how he loved it!




CHAPTER V.

LUCILLE.


"If you drinks a drop more, Miss Lucy, you'll just go like my pore
young sister goed," observed Cook in a warning voice, as Lucille
paused to get her second wind for the second draught.

(Lucille had just been tortured at the stake by Sioux and
Blackfeet--thirsty work on a July afternoon.)

"And how did she go, Cookie-Bird--_Pop?_" inquired Lucille politely,
with round eyes, considering over the top of the big lemonade-flagon
as it rose again to her determined little mouth.

"No, Miss Lucy," replied Cook severely. "Pop she did not. She swole
... swole and swole."

"You mean 'swelled,' Cookoo," corrected Lucille, inclined to be a
little didactic and corrective at the age of ten.

"Well, she were _my_ sister after all, Miss Lucy," retorted Cook, "and
perhaps I may, or may not, know what she done. _I_ say she swole--and
what is more she swole clean into a dropsy. All along of drinking