'll come?" I exacted, determined to burn all my bridges
behind me.

"I'll be there on Monday," said Peter, with quiet decision. "I'll be
there with Tithonus and Tumble-Weed and the old prairie-schooner. And
we'll all trek home together!"

"_Skookum!_" I said with altogether unbecoming levity.

I patted the telephone instrument as I hung up the receiver. Then I
sat staring at it in a brown study.

Then I went careening up-stairs and woke Poppsy out of a sound sleep
and hugged her until her bones were ready to crack and told her that
our Dinkie had been found again. And Poppsy, not being quite able to
get it through her sleepy little head, promptly began to bawl. But
there was little to bawl over, once she was thoroughly awake. And then
I went careening down to the telephone again, and called up Lossie's
boarding-house, and had her landlady root the poor girl out of bed,
and heard _her_ break down and have a little cry when I told her our
Dinkie had been found. And the first thing she asked me, when she was
able to talk again, was if Gershom Binks had been told of the good
news. And I had to acknowledge that I hadn't even _thought_ of poor
old Gershom, but that Peter Ketley would surely have passed the good
word on to Casa Grande, for Peter always seemed to think of the right
thing.

And then I remembered about Duncan. For Duncan, whatever he may have
been, was still the boy's father. And he must be told. It was my duty
to tell him. So once more I climbed the stairs, but this time more
slowly. I had to wait a full minute before I found the courage, I
don't know why, to knock on Duncan's bedroom door.

I knocked twice before any answer came.

"What is it?" asked the familiar sleepy _bass_--and I realized what
gulfs yawned between us when my husband on one side of that closed
door could be lying lost in slumber and I on the other side of it
could find life doing such unparalleled things to me. I felt for him
as a girl home, tired from her first dance, feels for a young brother
asleep beside a Noah's Ark.

"What is it?" I heard Duncan's voice repeating from the bed.

"It's me," I rather weakly proclaimed.

"What has happened?" was the question that came after a moment's
silence.

I leaned with my face against the painted door-panel. It was smooth
and cool and pleasant to press one's skin against.

"They've found Dinkie," I said. I could hear the squeak of springs as
my husband sat up in bed.

"Is he all rig