God bless the East
Muskoka Volunteer Fire Department Ladies' Auxiliary.
I'd mined that table long enough. I moved to the other end of the hall. Time
was, I'd start at the beginning and turn over each item, build one pile of
maybes and another pile of definites, try to strategise. In time, I came to rely
on instinct and on the fates, to whom I make my obeisances at every opportunity.
Let's hear it for the fates: a genuine collapsible top-hat; a white-tipped
evening cane; a hand-carved cherry-wood walking stick; a beautiful black lace
parasol; a wrought-iron lightning rod with a rooster on top; all of it in an
elephant-leg umbrella-stand. I filled the box, folded it over, and started on
another.
I collided with Craphound. He grinned his natural grin, the one that showed row
on row of wet, slimy gums, tipped with writhing, poisonous suckers. "Gold!
Gold!" he said, and moved along. I turned my head after him, just as he bent
over the cowboy trunk.
I sucked air between my teeth. It was magnificent: a leather-bound miniature
steamer trunk, the leather worked with lariats, Stetson hats, war-bonnets and
six-guns.
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