"
"Aha! We own the location," repeated Jimmy. "I should say we do!
Behold our hotbed of riches! I often lay awake nights thinkin'
about my attachmint to the place.
"How dear to me heart are the scanes of me childhood,
Fondly gaze on the cabin where I'm doomed to dwell,
Those chicken-coop, thim pig-pen, these highly piled-wood
Around which I've always raised Hell."
Jimmy turned in at his own gate, while Dannie passed to the cabin
beyond. He entered, set the dripping rat bag in a tub, raked open
the buried fire and threw on a log. He always ate at Jimmy's when
Jimmy was at home, so there was no supper to get. He went out to
the barn, wading mud ankle deep, fed and bedded his horses, and
then went over to Jimmy's barn, and completed his work up to milking.
Jimmy came out with the pail, and a very large hole in the bottom of
it was covered with dried dough. Jimmy looked at it disapprovingly.
"I bought a new milk pail the other night. I know I did," he said.
"Mary was kicking for one a month ago, and I went after it the night
I met Ruben O'Khayam. Now what the nation did I do with that pail?"
"I have wondered mysel'," answered Dannie, as he leaned over and
lifted a strange looking object from a barrel. "This is what ye
brought home, Jimmy."
Jimmy stared at the shining, battered, bullet-punctured pail in
amazement. Slowly he turned it over and around, and then he lifted
bewildered eyes to Dannie.
"Are you foolin'?" he asked.
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