n his request that I should leave Snowfoot,
that I couldn't well refuse,--though I _did_ decline to trouble him,
till he brought out a double-barrelled argument,--stub twist, percussion
lock,--which finally persuaded me. He is one of the most urgent men I
ever saw," added Jack, mashing his potato.

Vinnie smiled, while the others laughed; but her eyes were full of
anxiety, as they beamed on Jack.

"Isn't it possible," she said, "to meet such arguments with kindness? I
didn't think there was a man so bad that he couldn't be influenced by
reason and good-will."

"It might rain reasons on Peakslow, forty days and forty nights,--he
would shed 'em, as a duck does water," Jack replied. "Isn't it so, Mr.
Betterson?"

"I have certainly found him impervious," said my lord.

"I might have stopped to argue with him, and threaten him with the law
and costs of court, and perhaps have settled the matter for five or ten
dollars. But the truth is," Jack confessed, "I lost patience and temper.
I am not going to have any more words with him. Now let's drop Peakslow,
and speak of something more important. That spring over in your woods,
Mr. Betterson,--I've been looking at it. Is it soft water?" (Jack lifted
a glass and sipped it;) "as good for washing as it is for the table?"

"It is excellent water for any purpose," said Mr. Betterson. "There is
only one fault in that spring,--it is too far off."

"We are going to move the house up there, so as to have it handy," said
Link.

"That is one of my young friend's jokes," said Jack. "But, seriously,
Mr. Betterson, instead of moving the house to the spring, why don't you
bring the spring to the house?"

"How do you mean? It doesn't seem quite--ah--practicable, to move a
spring that way."

"I don't mean the spring itself, of course, but the water. You might
have that running, a constant stream, in your kitchen or back-room."

"I apprehend your drift," said Betterson, helping Jack to a piece of
prairie chicken. "You mean, bring it in pipes."

"Thank you. Precisely."

"But I apprehend a difficulty; it is not easy to make water run up
hill."

Jack smiled, and blushed a little, at Betterson's polite condescension
in making this mild objection.

"Water running down hill may force itself up another hill, if confined
in pipes, I think you will concede."

"Most assuredly. But it will not rise again higher than its source. And
the spring is lower than we are,--lower than our kitchen