up. By the way, Slim, where is it now?"

Slim pointed to the bushes with an expression of chagrin on his fat
face. "It's gone," he said with a sigh of regret. "A dollar and
eighty-seven cents' worth of chicken stew running loose on the
landscape."

"But it wasn't the nerve I lacked to chop its head off," he added,
looking reproachfully at the Captain. "It was the hatchet. You see," he
explained, "we didn't exactly come prepared to catch our meals on the
hoof, so to speak, and all I had to chop his head off with was the
can-opener on my pocket knife, and that wouldn't work, so I _had_ to
drown him."

"Oh, you funny boys!" said Sahwah, laughing uncontrollably.

"I think you might have helped me hold him down," said Slim to the
Captain in an injured tone.

"I couldn't," replied the Captain gravely. "The butter got overcome with
the heat and I was reviving it with a fan."

"Oh, you babes in the woods, you!" said Sahwah, with another burst of
laughter. "You must be having the time of your lives."

"We are," replied the Captain. "Won't you stay to dinner? There isn't
anything to eat but a can of tomato soup, but you're welcome to that."

"Oh, we hadn't better," replied Sahwah, "they will be wondering at home
what has become of us, and besides, it would make too much trouble for