-wrangler. Struthers, intent on showing Whinnie that he is not
the only man in her world, is placidly but patiently showering the
lanky Cuba with a barrage of her fluffiest pastries. She has also
given her hair an extra strong wash of sage-tea, which is Struthers'
pet and particular way of putting on war-paint. Whinnie, I notice,
shuts himself up after supper with that copy of Burns' poems we gave
him last Christmas, morosely exiling himself from all the laughing and
gaming and pow-wowing which takes place in the long cool twilights,
just outside the bunk-house. Cuba undertook to serenade the dour one
by donning certain portions of Struthers' apparel and playing my old
banjo under his window. Whinnie quietly retaliated by emptying his
bath-water on the musician's head--and the language was indescribable.
I have been forced to speak to Dinky-Dunk, in fact, about the men's
profanity before my children. It is something I will not endure. My
husband, on the other hand, refuses to take the matter very seriously.
But I have been keeping a close eye over my kiddies--and woe betide
the horse-wrangler who uses unseemly language within their hearing. So
far they seem to have gone through it unscathed, about the same as a
child can go through the indecorous moments of _The Arabian Nights_,
which stands profoundly wicked to only Arabs and old gentlemen.

_Wednesday the Twenty-Eighth_

Summer is slipping away. The days are shortening and there have been
light frosts at night, but not enough to hurt Dinky-Dunk's late oats,
which he has been watching with a worried eye. There is a saber-blade
edge to the evening air now and we have been having some glorious
displays of Northern Lights. I can't help feeling that these Merry
Dancers of the Pole, as some one has called them, make up for what the
prairie may lack in diversity. Dusk by dusk they drown our world in
color, they smother our skies in glory. They are terrifying,
sometimes, to the tenderfoot, giving him the feeling that his world is
on fire. Poor old Struthers, during an especially active display,
invariably gets out her Bible. Used to them as I am, I find they can
still touch me with awe. They make me lonesome. They seem like the
search-lights of God, showing up my human littlenesses of soul. They
are Armadas of floating glory reminding me there are seas I can never
traverse. And the farther north one goes, of course, the more
magnificent the displays.

Last night we