“Yes, sir. Will you please walk in?” They followed her into a library, in which a wood fire was crackling merrily in the chimney-place. Allan felt like an impostor. Pete calmly selected the easiest chair and lowered himself into it with a deep sigh of contentment. “This is something like!” he said. “I’ll bet we’ll get two or three kinds of pie, Allan.” But Allan, sitting uncomfortably on the edge of a straight-backed chair, only smiled distressedly and listened to the footsteps coming nearer and nearer down the uncarpeted hall. The footsteps reached the door; Pete and Allan got to their feet as the door swung open. “Mr. Guild--” began Pete. Then he stopped short. Before them was the owner of the ducks! CHAPTER XI THE CAPSIZED BOAT Allan and Pete didn’t forget that day for a long time. In retrospect, it was the brightest one between the beginning of the college year and the Christmas recess. For long afterward Pete would point with pride to his performance at table on that day, and declare that he believed that should he live to be a hundred he could never eat as much again. Dinner began at two o’clock and ended, not because of lack of further viands but because of inability on the part of the guests, at half-past four. The family at Hillcrest consisted of Mr. Guild, his wife, a pleasant-faced and sweet-voiced woman several years his junior, and a three-year-old son and heir, who did not make his appearance at table but who was afterward ceremoniously introduced in the nursery. Both host and hostess appeared to have no other desire in life than to make the two guests happy and utterly ruin their digestions. Even Pete had had momentary qualms over appearing at table in the unconventional attire of shooting-coat and flannel shirt, but their objections had been politely overruled, and by the time the turkey had made its appearance they had both lost sight of the fact that they were not dressed in the mode. It was while carving the turkey that the morning’s episode was recalled. “This, Mr. Burley,” said their host, “is only turkey. Had there been more time, we would have had a duck prepared for you.” Allan wondered, while he laughed, whether Mrs. Guild had heard the story of the duck-hunt. The demure expression about her mouth led him to suspect that she had. After dinner they adjourned to the library again, and Pete was induced to smoke a cigar, although, as Allan guessed, he would much rather have used his corn-cob pipe. Mrs. Guild disappeared for a while, and Pete and Allan stretched themselves luxuriously in front of the fire and listened to their host and did a good deal of talking themselves. Mr. Guild led them to tell of their college life, and displayed such sympathy with their views and ambitions that at the end of an hour the two boys had become his enthusiastic admirers. He knew the West like a book, and Pete became quite excited--for Pete--swapping recollections and stories of “out there.”