"Joel!" whispered Lucy, who had a guilty conscience.

"Lucy, I never heard the beat of it. . . . Joel's smarter in some ways than we
thought, an' crazier in others. He had the sun figgered, but what'd he want to
run through town for? Why, never in my life have I seen such tickled riders."

"Dad!" almost screamed Lucy. "What did Joel do?"

"Wal, I see it this way. He couldn't or wouldn't wait for sundown. An' he
wasn't hankerin' to be burned. So he wallows in a 'dobe mud-hole an' covers
himself thick with mud. You know that 'dobe mud! Then he starts home. But he
hadn't figgered on the 'dobe gettin' hard, which it did--harder 'n rock. An'
thet must have hurt more 'n sunburn. Late this afternoon he came runnin' down
the road, yellin' thet he was dyin'. The boys had conniption fits. Joel ain't
over-liked, you know, an' here they had one on him. Mebbe they didn't try hard
to clean him off. But the fact is not for hours did they get thet 'dobe off
him. They washed an' scrubbed an' curried him, while he yelled an' cussed.
Finally they peeled it off, with his skin I guess. He was raw, an' they say,
the maddest feller ever seen in Bostil's Ford!"

Lucy was struggling between fear and mirth. She did not look sorry. "Oh! Oh!
Oh, Dad!"

"Wasn't it great, Lucy?"

"But what--will he--do?" choked Lucy.

"Lord only knows. Thet worries me some. Because he never said a word about how
he come to lose his clothes or why he had the 'dobe on him. An' sure I never