ly made. Nothing worthy of mention occurred during the
afternoon, and that night we camped on the edge of another small
town, called Hay Springs.

"I don't know," said Jack, "whether or not they really have
springs here that flow with water and hay, or how it got its
funny name. If there are that kind of springs, I think it's a
pity there can't be some of them in the Sand Hills."

Jack went over town after supper for some postage-stamps, and
came back quite excited.

"Found it at last, Ollie!" he exclaimed. "Grandpa Oldberry
was right."

"What--a varmint?" asked Ollie.

"A genuine varmint," answered Jack. "A regular painter. It's
in a cage, to be sure, but it may get out during the night."

We all went over to see it. It was in a big box back of a
hotel, and the man in charge called it a mountain-lion, and said
it was caught up in the Black Hills. "Right where we're going,"
whispered Ollie. The animal was, I presume, really a jaguar, and
was a big cat three or four feet long.

We were off again the next morning, looking forward eagerly
to the camp for the night, which we expected would be at Chadron,
and where our course would change to the north into Dakota again,
this time on the extreme western edge, and carry us up to the
mountains. Most of the day we travelled through a rougher
country, and saw many buttes--steep-sided, flat-topped mounds;
and in the neighborhood of Bordeaux the road wound among
scattering pine-trees. We camped at noon near the house of a
settler who seemed to have a dog farm, as the place was overrun
with the animals. We needed some corn for the horses, and
asked him if he had any to sell. He was a queer looking man, with
hair the color of molasses candy, and skim-milk eyes.

[Illustration: A Good Salesman]

"Waal, now, stranger, I jess reckon I have got some co'n to
sell," he said. "The only trouble with that there co'n o' mine is
that it ain't shucked. If you wouldn't mind to go out into the
field and shuck it out, we can jess make a deal right here."

We finally gave him fifty cents for all our three sacks would
hold, and he pointed out the field a quarter of a mile away and
went back to the house. We noticed that he very soon mounted a
pony and rode away towards Hay Springs, but thought nothing of
it. When we were ready to start we drove over to the cornfield to
get what we had paid for. Jack put his head out of the wagon,
took a long look, and said:

"Th