eemed to me--and Dave framed
his graceful figure in the doorway. He was one appealing droop, from his
moustache to his moccasin-clad feet. He wore an air of elegant leisure,
but was otherwise not fussily arrayed.

"Dave, Mis' Pett'ngill says there's now a day's washin' to do over to her
place to-morrow. What think?"

Dave deliberated, then pondered, then thought, then spoke:

"Well, I d'no', Addie; I d'no' as I got any objections if you ain't.
I d'no' but it's all the same to me."

Hereupon we meanly put something in Dave's unsuspecting way, too.

"You must want a day's work yourself," called out Ma Pettengill. "You go
up to Snell's about six in the morning and he'll need you to help do some
fencing on that gap in Stony Creek field. If he don't need you Tilton
will. One of 'em is bound to be short a man."

"Fencin'?" said Dave with noticeable disrelish.

"You reckon we better both leave the place at once?" suggested Mrs. Dave.

"That's so," said Dave brightly. "Mebbe I--"

"Nonsense!" boomed Ma Pettengill, dispelling his brightness. "Addie
can drop you at Snell's when she comes over to Arrowhead. Now that's
settled!"

And we rode off as unvoiced expostulations were gathering. I began to
wonder whether it must, throughout a beautiful day, be the stern mission
of this woman to put tribulation upon her neighbours. She was becoming a
fell destroyer. The sun was well up. I thirsted. Also, breakfast seemed
to have been a thing in the remote past.

We now rode three torrid miles up a narrow green slit in the hills
for a scant ten minutes of talk with a most uninteresting person, whose
sole claim to notice seemed to be that he had gone and fenced the wrong
water hole over back of Horsefly Mountain, where we have a summer range.
The talk was quick and pointed and buttressed with a blue-print map,
and the too-hasty fencer was left helpless after a pitiful essay at
quibbling. We rode off saying that he could do just as he liked about
sending someone over right away to take that fence down, because we
had already took it down the minute we set eyes on it. We was just
letting him know so he needn't waste any more wire and posts and time
in committing felonious depredations that would get him nothing but
high trouble if he was so minded. Another scalp to our belt!

I now briefly recalled to the woman that we had stopped at no peaceful
home that morning save to wreck its peace. I said I was getting into
the spirit of the