Happy Jack did not realize that he was doing two thirds of the work about the cook-tent, but that was a fact.  Because Jakie could not drive the mess-wagon team, Happy Jack had been appointed his assistant.  As assistant he drove the wagon from one camping place to another, “rustled” the wood, peeled the potatoes, tended fires and washed dishes, and did the thousand things which do not require expert hands, and which, in time of stress, usually falls to the horse-wrangler.  Jakie was ever smiling and always promising, in his purring voice, to cook something new and delicious, and left with the leisure which Happy’s industry gave him, he usually kept his promise.

“Now, Mr. Happy,” he would smile, “I am agreeable to place the confidence in your so gracious person that you prepare the potatoes, yes?  And that you attend to the boiling of meat and the unpacking and arrangement of those necessary furnishings for fich you possess the great understanding.  And I shall prepare the so delicious dessert of the floating island, what you call in America.  Yes?  Our friends will have the so delightful astonishment when they arrive.  They shall exclaim and partake joyously, is it not?  And for your reward, Mr. Happy, I shall be so pleased to set aside a very extensive portion of the delicious floating island, so that you can eat no more except you endanger your handsome person from the bursting.  Yes?” And oh, the smile of him!

A man of sterner stuff than Happy Jack would have fallen before such guile and would have labored willingly—­nay, gladly in the service of so delightful a diplomat as Jakie.  Except for that willing service, Jakie would have been quite overwhelmed by the many and peculiar duties of a roundup cook.  He would have been perfectly helpess before the morning and noon packing of dishes and food, and the skilful haste necessary to unpack and prepare a meal for fifteen ravenous appetites within the time limit would have been utterly impossible.  Jakie was a chef, trained to his profession in well-appointed kitchens and with assistance always at hand; which is a trade apart from cooking for a roundup crew.

Happy Jack, in the fulness of time, returned with the eggs.  That is, he returned with six eggs and a quart or two of a yellowish mixture thickly powdered with shell.  He took the pail to Jakie and he saw the seraphic smile fade from his face and an unpleasant glitter creep into his eyes.

“It is the omelet fich you furnish, yes?  The six eggs, they will not make the pudding.  The omelet—­I do not perceive yet the desirableness of the omelet.  And the juvenile hen—­yes?”

“Aw, they wouldn’t sell no chickens.”  Happy Jack’s face had gone long and scarlet before the patent displeasure of the other.  “And my horse was scared uh the bucket and pitched with me.”

Jackie looked again into the pail, felt gingerly the yellow mess and discovered one more egg which retained some semblance of its original form.  “The misfortune distresses me,” he murmured.  “It is that you return hastily, Mr. Happy, and procure other eggs fich you will place unbroken in my waiting hands, yes?”