deserted, and steam was down. He sat up,
“Annie, is it you?” he cried. “Is it you, went uncertainly to his feet and walked to the Annie?”
doorway. Not a man was to be seen anywhere;
“Shorely, Joe,” smiled his wife.
the big mill and its ribbons and disks of steel
“Shorely. One o’ the Shady Creek Morelands were silent. Seaver then tried to remember and was buried here today, Joe, and I walked a at last he succeeded. The very second it all little piece with ’em as they went back.”
came back to him, he hurried toward his She caught his hand in hers and went small, new cabin on the mountainside above.
on:
When he reached the new split-paling
“I told Dink about yore jokin’ wi’ me, gate, he was well nigh breathless, and his hat and axed him and Doc Hoskins to give you a was gone. He saw that two men sat on the dose o’ yore own medicine, but I told them doorstep, their eyes on the ground at their feet, not to hurt ye in any way; did they? Ef they
Adventure
6
hurt ye, honey, I’ll never even speak to ’em with deep conviction, “they never done any more.”
anything that I didn’t desarve. They was plum Joker Joe’s two arms reached for her nice about it. They never treated me bad in and they got her.
any way.”
“No, Annie Belle,” he answered, and
The Last Joke of Joker Joe by Hapsburg Liebe Page 2
