We could see that there was considerable grass and quite an oasis around the pond.  But in every other direction there was nothing but sand billows, all scooped out on their northwest sides where the fierce winds of winter had gnawed at them.  The afternoon sun was sinking, and every dune cast a dark shadow on the light yellow of the sand, making a great landscape of glaring light covered with black spots.  A coyote sat on a buffalo skull on top of the next hill and looked at us.  A little owl flitted by and disappeared in one of the shadows.

“This is like being adrift in an open boat,” I said to Ollie.  “We must hurry on and catch the Rattletrap.”

“I’m in the open boat,” answered Ollie.  “You’re just simply swimming about without even a life-preserver on.”

We turned and started for the trail.  We found it, but we had spent more time in the hills than we realized, and before we had gone far it began to grow dark.  We waded on, and at last saw Jack’s welcome camp-fire.  When we came up we smelled grouse cooking, and he said: 

“While you fellows were chasing about and getting lost I gathered in a brace of fat grouse.  What you want to do next time is to take along your hat full of oats, and perhaps you can coax the antelope to come up and eat.”

The camp was near another railroad station called Eli.  We had been gradually working north, and were now not over three or four miles from the Dakota line; but Dakota here consisted of nothing but the immense Sioux Indian Reservation, two or three hundred miles long.

The next morning Jack complained of not feeling well.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” I asked.

“Gout,” answered Jack, promptly.  “I’m too good a cook for myself.  I’m going to let you cook for a few days, and give my system a rest.”

[Illustration:  Dark Doings of the Cook]

This seemed very funny to Ollie and me, who had been eating Jack’s cooking for two or three weeks.  The fact was that the gouty Jack was the poorest cook that ever looked into a kettle, and he knew it well enough.  He could make one thing—­pancakes—­nothing else.  They were usually fairly good, though he would sometimes get his recipes mixed up, and use his sour-milk one when the milk was sweet, or his sweet-milk one when it was sour; but we got accustomed to this.  Then it was hard to spoil young and tender fried grouse, and the stewed plums had been good, though he had got some hay mixed with them; but the flavor of hay is not bad.  We bought frequently of “canned goods” at the stores, and this he could not injure a great deal.

We did not pay much attention to Jack’s threat about stopping cooking.  He got breakfast after a fashion, mixing sour and sweet milk as an experiment, and though he didn’t eat much himself, we did not think he was going to be sick.  But after walking a short distance he declared he could go no farther, and climbed into the cabin and rolled upon the bed.