e meet mine, but he obviously knew what he knew.

He was off with a rattle of wheels and a drift of trail-dust even
before Peter and his cool amending eyes arrived at the shack to "stoke
up" as he expresses it. I tried to make Peter believe that nothing was
wrong, and cavorted about with Bobs, and was able to laugh when Dinkie
got some of the new marmalade in his hair, and explained how we'd have
to take our mower-knives over to Teetzel's to have them ground, and did
my best to direct silent reproofs at the tight-lipped and tragic-eyed
Struthers, who moved about like a head-mourner not unconscious of her
family obligations. But Peter, I suspect, sniffed something untoward in
the air, for after a long study of my face--which made me color a
little, in spite of myself--he became about as abstracted and
solemn-eyed as Struthers herself.

To my dying day I shall never forget that wait for Whinnie to come back.
It threatened to become an endless one. I felt like Bluebeard's wife up
in the watch tower--no, it was her Sister Anne, wasn't it, who anxiously
mounted the tower to search for the first sign of deliverance? At any
rate I felt like Luck--now before the Relief, or a prisoner waiting for
the jury to file in, or a gambler standing over an invisible
roulette-table and his last throw, wondering into what groove the little
ivory ball was to run. And when Whinnie finally appeared his seamed old
face wore such a look of dour satisfaction that for a weak flutter or
two of the heart I thought he'd brought Dinky-Dunk straight back with
him.

But that hope didn't live long.

"Your maun's awa'," said Whinnie, with quite unnecessary curtness, as
he held my own letter out to me.

"He's away?" I echoed in a voice that was just a wee bit trembly, as I
took the note from Whinnie, "what do you mean by away?"

"He left three hours ago for Chicago," Whinstane Sandy retorted, still
with that grim look of triumph in his gloomy old eyes.

"But what could be taking him to Chicago?" I rather weakly inquired.

"'Twas to see about buyin' some blooded stock for the ranch. At least,
so her ladyship informed me. But that's nae more than one of her lies,
I'm thinkin'."

"What did she say, Whinnie?" I demanded, doing my best to keep cool.

"Naethin'," was Whinnie's grim retort. "'Twas me did the sayin'!"

"What did you say?" I asked, disturbed by the none too gentle look on
his face.

"What was needed to be said," that old sour-dough wi