rd Bud took him, but the quirky smile hid at the
corners of his mouth, and under Cash's beard still lurked the grin.

"No, no, no!" Lovin Child kept repeating smugly, all the while Bud was
stripping off his wet clothes and chucking him into the undershirt he
wore for a nightgown, and trying a man's size pair of socks on his legs.

"I should say no-no-no! You doggone little rascal, I'd rather herd a
flea on a hot plate! I've a plumb good notion to hog-tie yuh for awhile.
Can't trust yuh a minute nowhere. Now look what you got to wear while
your clothes dry!"

"Ee? Ee?" invited Lovin Child, gleefully holding up a muffled little
foot lost in the depths of Bud's sock.

"Oh, I see, all right! I'll tell the world I see you're a doggone
nuisance! Now see if you can keep outa mischief till I get the wood
carried in." Bud set him down on the bunk, gave him a mail-order
catalogue to look at, and went out again into the storm. When he came
back, Lovin Child was sitting on the hearth with the socks off, and was
picking bits of charcoal from the ashes and crunching them like candy in
his small, white teeth. Cash was hurrying to finish his scrubbing before
the charcoal gave out, and was keeping an eye on the crunching to see
that Lovin Child did not get a hot ember.

"H'yah! You young imp!" Bud shouted, stubbing his toe as he hurried
forward. "Watcha think you are--a fire-eater, for gosh sake?"

Cash bent his head low--it may have been to hide a chuckle. Bud was
having his hands full with the kid, and he was trying to be stern
against the handicap of a growing worship of Lovin Child and all
his little ways. Now Lovin Child was all over ashes, and the clean
undershirt was clean no longer, after having much charcoal rubbed into
its texture. Bud was not overstocked with clothes; much traveling had
formed the habit of buying as he needed for immediate use. With Lovin
Child held firmly under one arm, where he would be sure of him, he
emptied his "war-bag" on the bunk and hunted out another shirt

Lovin Child got a bath, that time, because of the ashes he had managed
to gather on his feet and his hands and his head. Bud was patient, and
Lovin Child was delightedly unrepentant--until he was buttoned into
another shirt of Bud's, and the socks were tied on him.

"Now, doggone yuh, I'm goin' to stake you out, or hobble yuh, or some
darn thing, till I get that wood in!" he thundered, with his eyes
laughing. "You want to freeze? Hey? Now