onths now."

"Every day?"

"Yes, sir, before breakfast, after dinner, and just before I begin my
evening chores."

"What's the idea of that?"

Finding a ready listener, Ralph plunged into the story of the
Mississippi Weather League and of his crippled friend, Anton.

"It's a mighty useful piece of work," the fisherman commented, when the
lad had finished, "and I'm especially interested in these cloud
photographs of yours. I need some. Have you any prints of them?"

"Yes, sir," was the reply, "heaps."

"If they're really any good, I might be able to use a few," the
fisherman continued. "I'm writing a series of articles for an outdoor
magazine and I want some Mississippi River pictures pretty badly. Mine
haven't come out particularly well."

"I'll show you all I've got," eagerly replied Ralph, and, a little
later, he took the stranger home with him.

There he displayed, not only his cloud photographs, but also all the
snap-shots he had made with his camera during the three years he had
owned it. The magazine writer was highly delighted, for many of the
pictures were exactly what he needed, and when he went away he took with
him thirty photographs, for which he paid Ralph, as he said, the
"regular price" of three dollars apiece.

"That's what they'd have to pay if they bought them from any of the news
photo houses," he remarked, "and you might as well get the same."

To Ralph this ninety dollars was a fortune. He offered to turn the
entire sum over to the League, or at least that part of it which had
been paid for the cloud photographs. Ross vetoed this offer, on the
ground that the League itself had not earned the money. Instead, Ralph
put away some of the cash and with the rest he bought a new lens for his
camera. With this lens he was able to take cloud pictures even better
than his former ones.

A few weeks later, at the next Monthly Feast of the League, Ralph came
proudly forward with a collection of over one hundred cloud
photographs.

"I don't see, fellows," he said, "why we all couldn't have a shot at
observing the clouds. I was talking to Anton the other day, and he
didn't seem to know anything about the names of the clouds at all. I dug
'em up from a book I've got at home. I was thinking that it would be
rather jolly if each member of the League had a set of cloud photographs
for himself, with the right names of the clouds and all that sort of
thing on the back. It isn't much trouble to make prin