d never got
my right senses back for a long, long time afterward. In fact, I didn't
even know my own name or even recall you and Ma, or my old home back
here. I say, it was all a plumb blank till--till--"

"I know, till you heard about Hettie and--and--but go on. I'm a
listenin'."

"Well, there ain't much to tell." Dick Wrinkle was perspiring freely. He
took off his hat and wiped his red neck and bald pate with an impatient
hand. "Being hit that way, you see, was the last thing I remembered.
Folks say I must have wandered about over the plains like a wild animal
that didn't know how to do a thing but eat and drink what I could run
across. Some cowboys tuck me up and l'arned me to cook, and I followed
that for a long time. Then, t'other day, they put me on the back of a
bucking bronco, just for the fun o' the thing. I stayed on as long as I
could, but he finally flung me over on my head. That fetched me to. The
whole thing come back like a flash. Several years had slipped by, but
when I come to my right mind I thought that same storm was raging. I
refused to believe so much time had passed till a cowboy showed me the
date on a newspaper, and that plumb floored me."

"You don't say!" Old Wrinkle stroked his beard thoughtfully and, in
paternal sympathy, avoided his son's anxious eyes. "Well, well, that was
all-powerful curious, but--but I've read of sech things, and maybe
Hettie has, too; if she hain't, I'll try to show her that--I mean--but I
reckon I'd better trot over to the spring-house and kinder lead your Ma
up to it, and not have it sprung too suddenlike. She ain't one o' your
weak sort that flops down at the slightest report of good or bad luck,
but we'd better be on the safe side. I'll tell yore Ma, I say, an' then
I'll go up to the big house an see if I can do anything with Hettie."

"Well, maybe you'd better," Dick Wrinkle agreed, slowly, "and I reckon
you'd better give her a full account o' how it all happened. I don't
want to be eternally going over it. I've had enough of it myself."

"You mean about--yore crazy spell?" The old man stared inquiringly.

"Yes, about all that. I've told you--I've done give you full
particulars. You know as much about it as I do. A man out of his right
senses don't remember anything worth while, nohow."

"Well, I hope I'll git it straight, an' not backside foremost. It would
be funny if I begun it whar the bronco throwed you and ended up in the
tornado. Het will have to be