the cellar steps. Then there was
silence, except for one double "click-click" which I couldn't
understand.

Oh, Matilda Anne, how I watched that cellar opening! And I saw a back
with a red coat on it slowly rise out of the hole. He, the man who owned
the back of course, was dragging the other man bodily up the narrow
little stairs. There was a pair of handcuffs already on his wrists and
he seemed dazed and helpless, for that slim-looking soldier boy had
pummeled him unmercifully, knocking out his two front teeth, one of
which I found on the doorstep when I was sweeping up.

"I'm sorry, but I'll have to take one of your horses for a day or two,"
was all my R. N. W. M. P. hero condescended to say to me as he poked an
arm through his prisoner's and helped him out through the door.

"What--what will they do with him?" I called out after the corporal.

"Hang him, of course," was the curt answer.

Then I sat down to think things over, and, like an old maid with the
vapors, decided I wouldn't be any the worse for a cup of good strong
tea. And by the time I'd had my tea, and straightened things up, and
incidentally discovered that no less than five of my cans of mushrooms
had been broken to bits below-stairs, I heard the rumble of the wagon
and knew that Olie and Dinky-Dunk were back. And I drew a long breath of
relief, for with all their drawbacks, men are not a bad thing to have
about, now and then!

_Thursday the Twenty-second_

It was early Tuesday morning that Dinky-Dunk firmly announced that he
and I were going off on a three-day shooting-trip. I hadn't slept well,
the night before, for my nerves were still rather upset, and Dinky-Dunk
said I needed a picnic. So we got guns and cartridges and blankets and
slickers and cooking things, and stowed them away in the wagon-box. Then
we made a list of the provisions we'd need, and while Dinky-Dunk bagged
up some oats for the team I was busy packing the grub-box. And I packed
it cram full, and took along the old tin bread-box, as well, with
pancake flour and dried fruit and an extra piece of bacon--and _bacon_
it is now called in this shack, for I have positively forbidden
Dinky-Dunk ever to speak of it as "sowbelly" or even as a "slice of
grunt" again.

Then off we started across the prairie, after duly instructing Olie as
to feeding the chickens and taking care of the cream and finishing up
the pit for the winter vegetables. Still once again Olie thought we we