u over on the range. Mark the words,
'cook a meal for you on the range!' Ha-ha. How is that? I reckon I can
stand it to cook a meal for you if you can stand it to eat it. Speaking
of food reminds me that I smell bacon frying, so suppose we fall to and
devour it, provided it is fit to eat. Personally I am not overloaded
with confidence in Laundry's ability as a chef."

Night had settled over the mountains when they finally sat down on the
ground by the campfire to eat their supper, the first warm meal they had
had since starting out on their journey at daylight that morning.

Washington had done very well with his first meal, considering that he
so recently had been kicked out of camp by an irate mule, and the
Overland girls admitted that the little colored boy did know how to cook
after all, for the bacon, the coffee, and the potatoes, baked in their
jackets in hot ashes, were delicious.

The girls, however, had already found it necessary to read Wash a
lecture on the beauties of neatness and cleanliness, it having been
discovered that, in this direction, Wash-Wash was not all that his
nickname implied.

Wash, having been given permission, retired to the edge of the laurel to
resume his harmonica exercise. Lying back in the shadows, only the
whites of his eyes and the reflection of the light from the campfire on
teeth and harmonica were visible to the Overlanders, giving merely a
suggestion of a human countenance.

"A nature sketch in black and white," observed Anne Nesbit. "I should
think he would weary of blowing that thing so much. He has been doing so
all day long."

"Blowing? You are wrong," corrected Hippy. "A harmonica is played with a
grunt and a sigh. I could make a brand new pun on that if I wanted to,
but--"

"Don't you dare," begged Miss Briggs. "I am long-suffering, but I cannot
tolerate the ancient quality of your puns."

"Most spinsters are that way," retorted Lieutenant Wingate. "Tom, have
you any orders for me? I suppose I shall have to act as guardian for
your wife while you are absent from this outfit. If you have half as
difficult a time managing her as I do, I don't envy you your lot. The
only bright spot in the situation is that I have to put up with her
peculiarities for the duration of this journey only. You are in for
life."

"Hippy, I am ashamed of you," rebuked Nora Wingate.

"Thank you. You see, Tom, what a helpmate my little Nora is. I don't
have to feel ashamed of any act of mi