from his underwear.

In the morning his appearance was not that of a man at peace with his
own soul. He even asked me if he might have a horse and rig to go in
to the nearest town for some new parts which he'd need for the
windmill. And he further inquired if I'd mind him bringing back a tent
to sleep in.

"Did you find the bunk-house uncomfortable?" I asked, noticing again
the heavy look about his eyes.

"It's not the bunk-house," he admitted. "It's that old Caledonian
saw-mill with the rock-ribbed face."

"What's the matter with Whinnie?" I demanded, with a quick touch of
resentment. And Peter looked up in astonishment.

"Do you mean you've never heard him--and your shack not sixty paces
away?"

"Heard him what?" I asked.

"_Heard him snore_," explained Peter, with a sigh.

"Are you sure?" I inquired, remembering the mornings when I'd had
occasion to waken Whinnie, always to find him sleeping as silent and
placid as one of my own babies.

"I had eight hours of it in which to dissipate any doubts," he
pointedly explained.

This mystified me, but to object to the tent, of course, would have
been picayune. I had just the faintest of suspicions, however, that
the fair Peter might never return from Buckhorn, though I tried to
solace myself with the thought that the motor-car and the beaver-lined
lap-robe would at least remain with me. But my fears were groundless.
Before supper-time Peter was back in high spirits, with the needed new
parts for the windmill, and an outfit of blue denim apparel for
himself, and a little red sweater for Dinkie, and an armful of
magazines for myself.

Whinnie, as he stood watching Peter's return, clearly betrayed the
disappointment which that return involved. He said nothing, but when
he saw my eye upon him he gazed dourly toward his approaching rival
and tapped a weather-beaten brow with one stubby finger. He meant, of
course, that Peter was a little locoed.

But Peter is not. He is remarkably clear-headed and quick-thoughted, and
if there's any madness about him it's a madness with a deep-laid method.
The one thing that annoys me is that he keeps me so continuously and yet
so obliquely under observation. He pretends to be studying out my
windmill, but he is really trying to study out its owner. Whinnie, I
know, won't help him much. And I refuse to rise to his gaudiest flies.
So he's still puzzling over what he regards as an anomaly, a farmerette
who knows the difference betw