re so easily tickled, and
the world is so funny that within it, even when exiled from home and
friends, we find, as the days come and go, the causes and occasions of
hilarity!

Wild Bill had been placed in charge of the liquids. What a satire
there is in circumstances, and how those of to-day laugh at those of
yesterday! Yes, Wild Bill had charge of the liquids,--no mean charge,
when the occasion is considered. Nor was the position without its
embarrassments, as few honorable positions are, for it brought him
face to face with the problem of the day--dishes; for, between the two
cooks of the occasion, every dish in the cabin had been brought into
requisition, and poor Bill was left in the predicament of having to
make tea and coffee with no pots to make them in.

But Bill was not lacking in wit, if he was in pots, and he solved the
conundrum how to make tea without a teapot in a manner that extorted
the woman's laughter, and commanded the Old Trapper's admiration.

In ransacking the lofts above the apartment, he had lighted on several
large stone jugs, which, with the courage--shall we call it the
audacity?--of genius, he had seized upon; and, having thoroughly
rinsed them, and freed them from certain odors,--with which we are
free to say Bill was more or less familiar,--he brought them forward
as substitutes for kettle and pot. Indeed, they worked admirably, for
in them the berry and the leaves might not only be properly steeped,
but the flavor could be retained beyond what it might in many of our
famous and high-sounding patented articles.

But Bill, while ingenious and courageous to the last degree, was
lacking in education, especially in scientific directions. He had
never been made acquainted with that great promoter of modern
civilization--the expansive properties of steam. The corks he had
whittled out for his bravely extemporized tea and coffee pots were of
the closest fit; and, as they had been inserted with the energy of a
man who, having conquered a serious difficulty, is determined to reap
the full benefit of his triumph, there was at least no danger that the
flavor of the concoctions would escape through any leakage at the
muzzle. Having thus prepared them for steeping, he placed the jugs in
his corner of the fireplace, and pushed them well up through the ashes
to the live coals.

"Wild Bill," said the Trapper, who wished to give his companion the
needed warning in as delicate and easy a manner as pos