her toilet again and
made haste to go out and see whether her eyes had deceived her.

In the mean time Steve, not being able to find the knife, stood with
the lamb in his arms and bent the whole force of his mind upon the
problem of its whereabouts. Suddenly he remembered that he had last
used it in front of the shack to put the pelt on the lamb. Naturally,
it was still there. Having it again, he sat down near the fire-hole,
where he could keep an eye on the kettle, placed the lamb on his lap
and opened the blade. He had just got to work on one of the legs when
the door opened and his guest made her appearance. He rose at once to
pay his respects, the lamb in one hand and his hat in the other.

"Good-morning, Miss Janet."

"Good-morning, Mr. Brown. It is a very beautiful day, is n't it?"

"First-class," he replied. "I 'm just doing a little work on this
lamb. I guess you know him; he 's the one you saw when you first came."

"What! The one that stepped in the sugar bowl?"

"Yes, that's him. He doesn't look exactly natural, does he? I had to
make some changes in him. You see his mother did n't think she wanted
any lamb. But another sheep had one that died and I could see she
wanted a lamb, so that was an opening for this fellow. And I had to
fix him up so that she 'd take him."

"What a funny thing to do," said Janet.

"Is n't it! Do you wonder that sheep-herders go crazy? Just wait a
minute, Miss Janet, and I 'll have this off of him."

He sat down again with the lamb in his lap. Turning it over on its
back he set to work on the hind legs. Janet, becoming interested,
stooped down beside him. She patted the infant on its high forehead.

"And did n't the other sheep want to adopt him?" she asked.

"Oh, no. Sheep don't believe in charity."

"And won't even have their own sometimes! Is n't that strange!"

"Some of them seem to be built that way, especially if it is their
first one. But that sheep did n't have much milk anyway, and maybe she
thought he might as well die. If it had n't been for that I would have
tried to make her take him. But I saw the other sheep could do better
by him."

"There is really a great deal to think of, is n't there?" said Janet,
lending a hand to the operation by catching hold of a too active hind
leg. "But I don't see how you could fool her that way. Could n't she
see that this lamb had a white head? And white legs? And an extra
tail?"

"Oh, they d