to go on without a guide?" I inquired dubiously. I
hadn't felt very safe with Peter Crow, but I felt still more unsafe
without him.

"Safe! Of course, it's safe--perfectly safe. I know the trail, and
we'll just have to drive around the wet places. It would have been
easier with Peter, and we'd have had less work to do, but we'll get
along well enough without him. I don't think I'd have bothered with
him at all, only I wanted to set Mother's mind at rest. She'll never
know he isn't with us till the trip is over, so that is all right.
We're going to have a glorious day. But, oh, for our lost ham! 'The
Ham That Was Never Eaten.' There's a subject for a poem, Phil. You
write one when we get back to civilization. Methinks I can sniff the
savoury odour of that lost ham on all the prairie breezes."

"Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these--it might have been,"

I quoted, beginning to wash the dishes.

"Saw ye my wee ham, saw ye my ain ham,
Saw ye my pork ham down on yon lea?
Crossed it the prairie last night in the darkness
Borne by an old and unprincipled Cree?"

sang Kate, loosening the tent ropes. Altogether, we got a great deal
more fun out of that ham than if we had eaten it.

As Kate had predicted, the day was glorious. The mists rolled away and
the sun shone brightly. We drove all day without stopping, save for
dinner--when the lost ham figured largely in our conversation--of
course. We said so many witty things about it--at least, we thought
them witty--that we laughed continuously through the whole meal,
which we ate with prodigious appetite.

But with all our driving we were not getting on very fast. The country
was exceedingly swampy and we had to make innumerable detours.

"'The longest way round is the shortest way to Bothwell,'" said Kate,
when we drove five miles out of our way to avoid a muskeg. By evening
we had driven fully twenty-five miles, but we were only ten miles
nearer Bothwell than when we had broken camp in the morning.

"We'll have to camp soon," sighed Kate. "I believe around this bluff
will be a good place. Oh, Phil, I'm tired--dead tired! My very
thoughts are tired. I can't even think anything funny about the ham.
And yet we've got to set up the tent ourselves, and attend to the
horses; and we'll have to scrape some of the mud off this beautiful
vehicle."

"We can leave that till the morning," I suggested.

"No, it will be too hard