So said we all of us. Kim Ki and Neighbor passed the hat. The cow-men drew checks. Gale cashed them. The Parson counted up. It was a little over nine thousand six hundred dollars, and they made the buyers draw checks then to make up the even ten thousand. “Far be it from me to doubt your integrity,” says he with the hand-on-the-chest act. “But, as a precaution against carelessness, the Colonel, Mr. Tinnin, his Honor and Mr. Mossman will accompany us for an hour or so. Good night, and pleasant dreams! Try and control your humorous propensities. Charmed to have met you, I’m sure--and I hope to meet you Hereafter (with a capital H)--boys--not before! Good night!” And they went out the door with their hostages. VIII CAMP CUNNINGHAM THE STORY OF A DAKOTA STORM The population of Dakota in the early days was miscellaneous, to say the least of it. Men from every part of the world, from every station in life, and for many reasons, hobnobbed together in terms of free and equal intercourse. All social rules were turned topsy-turvy--or rather, ceased to exist. You could get a German baron to plow your garden for you, if you wanted style, and were not particular about the aim and scope of the furrows, and perhaps while the baron was plugging away, desperately struggling to keep the plow from emulating the exasperated worm of the old story, Jimmy O’Brien would come sailing by behind his team of 2:30 trotters on his way to deposit the money obtained by wise government contracts, and sing out a jovial greeting of “Stick to ’um, Bar’n, old man rocks! Thot’s th’ road t’ wealth--but ye’ll be a toird man when you land there!” And the baron would wave his hand in acknowledgment of the greeting, and smile grimly to himself in acknowledgment of the statement. All manner of younger sons inhabited the country, making nonsense of the occupations they took up under the disguise of earning an honest living, and for which, as a rule, they showed a superb incapacity. One of these scions of a noble house was James Cecil R. DeG. Cunningham--often known as Slim Jim or Pelican Cunningham--sometimes as just plain Cunny. He had a tent on a homestead on the banks of the Chantay Seeche River. It was a very clean, white tent. All the empty tin cans were piled up outside, like cannon-balls in a fort, and every morning the estate was carefully “policed.” No scraps and odds and ends littered the courtyard of Camp Cunningham.