ith the facts of the case for me to record that Wild
Bill never answered the Old Trapper's very proper interrogation, but
sat down on the floor and thrust his legs up in the air and yelled,
and after the spasm left him he got up slowly, sat down in a chair,
and looked at the Trapper with wet eyes and mouth wide open.

The Old Trapper evidently relished the mirthfulness of his companion,
for his face was lighted with the amused expression of the humorist
when he has told to an appreciative comrade an experience against
himself. But in an instant his countenance dropped, and, looking at
the huge kettle that stood half buried in the coals and warm ashes in
front of the glowing logs and into which Bill had been so determinedly
thrusting his ladle only a moment before, he exclaimed:--

"Bill, I have lost all confidence in yer cookin' abilities. Ye said
that ye knew the natur' of corn meal and that ye could fill a puddin'
bag jediciously, and though it isn't ten minits sence ye tied the
string and the meal isn't half swollen yit, yer whole bag there is on
the p'int of comin' out of the pot."

At this alarming announcement Wild Bill jumped for the fireplace and
in an instant he had placed the spade-shaped end of his ladle, whose
handle was full three feet long, at the very center of the lid that
was already lifted two inches from the rim of the kettle, and was
putting a good deal of pressure upon it. Confident in his ability to
resist any further upward tendency, and to escape the threatened
catastrophe, he coolly replied:--

"It strikes me that you are a good deal excited over a little matter,
old man. The meal has got through swelling--"

"No, it hasn't, no, it hasn't," returned the Trapper. "Half the
karnels haven't felt the warmin' of the hot water yit, and I can see
that the old lid is liftin'."

"No, it isn't lifting, either, John Norton," returned Wild Bill
determinedly; "and it won't lift unless the shaft of this ladle
snaps."

"The ladle be a good un," returned the Trapper, now fully assured that
no human power could avert the coming catastrophe, and keenly enjoying
his companion's extremity and the humor of the situation. "The ladle
be a good un, for I fashioned it from an old paddle of second growth
ash, whose blade I had twisted in the rapids, and ye can put yer whole
weight on it."

"Old man," cried Bill, now thoroughly alarmed, "the lid is lifting."

"Sartinly, sartinly," returned the Trapper. "It's li