truth was known,
and there's been some pretty good men shine up around her a little,
but the Kun'l has run 'em away with a picked stick."

"Has, hey?"

"There ain't no Jack the Giant-Killers in these parts," sighed Old
Man Jordan, hooking his bucket upon his arm and shambling away.

For several days Cap'n Sproul was busy about the gable end of the
bridge during his spare moments and hours, climbing up and down the
ladder, and handling a rope and certain pulleys with sailor dexterity.
All the time his grim jaw-muscles ridged his cheeks. When he had
finished he had a rope running through pulleys from the big gate up
over the gable of the bridge and to the porch of the toll-house.

"There," he muttered, with great satisfaction, "that's the first
bear-trap I ever set, and it ain't no extra sort of job, but I reckon
when old grizzly goes ag'inst it he'll cal'late that this 'ere is
a toll-bridge."

Then came days of anxious waiting. Sometimes a teamster's shouts to
his horses up around the willows sent the Cap'n hobbling to the end
of the rope. An unusual rattling in the bridge put him at his post
with his teeth set and his eyes gleaming.

II

One day a mild and placid little woman in dove-gray came walking from
the bridge and handed over her penny. She eyed the skipper with
interest, and cocked her head with the pert demureness of a sparrow
while she studied the parrots who were waddling about their cages.

"I never heard a parrot talk, sir," she said. "I hear that yours talk.
I should dearly love to hear them."

"Their language is mostly deep-water flavor," said the Cap'n, curtly,
"and 'tain't flavored edsackly like vanilla ice-cream. There's more
of the peppersass tang to it than ladies us'ly enjoys."

The little woman gave a chirrup at the birds, and, to the skipper's
utter astonishment, both Port and Starboard chirruped back sociably.
Port then remarked: "Pretty Polly!" Starboard chirruped a few cheery
bars from "A Sailor's Wife a Sailor's Star Should Be." Then both
parrots rapped their beaks genially against the bars of the cages
and beamed on the lady with their little button eyes.

"Well, I swow!" ejaculated the Cap'n, rubbing his knurly forefinger
under his nose, and glancing first at the parrots and then at the
lady. "If that ain't as much of an astonisher as when the scuttle-butt
danced a jig on the dog-vane! Them two us'ly cusses strangers, no
matter what age or sect. They was learnt to do it