one that on purpose
I'd slit your throat from ear to ear and leave you."

"I thought I was very particular and cut off everything that looked
suspicious," said Wallie, meekly, "I must have missed something."

"You shore did! And," Pinkey demanded, "what might them horrors be on
the platter? Them teeth are mighty familiar."

Wallie quavered:

"Prairie-dog--I was experimenting to see if they were edible."

"Leave me out in the air again!" Pinkey groaned as he swallowed a drink
of water. "And I passed up a turkey dinner to come and eat with you!"

"Shan't I cook you some bacon?" asked Wallie, contritely.

"I doubt if I ever feel like eatin' agin, but if the cake's thawed out
I'll try a chunk of it to take my mind off that stuffin'."

Wallie opened the can of pineapple he had been treasuring and Pinkey
helped himself freely to the Christmas cake.

"They must be about four meals in one of them slices, the way it feels
inside of me," the latter commented, nibbling delicately on a ring of
pineapple he held in his fingers.

"It's fruit-cake, and rich; you're not supposed to eat so much of it,"
Wallie said, sharply.

Pinkey raised his eyebrows and regarded Wallie attentively as he
continued to nibble.

"Looks like you're turrible touchy about her cookin', and swelled up
over gittin' a Christmas present," he remarked, finally. "You needn't
be, because she made eight other cement bricks jest like this one and
sent 'em around to fellers she's sorry for."

"Oh, did she!" Wallie ejaculated, crestfallen.

"Yes, indeed," Pinkey went on, complacently, feeling a glow of
satisfaction at Wallie's lengthened countenance; "she does it every
Christmas. She's kind to the pore and sufferin', but it don't mean
nothin' more than a dollar she'd drop in a hat somebody was passin'."

Noting the deep gloom which immediately settled upon Wallie, Pinkey
could think of the prairie-dogs with more equanimity.

CHAPTER XII

THE WATER WITCH

In former days Wallie had wished for a yacht, his own stables, and such
luxuries, but now he wanted a well with far greater intensity than he
had desired those extravagances.

The all-important question had been whether he could at present afford
it, with his money vanishing like a belated snowbank. Then, while he had
been debating, Rufus Reed appeared at such a timely moment that it had
seemed providential.

Mr. Reed, lately arrived from Illinois, was now sitting with his feet on
the s