“I don’t know,” said Jack, “whether or not they really have springs here that flow with water and hay, or how it got its funny name.  If there are that kind of springs, I think it’s a pity there can’t be some of them in the Sand Hills.”

Jack went over town after supper for some postage-stamps, and came back quite excited.

“Found it at last, Ollie!” he exclaimed.  “Grandpa Oldberry was right.”

“What—­a varmint?” asked Ollie.

“A genuine varmint,” answered Jack.  “A regular painter.  It’s in a cage, to be sure, but it may get out during the night.”

We all went over to see it.  It was in a big box back of a hotel, and the man in charge called it a mountain-lion, and said it was caught up in the Black Hills.  “Right where we’re going,” whispered Ollie.  The animal was, I presume, really a jaguar, and was a big cat three or four feet long.

We were off again the next morning, looking forward eagerly to the camp for the night, which we expected would be at Chadron, and where our course would change to the north into Dakota again, this time on the extreme western edge, and carry us up to the mountains.  Most of the day we travelled through a rougher country, and saw many buttes—­steep-sided, flat-topped mounds; and in the neighborhood of Bordeaux the road wound among scattering pine-trees.  We camped at noon near the house of a settler who seemed to have a dog farm, as the place was overrun with the animals.  We needed some corn for the horses, and asked him if he had any to sell.  He was a queer looking man, with hair the color of molasses candy, and skim-milk eyes.

[Illustration:  A Good Salesman]

“Waal, now, stranger, I jess reckon I have got some co’n to sell,” he said.  “The only trouble with that there co’n o’ mine is that it ain’t shucked.  If you wouldn’t mind to go out into the field and shuck it out, we can jess make a deal right here.”

We finally gave him fifty cents for all our three sacks would hold, and he pointed out the field a quarter of a mile away and went back to the house.  We noticed that he very soon mounted a pony and rode away towards Hay Springs, but thought nothing of it.  When we were ready to start we drove over to the cornfield to get what we had paid for.  Jack put his head out of the wagon, took a long look, and said: 

“That’s the sickest-looking cornfield I ever saw!”

We got out, and found a sorry prospect.  The corn was poor and scattering and choked with weeds.

“And the worst of it,” called Jack, as he waded out into the weeds, “is that it has been harvested about twelve times already.  The scoundrel has been selling it to every man that came along for a month, and I don’t believe there were three sackfuls in the whole field to start with.”

We went to work at it, and found that he was not far from right.

“No wonder the old skeesicks went off to town soon as he got his money,” I said.  “He won’t show himself back here till he is sure we have gone.”