"Noticing a brown spot on my arm, I touched it. It was squashy and pulpy. Then it moved! A leech--and it sunk a million feet into me as soon as I attempted to remove it. I was black with them, if you will believe me, literally covered. Repulsive, disgusting--blood-suckers, sucking my blood like vacuum-cleaners, Mr. Cone! Imagine my horror."
Mr. Cone tried to.
"Another woman would have screamed or fainted," Mrs. Budlong continued, "but I come of different stock, and ancestry will tell at such moments. I am a Daughter of the Revolution and my father fought all through the Civil War as a sutler. Not a sound passed my lips as I got back to shore, somehow, and, weak from loss of blood, sank down to consider how to get rid of the leeches.
"In emergencies I am a resourceful woman. Recalling that I had a match--only one little match--in my sweater pocket, it occurred to me that I might build a smudge and smoke them off. I scraped some leaves together, struck my match, and, just then----"
But just then Mr. Budlong, who had stopped to look after the trunks, scuffled in the doorway, and in his eagerness to greet him Mr. Cone forgot completely the narrative Mrs. Budlong was reciting for his benefit. Nor did he ever hear its termination.
Even as the proprietor stood at his desk wondering if the later train had brought any more prodigals, a commotion on the veranda was followed by the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Appel.
Mr. Appel was using a stick and walking with such difficulty that Mr. Cone hurried forward and asked with real solicitude: "My dear friend, whatever is the matter? Has your old enemy Rheumatism again got his clutches on you?"
"Rheumatism!" Mr. Appel snorted. "You lie on your back with 2,000 pounds on top of you and see how you like it!"
Mr. Cone was puzzled, and said so.
Mr. Appel explained tersely: "A bear walked on me--that's all that happened. A silvertip stood on the pit of my stomach and ground his heel into me."
"Tsch! tsch! tsch!" Mr. Cone's eyes were popping.
"If it were not for the fact that I'm quick in the head my wife would be a widow. I was in my sleeping bag and saw the bear coming. I knew what was going to happen, and that I had one chance in a thousand. It flashed through my mind that a horned toad when threatened with danger will inflate itself to such an extent that a wagon may pass over it, leaving the toad uninjured. I drew a deep breath, expanded my diaphragm to its greatest capacity, and lay rigid. It was all that saved me."