re been asleeb."

Charlie stared at his companion for a moment in silence. Then he rose,
and, approaching Nels, examined his partner's face with solemn scrutiny.

"By the great horn spoon," he announced, finally, "you've got a head on
you like a balloon, my boy! Keep on gettin' ideas like that, and you'll
land in Congress or the poor-farm before many years!"

Then, abandoning his pretense of gravity, he slapped the other on the
back.

"Why didn't I think of that? It's the best yet. Seigert's team? Oh, hang
Seigert's team. We don't need it. We'll have a little merry Christmas
out of this yet. Only they mustn't know where it came from. I'll write
a note and stick it under the door, 'You'll find some merry wheat--'No,
that ain't it. 'You'll find some wheat in the granary to give the kids a
merry Christmas with,' signed, 'Santa Claus.'"

He wrote out the message in the air with a pointing forefinger. He had
entered into the spirit of the thing eagerly.

"It's half-past nine now," he went on, looking at the clock. "It'll be
eleven time we get the stuff loaded and hauled up there. Let's go out
and get at it. Lucky the bobs are on the wagon; they don't make such a
racket as wheels."

He took the lantern from its nail behind the door and lighted it, after
which he put on his boots, cap, and mittens, and flung his overcoat
across his shoulders. Nels, meanwhile, had put on his outer garments,
also.

"Shut up the stove, Nels." Charlie blew out the light and opened the
door. "There, hang it!" he exclaimed, turning back. "I forgot the note.
Ought to be in ink, I suppose. Well, never mind now; we won't put on any
style about it."

He took down a pencil from the shelf, and, extracting a bit of wrapping
paper from a bundle behind the woodbox, wrote the note by the light of
the lantern.

"There, I guess that will do," he said, finally. "Come on!"

Outside, the night air was cold and bracing, and in the black vault of
the sky the winter constellations flashed and throbbed. The shadows of
the two men, thrown by the lantern, bobbed huge and grotesque across
the snow and among the bare branches of the cottonwoods, as they moved
toward the barn.

"Ay tank ve put on dose extra side poards and make her an even fifty
pushel," said Nels, after they had backed the wagon up to the granary
door. "Ve might as vell do it oop right, skence ve're at it."

Having carried out this suggestion, the two shovelled steadily, with
short interv