from the scant surplus which he had prudently brought along.

Till sundown he climbed toilfully up the steep hills and then
scrambled as toilfully into the coulees, taking the straightest course
he knew for the mouth of Suction Creek; that, as a last resort, while
he watched keenly for the white flake against green which would tell
of a tent pitched there in the wilderness. He was hungry--when he
forgot other discomforts long enough to think of it. Worst, perhaps,
was the way in which the gaunt sage brush scratched his unclothed legs
when he was compelled to cross a patch on some coulee bottom. Happy
Jack swore a great deal, in those long, heat-laden hours, and never
did he so completely belie the name men had in sarcasm given him.

Just when he was given over to the most gloomy forebodings, a white
square stood out for a moment sharply against a background of pines,
far below him in a coulee where the sun was peering fleetingly before
it dove out of sight over a hill. Happy Jack--of a truth, the most
unhappy Jack one could find, though he searched far and long--stood
still and eyed the white patch critically. There was only the one; but
another might be hidden in the trees. Still, there was no herd grazing
anywhere in the coulee, and no jingle of cavvy bells came to his ears,
though he listened long. He was sure that it was not the camp of the
Flying U, where he would be ministered unto faithfully, to be sure,
yet where the ministrations would be mingled with much wit-sharpened
raillery harder even to bear than was his present condition of
sun-blisters and scratches. He thanked the Lord in sincere if
unorthodox terms, and went down the hill in long, ungraceful strides.

It was far down that hill, and it was farther across the coulee. Each
step grew more wearisome to Happy Jack, unaccustomed as he was to