as finished we had the jolliest dinner of my visit,
with a whole gang of exclusive-setters at the groaning board, including
this girl and her folks, and champagne, of which Angus, _peer_, consumed
near one of the cut-glass vases full.

"I caught him with young Angus in the deserted library later, while the
rest was one-stepping in the Henry Quatter ballroom or dance hall. The
old man had his arms pretty well upon the boy's shoulders. Yes, sir, he
was almost actually hugging him. The boy fled to this gilded cafe where
the rest was, and old Angus, with his eyes shining very queer, he grabs
me by the arm and says, 'Once when he was very small--though unusually
large for his age of three, mind you--he had a way of scratching my face
something painful with his little nails, and all in laughing play, you
know. I tried to warn him, but he couldn't understand, of course; so,
not knowing how else to instruct him, I scratched back one day, laughing
myself like he was, but sinking my nails right fierce into the back of
his little fat neck. He relaxed the tension in his own fingers. He was
hurt, for the tears started, but he never cried. He just looked puzzled
and kept on laughing, being bright to see I could play the game, too.
Only he saw it wasn't so good a game as he'd thought. I wonder what
made me think of that, now! I don't know. Come--from yonder doorway we
can see him as he dances.'

"And Ellabelle was saying gently to one and all, with her merry peal of
laughter, 'Ah, yes--once a Scotchman, always--'

"My land! It's ten o'clock. Don't them little white-faced beauties make
the music! Honestly I'd like to have a cot out in the corral. We miss a
lot of it in here."

V

NON PLUSH ULTRA

Sunday and a driving rain had combined to keep Ma Pettengill within the
Arrowhead ranch house. Neither could have done this alone. The rain
would merely have added a slicker to her business costume of khaki
riding breeches, laced boots, and flannel shirt as she rode abroad;
while a clement Sabbath would have seen her "resting," as she would put
it, in and round the various outbuildings, feeding-pens, blacksmith
shop, harness-room, branding-chute, or what not, issuing orders to
attentive henchmen from time to time; diagnosing the gray mule's
barbed-wire cut; compounding a tonic for Adolph, the big milk-strain
Durham bull, who has been ailing; wishing to be told why in something
the water hadn't been turned into that south ditch;