tly against a
rock, and the Happy Family heard no more.

CHAPTER IV. Some Hopes

On the third day after the Happy Family decided that there should be
some word from Chicago; and, since that day was Sunday, they rode in a
body to Dry Lake after it. They had not discussed the impending tragedy
very much, but they were an exceedingly Unhappy Family, nevertheless;
and, since Flying U coulee was but a place of gloom, they were not
averse to leaving it behind them for a few hours, and riding where every
stick and stone did not remind then of the Old Man.

In Dry Lake was a message, brief but heartening:

"J. G. still alive. Some hopes".

They left the station with lighter spirits after reading that; rode to
the hotel, tied their horses to the long hitching pole there and went
in. And right there the Happy Family unwittingly became cast for the
leading parts in one of those dramas of the West which never is heard
of outside the theater in which grim circumstance stages it for a single
playing--unless, indeed, the curtain rings down on a tragedy that brings
the actors before their district judge for trial. And, as so frequently
is the case, the beginning was casual to the point of triviality.

Sary, Ellen, Marg'reet, Sybilly and Jos'phine Denson (spelled in
accordance with parental pronunciation) were swinging idly upon the
hitching pole, with the self-conscious sang froid of country children
come to town. They backed away from the Happy Family's approach, grinned
foolishly in response to their careless greeting, and tittered openly
at the resplendence of the Native Son, who was wearing his black Angora
chaps with the three white diamonds down each leg, the gay horsehair
hatband, crimson neckerchief and Mexican spurs with their immense
rowels and ornate conchos of hand-beaten silver. Sary, Ellen, Marg'reet,
Jos'phine and Sybilly were also resplendent, in their way. Their carroty
hair was tied with ribbons quite aggressively new, their freckles
shone with maternal scrubbing, and there was a hint of home-made
"crochet-lace" beneath each stiffly starched dress.

"Hello, kids," Weary greeted them amiably, with a secret smile over the
memory of a time when they had purloined the Little Doctor's pills and
had made reluctant acquaintance with a stomach pump. "Where's the circus
going to be at?"

"There ain't goin' to be no circus," Sybilly retorted, because she was
the forward one of the family. "We're going away; on the