"My ladies," he confided, "have been swimming—wading—running not to say—yachting!"
"Pretty ladies!" blushed the Outlaw.
"Thank you," bowed Jaffrey Bretton.
"Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff," sighed the Outlaw's pipe.
Very deftly Jaffrey Bretton reached round behind the broken spar for a smoke of his own.
"Any special news this last year?" he asked.
Thoughtfully, from the long monotonous months of heat and glare and squalor and privation and almost absolute isolation, the 137 Outlaw extracted as a sheer gift the one comely fact.
"I—seen—a whole bunch of pink—curlew," he said.
"The deuce you did!" brightened Jaffrey Bretton.
"Any news—up—your way?" droned the Outlaw.