Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/93

 thing so beautiful possibly taste so vile? It surely had not absorbed the odors of cookery, as the cream had been kept out in the pure air. Yet there it was,—a bad-tasting, ill-smelling lump of yellow hypocrisy. At first I thought I’d carry it up the yard to a thicket of salmon bushes so dense no human being could penetrate it, hurl the mass of iniquity into its most secret fastnesses, then hurry back and remove all traces of the late struggle before the “return of the natives,” and never tell a living soul about it. But I soon saw that scheme would never work. Tom had been as proud as Punch over that cream; he would miss it, and explanations would be called for. So I sat down, and mused drearily upon the Wandering Willies’ return and the horrible surprise awaiting them.