sn't worked out of my
first dairy-product. Dinky-Dunk, like the scholar and gentleman that he
is, swore that it was worth its weight in Klondike gold. And next time
I'll do better.

_Monday the Twelfth_

Golden weather again, with a clear sky and soft and balmy air! Just
before our mid-day meal Olie arrived with mail for us. We've had letters
from home! Instead of cheering me up they made me blue, for they seemed
to bring word from another world, a world so far, far away!

I decided to have a half-day in the open, so I strapped on my duck-gun
and off I went on Paddy, as soon as dinner was over and the men had
gone. We went like the wind, until both Paddy and I were tired of it.
Then I found a "soft-water" pond hidden behind a fringe of scrub-willow
and poplar. The mid-day sun had warmed it to a tempting temperature. So
I hobbled Paddy, peeled off and had a most glorious bath. I had just
soaped down with bank-mud (which is an astonishingly good solvent) and
had taken a header and was swimming about on my back, blinking up at
the blue sky, as happy as a mud-turtle in a mill-pond, when I heard
Paddy nicker. That disturbed me a little, but I felt sure there could be
nobody within miles of me. However, I swam back to where my clothes
were, sunned myself dry, and was just standing up to shake out the ends
of this short-cropped hair of mine when I saw a man's head Across the
pond, staring through the bushes at me. I don't know how or why it is,
but I suddenly saw red. I don't remember picking up the duck-gun, and I
don't remember aiming it.

But I banged away, with both barrels, straight at that leering head--or
at least it ought to have been a leering head, whatever that may mean!
The howl that went up out of the wilderness, the next moment, could have
been heard for a mile!

It was Dinky-Dunk, and he said I might have put his eyes out with
bird-shot, if he hadn't made the quickest drop of his life. And he also
said that he'd seen me, a distinct splash of white against the green of
the prairie, three good miles away, and wasn't I ashamed of myself, and
what would I have done if he'd been Olie or old man Dixon? But he
kissed my shoulder where the gun-stock had bruised it, and helped me
dress.

Then we rode off together, four or five miles north, where Dinky-Dunk
was sure we could get a bag of duck. Which we did, thirteen altogether,
and started for home as the sun got low and the evening air grew chilly.
It was