s from wheah
they had stahted, sittin' down, resting, a-smilin' at each othah and
congratulatin' each othah, I reckon, on the way they had knocked the
stuffin' out of that theah ole cyclone fo' good and all.

"They must have scahd the res' of the cyclones off, too, becawse with
them and the forks of the rivahs, they haven't been seen or heahd of
aroun' these pahts since."

"Exceptin' the tail end of that one that moved me," Cyclona reminded
him.

"And what about me?" questioned Charlie.

"Oh, yes. One of these heah peccaries, a good-natured peccary, too,
with a laikin' fo' little children, found you in the cyclone. You were
a pretty little baby with big blue eyes the same's you've got now. I
don't know exactly wheah the cyclone found you. Anyway, the peccary
picked you up in his mouth. When he had rested as long as he wanted to
with the other peccaries, he flew along and flew along--they had all
got to be flying peccaries, you know, on account of swallowin' so
much wind, until he came to the door of my dugout, this same dugout we
are in now, and he laid you very carefully down by the door. Then I
went out in the mawnin' and brought you in."

Charlie invariably at this point reached up his arms and put them
around Seth's neck.

It was very kind of him, he thought, to go out and bring him in. What
if the wolves had come along and eaten him! Or the little hungry
coyotes they heard barking in the nights. Ugh!

"And then the peccary flew away again?" he asked. "Didn't he?"

"Yes," answered Seth. "He flew away with the rest of the flyin'
peccaries."

"And haven't you ever seen them since?" asked Charlie, "or him?"

"Sometimes you can see them 'way up in the air," replied Seth, running
his fingers through his hair, "but they ah so fah away and little, you
can't tell them from birds."

Cyclona nodded again.

"Yes," she corroborated, "they are so far away and little you can't
tell them from birds."

CHAPTER XIII.

[Illustration]

The Post Mistress at the station tapped her thimble on the window-pane
at the chickens floundering in the flower-bed outside.

They turned, looked at her, then, rising, staggered off with a ruffled
and uppish air, due partly to their indignation and partly to the fact
that the wind blew their feathers straight up, and a trifle forward
over their heads.

"It's bad enough," she said, "to try and raise flowers in Kansas,
fighting the wind, without having to fight the chicken