Dinky-Dunk and I were so uppish with each
other, one single clap of humor might have shaken the solemnity out of
the situation and shown us up for the poseurs we really were. But
Pride is the mother of all contention. If Dinky-Dunk, when I was so
imperially dismissing him from his own home, had only up and said:
"Look here, Lady-bird, this is as much my house as it is yours, you
feather-headed little idiot, and I'll put a June-bug down your neck if
you don't let me stay here!" If he'd only said that, and sat down and
been the safety-valve to my emotions which all husbands ought to be to
all wives, the igloo would have melted about my heart and left me
nothing to do but crawl over to him and tell him that I missed him
more than tongue could tell, and that getting Dinkie's daddy back was
almost as good as getting Dinkie himself back to me.

But we missed our chance. And I suppose Lady Allie sat up until all
hours of the night, over at Casa Grande, consoling my Diddums and
talking things over. It gives me a sort of bruised feeling, for I've
nobody but Whinstane Sandy to unbosom my soul to....

Iroquois Annie has flown the coop. She has gone for good. I must have
struck terror deeper into the heart of that Redskin than I imagined,
for rather than face death and torture at my hands she left Slip-Along
and the buckboard at the Teetzel Ranch and vamoosed off into the great
unknown. I have done up her valuables in an old sugar-sack, and if
they're not sent for in a week's time I'll make a bonfire of the
truck. Whinnie, by the way, is to help me with the house-work. He is
much better at washing dishes than I ever thought he could be. And he
announces he can make a fair brand of bannock, if we run out of bread.

_Tuesday the Ninth_

I've got a hired man. He dropped like manna, out of the skies, or,
rather, he emerged like a tadpole out of the mud. But there's
something odd about him and I've a floaty idea he's a refugee from
justice and that some day one of the Mounties will come riding up to
my shack-door and lead my farm-help away in handcuffs.

Whatever he is, I can't quite make him out. But I have my suspicions,
and I'm leaving everything in abeyance until they're confirmed.

I was on Paddy the other morning, in my old shooting-jacket and
Stetson, going like the wind for the Dixon Ranch, after hearing they
had a Barnado boy they wanted to unload on anybody who'd undertake to
keep him und