“Sure.  Bought one, brand new, in the Falls.  It’s over at the hotel now, with a haughty, buckskin-colored suitcase that fair squeals with style and newness.”  Pink pulled his silver belt-buckle straight and patted his pink-and-blue tie approvingly.

“Well, if you’re ready, I’ll get the horses these two hoboes rode in, and we’ll drift.  By the way, how shall I write you on the book?”

Pink stooped and with his handkerchief carefully, wiped the last speck of Dry Lake dust from his shiny toes.  “Yuh won’t crawfish on me, if I tell yuh?” he inquired anxiously, standing up and adjusting his belt again.

“Of course not.”  Chip looked his surprise at the question.

“Well, it ain’t my fault, but my lawful, legal name is Percival Cadwallader Perkins.”

“Wha-at?”

“Percival Cad-wall-ader Perkins.  Shall I get yuh something to take with it?”

Chip, with his pencil poised in air, grinned sympathetically.  “It’s sure a heavy load to carry,” he observed solemnly.  “How do you spell that second shift?”

Pink told him, spelling the word slowly, syllable by syllable.  “Ain’t it fierce?” he wanted to know.  “My mother must have sure been frivolous and light-minded when I was born.  I’m the only boy she ever had, and there was two grandfathers that wanted a kid named after ’em; they sure make a hot combination.  Yuh know what Cadwallader means, in the dictionary?”

“Lord, no!” said Chip, putting away his book.

“Battle arranger,” Pink told him sadly.  “Now, wouldn’t that jostle yuh?  It’s true, too; it has sure arranged a lot uh battles for me.  It caused me to lick about six kids a day, and to get licked by a dozen, when I went to school.  So, seeing the name was mine, and I couldn’t chuck it, I went and throwed in with an ex-pugilist and learned the trade thorough.  Since then things come easier.  Folks don’t open up the subject more’n a dozen times before they take the hint.  And this summer I fell in with a ju-jutsu sharp—­a college-fed Jap that sure savvied things a white man never dreams except in nightmares.  I set at his feet all summer learning wisdom.  I ain’t afraid now to wear my name on my hatband.”

“Still, I wouldn’t,” said Chip dryly.  “Hike over and get the haughty new war-bag, and we’ll hit the sod.  I’ve got to be in camp by dinner-time.”

A mile out Pink looked down at his festal garments and smiled.  “I expect I’ll be pickings for your Happy Family when they see me in these war-togs,” he remarked.

Chip turned and regarded him meditatively for a minute.  “I was just wondering,” he said slowly, “if the Happy Family wouldn’t be pickings for you.”

Pink dimpled wickedly and said nothing.

The Happy Family were at dinner when Chip and Pink rode up and dismounted by the bed-tent.  Chip and Pink went over to where the others were sitting in various places and attitudes, and the Happy Family received them, not with the nudges and winks one might justly expect, but with decorous silence.