n such excitement that they
appeared to be in danger of flirting off their long tails. The quail
ran about the shorn fields, and excitedly called from fence riders to
draw their flocks into the security of Rainbow Bottom.

Frightened hares bounded through the wheat, and if the cruel blade
sheared into their nests, Dannie gathered the wounded and helpless of
the scattered broods in his hat, and carried them to Mary.

Then came threshing, which was a busy time, but after that, through the
long hot days of late July and August, there was little to do afield,
and fishing was impossible. Dannie grubbed fence corners, mended
fences, chopped and corded wood for winter, and in spare time read his
books. For the most part Jimmy kept close to Dannie. Jimmy's temper
never had been so variable. Dannie was greatly troubled, for despite
Jimmy's protests of devotion, he flared at a word, and sometimes at no
word at all. The only thing in which he really seemed interested was
the coon skin he was dressing to send to Boston. Over that he worked by
the hour, sometimes with earnest face, and sometimes he raised his
head, and let out a whoop that almost frightened Mary. At such times he
was sure to go on and give her some new detail of the hunt for the
fifty coons, that he had forgotten to tell her before.

He had been to the hotel, and learned the Thread Man's name and
address, and found that he did not come regularly, and no one knew when
to expect him; so when he had combed and brushed the fur to its finest
point, and worked the skin until it was velvet soft, and bleached it
until it was muslin white, he made it into a neat package and sent it
with his compliments to the Boston man. After he had waited for a week,
he began going to town every day to the post office for the letter he
expected, and coming home much worse for a visit to Casey's. Since
plowing time he had asked Dannie for money as he wanted it, telling him
to keep an account, and he would pay him in the fall. He seemed to
forget or not to know how fast his bills grew.

Then came a week in August when the heat invaded even the cool retreat
along the river. Out on the highway passing wheels rolled back the dust
like water, and raised it in clouds after them. The rag weeds hung
wilted heads along the road. The goldenrod and purple ironwort were
dust-colored and dust-choked. The trees were thirsty, and their leaves
shriveling. The river bed was bare its width in places, and