Now here,
Rufus," he cried, choking with exasperation, "I am in earnest about
this matter! I don't altogether approve of the way you and Jeff have
been conducting my affairs down here, anyway, and I intend to take a
hand myself, if you don't mind. I may not know as much as you about
the minor details of the cattle business, but I have been looking into
forestry quite extensively, and I fail to see anything unreasonable in
my suggestion of a trail. How far is it, now, over that hill to the
ranch?"

"About twenty-five thousand miles," replied Hardy blandly.

"Twenty-five thousand! Why--"

"At least, so I am informed," explained Hardy. "Geographers agree, I
believe, that that is the approximate distance around the world. The
ranch is over here, you know."

He pointed with one small, sinewy hand in a direction diametrically
opposite to the one his boss had indicated, and struck out down a cow
trail. It was a harsh blow to the old judge, and rankled in his bosom
for some time; but after making sure that his superintendent was
correct he followed meekly behind him into camp. On the way, as an
afterthought, he decided not to put down his foot in the matter of the
sheep until he was quite sure of the material facts.

They found Creede in the last throes of agony as he blundered through
the motions of cooking supper. Half an hour of house-cleaning had done
more to disarrange his kitchen than the services of two charming
assistants could possibly repair. His Dutch oven was dropped into the
wood box; his bread pan had been used to soak dirty dishes in; the
water bucket was empty, and they had thrown his grease swab into the
fire. As for the dish-rag, after long and faithful service it had been
ruthlessly destroyed, and he had to make another one out of a flour
sack. Add to this a hunger which had endured since early morning and a
series of rapid-fire questions, and you have the true recipe for bad
bread, at least.

Kitty Bonnair had taken a course in sanitation and domestic science in
her college days, since which time the world had been full of microbes
and every unpleasant bacillus, of which she discoursed at some length.
But Jefferson Creede held steadily to his fixed ideas, and in the end
he turned out some baking-powder biscuits that would have won honors
in a cooking school. There was nothing else to cook, his kettle of
beans having been unceremoniously dumped because the pot was black;
but Kitty had the table spotle