The Oakdale Affair

"Some artist!" cried the man. "And to think that I doubted your ability to make a successful touch! Forgive me! You are the ne plus ultra, non est cumquidibus, in hoc signo vinces, only and original kind of hand-out compellers."

"How in the world did you do it?" asked the girl, rapturously.

"Oh, it's easy when you know how," replied The Oskaloosa Kid carelessly, as, with the help of the others, he carried the fruits of his expedition into the kitchen. Here Bridge busied himself about the stove, adding more wood to the fire and scrubbing a portion of the top plate as clean as he could get it with such crude means as he could discover about the place.

The youth he sent to the nearby brook for water after selecting the least dirty of the several empty tin cans lying about the floor of the summer kitchen. He warned against the use of the water from the old well and while the boy was away cut a generous portion of the bacon into long, thin strips.

Shortly after, the water coming to the boil, Bridge lowered three eggs into it, glanced at his watch, greased one of the new cleaned stove lids with a piece of bacon rind and laid out as many strips of bacon as the lid would accommodate. Instantly the room was filled with the delicious odor of frying bacon.

"M-m-m-m!" gloated The Oskaloosa Kid. "I wish I had bo--asked for more. My! but I never smelled anything so good as that in all my life. Are you going to boil only three eggs? I could eat a dozen."

"The can'll only hold three at a time," explained Bridge. "We'll have some more boiling while we are eating these." He borrowed his knife from the girl, who was slicing and buttering bread with it, and turned the bacon swiftly and deftly with the point, then he glanced at his watch. "The three minutes are up," he announced and, with a couple of small, flat sticks saved for the purpose from the kindling wood, withdrew the eggs one at a time from the can.

"But we have no cups!" exclaimed The Oskaloosa Kid, in sudden despair.

Bridge laughed. "Knock an end off your egg and the shell will answer in place of a cup. Got a knife?"

The Kid didn't. Bridge eyed him quizzically. "You must have done most of your burgling near home," he commented.

"I'm not a burglar!" cried the youth indignantly. Somehow it was very different when this nice voiced man called him a burglar from bragging of the fact himself to such as The Sky Pilot's villainous company, or the awestruck, open-mouthed Willie Case whose very expression invited heroics.