ut. She dared not risk it again, and resigned herself
gracefully and with subdued merriment to her task. Jim Bell was ushered
into the great, light, spotless kitchen, where presently Madeline
appeared to put on an apron and roll up her sleeves. She explained the
use of the several pieces of aluminum that made up the bread-mixer and
fastened the bucket to the table-shelf. Jim's life might have depended
upon this lesson, judging from his absorbed manner and his desire to
have things explained over and over, especially the turning of the
crank. When Madeline had to take Jim's hand three times to show him the
simple mechanism and then he did not understand she began to have faint
misgivings as to his absolute sincerity. She guessed that as long as
she touched Jim's hand he never would understand. Then as she began
to measure out flour and milk and lard and salt and yeast she saw with
despair that Jim was not looking at the ingredients, was not paying the
slightest attention to them. His eyes were covertly upon her.

"Jim, I am not sure about you," said Madeline, severely. "How can you
learn to make bread if you do not watch me mix it?"

"I am a-watchin' you," replied Jim, innocently.

Finally Madeline sent the cowboy on his way rejoicing with the
bread-mixer under his arm. Next morning, true to Stillwell's prophecy,
Frank Slade, Jim's bunkmate, presented himself cheerfully to Madeline
and unbosomed himself of a long-deferred and persistent desire to
relieve his overworked comrade of some of the house-keeping in their
bunk.

"Miss Hammond," said Frank, "Jim's orful kind wantin' to do it all
hisself. But he ain't very bright, an' I didn't believe him. You see,
I'm from Missouri, an' you'll have to show me."

For a whole week Madeline held clinics where she expounded the
scientific method of modern bread-making. She got a good deal of
enjoyment out of her lectures. What boys these great hulking fellows
were! She saw through their simple ruses. Some of them were grave as
deacons; others wore expressions important enough to have fitted the
faces of statesmen signing government treaties. These cowboys were
children; they needed to be governed; but in order to govern them they
had to be humored. A more light-hearted, fun-loving crowd of boys could
not have been found. And they were grown men. Stillwell explained that
the exuberance of spirits lay in the difference in their fortunes.
Twenty-seven cowboys, in relays of nine, wo