he
come in late. I betche yuh dassent stand and say that before Chip, yuh
blamed old Dutch--" Just there, Happy Jack dodged and escaped getting
more than a third of the basin of water which came splashing out of
the tent.

The group under the willows could no longer lie at ease while they
listened; they jumped up and moved closer, just as a crowd always does
surge nearer and nearer to an exciting centre. They did not, however,
interfere by word or deed.

"If yuh wasn't just about ready t' die of old age and general
cussedness," stormed Happy Jack, "I'd just about kill yuh for that."
This, however, is a revised version and not intended to be exact. "I
want my supper, and I want it blame quick, too, or there'll be a dead
Dutchman in camp. No, yuh don't! You git out uh that tent and lemme
git in, or--" Happy Jack had the axe in his hand by then, and he swung
it fearsomely and permitted the gesture to round out his sentence.

Perhaps there would have been something more than words between them,
for even a Happy Jack may be goaded too far when he is hungry; but
Chip, who had been washing out some handkerchiefs down by the creek,
heard the row and came up, squeezing a ball of wet muslin on the way.
He did not say much when he arrived, and he did not do anything more
threatening than hang the handkerchiefs over the guy-ropes to dry,
tying the corners to keep the wind from whipping them away up the
coulee, but the result was satisfying--to Happy Jack, at least. He ate
and was filled, and Patsy retired from the fray, sullenly owning
defeat for that time at least. He went up the creek out of sight from
camp, and he stayed there until the dusk was so thick that his big,
white-aproned form was barely distinguishable in the gloom when he
returned.

At daylight he was his old self, except that he was perhaps a trifle
gruff when he spoke and a good deal inclined to silence, and harmony
came and abode for a season with the Flying U.

Patsy had for years cooked for Jim Whitmore and his "outfit"; so many
years it was that memory of the number was never exact, and even the
Old Man would have been compelled to preface the number with a few
minutes of meditation and a "Lemme see, now; Patsy's been cooking for
me--eighty-six was that hard winter, and he come the spring--no, the
fall before that. I know because he like to froze before we got the
mess-house chinked up good--I'll be doggoned if Patsy ain't gitting
_old_!" That was it, pe