an about. It's a ship
without a captain, a clan without a chief. Yet I found it both
depressing and humbling to be brought once more face to face with that
particular fact.

Dinky-Dunk, on the other hand, has come back with both an odd sense of
elation and an odd sense of estrangement. He has taken on a vague
something which I find it impossible to define. He is blither and at
the same time he is more solemnly abstracted. And he protests that his
journey was a success.

"I'm going to ride two horses, from now on," he announced to me this
morning. "I've got my chance and I'm going to grab it. I've swapped
my Buckhorn lots for some inside Calgary stuff and I'm lumping
everything that's left of my Coast deal for a third-interest in those
Barcona coal-fields. There's a quarter of a million waiting there for
the people with money enough to swing it. And I'm going to edge in
while it's still open."

"But is it possible to ride two horses?" I asked, waywardly depressed
by all this new-found optimism.

"It's _got_ to be possible, until we find out which horse is the
better traveler," announced Dinky-Dunk. Then he added, without caring
to meet my eye: "And I can't say I see much promise of action out of
this particular end of the team."

I must have flamed red, at that speech, for I thought at the moment he
was referring to me. It was only after I'd turned the thing over in my
mind, as I helped Struthers put together our new butter-worker, that I
saw he really referred to Casa Grande. But my husband knows I will
never part with this ranch. He will never be so foolish as to ask me
to do that. Yet one thing is plain. His heart is no longer here. He
will stick to this prairie farm of ours only for what he can get out
of it.

Dinkie warmed the cockles of my heart by telling me this afternoon
when we were out salting the horses that he never wanted to go away
from Casa Grande and his mummy. The child, I imagine, had overheard
some of this morning's talk. He put his arm around my knees and hugged
me tight. And I could see the tawny look come into his hazel eyes
speckled with brown. My Dinkie is a prairie child. His soul is not a
cramped little soul, but has depth and wideness and undiscerned
mysteries.

_Sunday the Thirtieth_

Two weeks have slipped by. Two weeks have gone, and left no record of
their going. But a prairie home is a terribly busy one, at times, and
it's idleness that leads to the ink-pot. I'm still