"What's the matter, Jack?" I asked.

"Gout," answered Jack, promptly. "I'm too good a cook for
myself. I'm going to let you cook for a few days, and give my
system a rest."

[Illustration: Dark Doings of the Cook]

This seemed very funny to Ollie and me, who had been eating
Jack's cooking for two or three weeks. The fact was that the
gouty Jack was the poorest cook that ever looked into a
kettle, and he knew it well enough. He could make one
thing--pancakes--nothing else. They were usually fairly good,
though he would sometimes get his recipes mixed up, and use his
sour-milk one when the milk was sweet, or his sweet-milk one when
it was sour; but we got accustomed to this. Then it was hard to
spoil young and tender fried grouse, and the stewed plums had
been good, though he had got some hay mixed with them; but the
flavor of hay is not bad. We bought frequently of "canned goods"
at the stores, and this he could not injure a great deal.

We did not pay much attention to Jack's threat about stopping
cooking. He got breakfast after a fashion, mixing sour and sweet
milk as an experiment, and though he didn't eat much himself, we
did not think he was going to be sick. But after walking a short
distance he declared he could go no farther, and climbed into the
cabin and rolled upon the bed.

Ollie and I ploughed along with the sand still streaming,