." She looked at him archly.

It was then he discovered that she had especially fine eyes.

"I couldn't have done less than I did, under the circumstances." Mr. Sprudell closed a hand and regarded the polished nails modestly. "But--er--frankly, I would rather not talk for publication."

"People who have actually done something worth telling will never talk," declared Miss Dunbar, in mock despair, "while those----"

"But you can understand," interrupted Mr. Sprudell, with a gesture of depreciation, "how a man feels to seem to"--he all but achieved a blush--"to toot his own horn."

"I can understand your reluctance perfectly" Miss Dunbar admitted sympathetically, and it was then he noticed how low and pleasant her voice was. She felt that she did understand perfectly--she had a notion that nothing short of total paralysis of the vocal cords would stop him after he had gone through the "modest hero's" usual preamble.

"But," she urged, "there is so much crime and cowardice, so many dreadful things, printed, that I think stories of self-sacrifice and brave deeds like yours should be given the widest publicity--a kind of antidote--you know what I mean?"

"Exactly," Mr. Sprudell acquiesced eagerly. "Moral effect upon the youth of the land. Establishes standards of conduct, raises high ideals in the mind of the reader. Of course, looking at it from that point of view----" Obviously Mr. Sprudell was weakening.

"That's the view you must take of it," insisted Miss Dunbar sweetly.

Mr. Sprudell regarded his toe. Charming as she was, he wondered if she could do the interview--him--justice. A hint of his interesting personality would make an effective preface, he thought, and a short sketch of his childhood culminating in his successful business career.

"Out there in the silences, where the peaks pierce the blue----" began Mr. Sprudell dreamily.

"Where?" Miss Dunbar felt for a pencil.

"Er--Bitter Root Mountains." The business-like question and tone disconcerted him slightly.