Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/181

 “Yes, about once a month.”

“Don’t you just hate it?”

“You bet I do!” (Another link forged in friendship’s chain.) “But I make short work of it, slap ’em through in a hurry and throw ’em on the bushes to dry; and I never wash them things,”—pointing to the suds-soaked effigy of Thomas, now slowly sinking into the waters of oblivion. “You see mine get just plastered with pitch; water wouldn’t even wet ’em. I wear ’em till things get to stickin’ to me, then burn ’em.”

I fancied him in his strange suit of armor, stalking about in the gloom of the forest, with feathers, ferns, shavings, pine needles, and cones sticking to him, giving him the look of some gigantic woodland satyr.

But the best of friends must part; his cart was soon climbing the long hills, and I gathering up the mail with the joy of Silas Marner gloating over the pot of gold hidden beneath his loom. I had resolved to keep it all intact until my work was done, and then enjoy it with a clear conscience; and I might have done so but for a mysterious package, very heavy and oblong, not unlike a gold brick, too tempting to be resisted. Eager fingers hurriedly removed the heavy outer wrapper, then a lighter one, then one of tissue paper, and there appeared the most beautiful book,—fine paper, exquisite type, wide margins, and choice illustrations.

Thinking gratefully and lovingly of the generous