"I was jest cur'ous." But inquired further: "Is that stuffin' or in'ards coming through the sewin' down the front of 'em?"

"Forcemeat. I made it according to a recipe."

"Indeed?" Politely. "Don't go shy yourself jest because I'm here," he protested, as Wallie attempted to cut one in two with the butcher-knife.

"I ain't feelin' so hungry--somethin' has took my appet.i.te."

As the table swayed under Wallie's efforts to carve a prairie-dog, he suggested:

"Perhaps if you took hold of one leg----"

"Ye-ah," said Pinkey, humorously, "and you take holt of the other and put your foot on my chest so you kin git a purchase, then we'll both pull and somethin's bound to happen."

"If I could only find a joint----"

"Worry one of them legs off and we'll see how we like it before you play yourself out on it."

Wallie acted upon the suggestion and presented the severed member.

"Try it," he urged, persuasively.

Pinkey sunk his grinders into the leg and laid back on it.

"Does it seem tough?" Wallie asked, watching him anxiously.

"Tough! I'm scairt it's goin' to snap back and knock me over. Wait till I git a fresh holt on it."

"Do you get the flavour at all?"

"I can't pull enough off to taste it," Pinkey replied, plaintively.

"Try the dressing and tell me what you think of it." Wallie scooped out a generous spoonful and placed it on his plate, waiting confidently for the verdict.

Pinkey conveyed his knife to his mouth while Wallie stood regarding him with an expression of pleased expectancy as he tasted.

A startled look was succeeded by one that was unmistakably horror.

Pinkey knocked over the box upon which he was sitting as he jumped from the table and tore the kitchen door open.

Wallie watched him wonderingly:

"Tell you what I think of it!" Pinkey declared, returning. "I ain't got words--they ain't none in the dictionary. My Gawd! what is it made of?"

"Just biscuit crumbs and onions," said Wallie, colouring.

"Where did you keep 'em?"

Wallie pointed to the box on the floor in the corner.

Pinkey made a hideous grimace.

"Gimme a drink of water! Gimme a chew of tobacco! Gimme anything to take the taste of _mouse_ out'n my mouth. Wallie," solemnly, "men have died fer less'n that in this country. If I thought you'd done that on purpose I'd slit your throat from ear to ear and leave you."

"I thought I was very particular and cut off everything that looked suspicious," said Wallie, meekly, "I must have missed something."

"You sh.o.r.e did! And," Pinkey demanded, "what might them horrors be on the platter? Them teeth are mighty familiar."

Wallie quavered:

"Prairie-dog--I was experimenting to see if they were edible."

"Leave me out in the air again!" Pinkey groaned as he swallowed a drink of water. "And I pa.s.sed up a turkey dinner to come and eat with you!"

"Shan't I cook you some bacon?" asked Wallie, contritely.

"I doubt if I ever feel like eatin' agin, but if the cake's thawed out I'll try a chunk of it to take my mind off that stuffin'."

Wallie opened the can of pineapple he had been treasuring and Pinkey helped himself freely to the Christmas cake.

"They must be about four meals in one of them slices, the way it feels inside of me," the latter commented, nibbling delicately on a ring of pineapple he held in his fingers.

"It's fruit-cake, and rich; you're not supposed to eat so much of it,"

Wallie said, sharply.

Pinkey raised his eyebrows and regarded Wallie attentively as he continued to nibble.

"Looks like you're turrible touchy about her cookin', and swelled up over gittin' a Christmas present," he remarked, finally. "You needn't be, because she made eight other cement bricks jest like this one and sent 'em around to fellers she's sorry for."

"Oh, did she!" Wallie e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, crestfallen.

"Yes, indeed," Pinkey went on, complacently, feeling a glow of satisfaction at Wallie's lengthened countenance; "she does it every Christmas. She's kind to the pore and sufferin', but it don't mean nothin' more than a dollar she'd drop in a hat somebody was pa.s.sin'."

Noting the deep gloom which immediately settled upon Wallie, Pinkey could think of the prairie-dogs with more equanimity.

CHAPTER XII

THE WATER WITCH

In former days Wallie had wished for a yacht, his own stables, and such luxuries, but now he wanted a well with far greater intensity than he had desired those extravagances.

The all-important question had been whether he could at present afford it, with his money vanishing like a belated s...o...b..nk. Then, while he had been debating, Rufus Reed appeared at such a timely moment that it had seemed providential.

Mr. Reed, lately arrived from Illinois, was now sitting with his feet on the stove-hearth and so close to the coals that the cabin was strong with the odour of frying rubber, and declaring modestly:

"I may say, without braggin', that I have made an enormous success since I gave up my flour and feed store and took to well-diggin' as a perfession. By acci-dent I discovered that I was peculiarly gifted."

Watching the smoke rising from Rufus's arctics and speculating as to what might be the composition of his soles that he could endure so much heat without discomfort, Wallie inquired politely: