Upon receipt of orders, therefore, from Sinclair,
to drive the Napier over to Red Bluff and meet his future boss and
one-time playfellow, George Sea Otter arrayed himself in a pair of
new black corduroy trousers, yellow button shoes, a blue woollen
shirt with a large scarlet silk handkerchief tied around the neck, a
pair of beaded buckskin gloves with fringe dependent from the
gauntlet, and a broad white beaver hat with a rattlesnake-skin band.
Across the windshield of the Napier he fastened an orange-coloured
pennant bearing in bright green letters the legend: MY CITY--SEQUOIA.
As a safety-first precaution against man and beast en route, he
buckled a gun-scabbard to the spare tires on the running-board and
slipped a rifle into the scabbard within quick and easy reach of his
hand; and arrayed thus, George descended upon Red Bluff at the helm
of the king of automobiles.
When the overland train coasted into Red Bluff and slid to a grinding
halt, Bryce Cardigan saw that the Highest Living Authority had
descended from the train also. He had elected to designate her thus
in the absence of any information anent her Christian and family
names, and for the further reason that quite obviously she was a very
superior person. He had a vague suspicion that she was the kind of
girl in whose presence a man always feels that he must appear on
parade--one of those alert, highly intelligent young women so
extremely apt to reduce an ordinarily intelligent young man to a
state of gibbering idiocy or stupid immobility.
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