!" But I wasn't clever in this case, for it was hours later before
I saw the trap which Dinky-Dunk had laid for me!

_Monday the Sixteenth_

All day Saturday Olga and Dinky-Dunk were off in the chuck-wagon,
working too far away to come home for dinner. The thought of them being
out there, side by side, hung over me like a cloud. I remembered how he
had absently stared at the white column of her neck. And I pictured him
stopping in his work and studying her faded blue cotton waist pulled
tight across the line of that opulent bust. What man wouldn't be
impressed by such bodily magnificence, such lavish and undulating youth
and strength? And there's something so soft and diffused about those
ox-like eyes of hers! You do not think, then, of her eyes being such a
pale blue, any more than you could stop to accuse summer moonlight of
not being ruddy. And those unruffled blue eyes never seem to see you;
they rather seem to bathe you in a gaze as soft and impersonal as
moonlight itself.

I simply couldn't stand it any more. I got on Paddy and galloped out for
my Dinky-Dunk, as though it were my sudden and solemn duty to save him
from some imminent and awful catastrophe.

I stopped on the way, to watch a couple of prairie-chickens minuetting
through the turns of their vernal courtships. The pompous little beggars
with puffed-out wattles and neck ruffs were positively doing cancans and
two-steps along the prairie floor. Love was in the air, that perfect
spring afternoon, even for the animal world. So instead of riding openly
and honestly up to Dinky-Dunk and Olga, I kept under cover as much as I
could and stalked them, as though I had been a timber wolf.

Then I felt thoroughly and unspeakably ashamed of myself, for I caught
sight of Olga high on her wagon, like a Valkyr on a cloud, and
Dinky-Dunk hard at work a good two miles away.

He was a little startled to see me come cantering up on Paddy. I don't
know whether it was silly or not, but I told him straight out what had
brought me. He hugged me like a bear and then sat down on the prairie
and laughed. "With that cow?" he cried. And I'm sure no man could ever
call the woman he loves a cow.... I believe Dinky-Dunk suspects
something. He's just asked me to be more careful about riding Paddy. And
he's been more solemnly kind, lately. But I'll never tell
him--never--never!

_Tuesday the Twenty-fourth_

Percy will be back to-morrow. It will be a different loo