in declared war on France, I rooted out Dinky-Dunk, made
him wash, and sat him down in his pajamas and his ragged old
dressing-gown.

"I suppose," I said as I saw his eyes wander about the table, "that you
feel exactly like an oyster-man who's just chipped his Blue-Point and
got his knife-edge in under the shell! And the next wrench is going to
tell you exactly what sort of an oyster you've got!"

Dinky-Dunk grinned up at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the
range. "Well, Lady Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika,
anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor
and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked
a queen--only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our poor old
Swedish Olie!

As that was Sunday we spent the morning "pi-rooting" about the place.
Dinky-Dunk took me out and showed me the stables and the hay-stacks and
the granaries--which he'd just waterproofed so there'd be no more spoilt
grain on that farm--and the "cool-hole" he used to use before the cellar
was built, and the ruins of the sod-hut where the first homesteader that
owned that land had lived. Then he showed me the new bunk-house for the
men, which Olie is finishing in his spare time. It looks much better
than our own shack, being of planed lumber. But Dinky-Dunk is loyal to
the shack, and says it's really better built, and the warmest shack in
the West--as I'll find before winter is over.

Then we stopped at the pump, and Dinky-Dunk made a confession. When he
first bought that ranch there was no water at the shack, except what he
could catch from the roof. Water had to be hauled for miles, and it was
muddy and salty, at that. They used to call it "Gopher soup." This lack
of water always worried him, he said, for women always want water, and
oodles of it. It was the year before, after he had left me at Banff,
that he was determined to get water. It was hard work, putting down that
well, and up to almost the last moment it promised to be a dry hole. But
when they struck that water, Dinky-Dunk says, he decided in his soul
that he was going to have me, if I was to be had. It was water fit for a
queen. And he wanted his queen. But of course even queens have to be
well laved and well laundered. He said he didn't sleep all night, after
they found the water was there. He was too happy; he just went
meandering about the prairie, singing to himself.

"So you were pretty sure