It is perhaps needless to add that the gathering of all these was the work of most of a morning. I don’t believe I ever saw anything more pathetic than the little stove stranded on a bar some distance down the river, its tiny legs lifted in appeal to the now speckless heavens. Perhaps it was thinking of the untimely fate of the frying pan and kettle that had warmed themselves at its fires so often. When Cunningham gazed upon this jettisoned cargo his face betrayed his feelings. His soul, which loved cleanliness, order, and system with a blind worship, revolted. One could see that it was in his mind for the moment to “jump the country,” but it passed. The determination and courage which were at the bottom of the man’s nature rose in force, and he busied himself in restoring the former status, singing a loud air without any tune to it, the while. The territory of Dakota was a large country--some of the belongings never appeared again. It is pleasant to think that Cunningham’s card-case may have fallen into the hands of a wandering Indian, and thus spread the refinements of civilization. It seemed that our friend was going to buck the elements on first principles--put up the tent in the same old way, and have it blown to Halifax in the same old way to a dead certainty. There was no more use in trying to argue with him on the subject than if it were a question of politics; but Billy, who used more tact in one minute than I could understand in ten, turned the point without the least friction. He asked Cunningham to expound the theory of the levitation of the tent again. It was done, at length, and breadth, and thickness. “Now, as I understand it,” said Billy, “a vacuum’s a place where there ain’t anything, and when things try to get in it makes trouble--are my sights at the right elevation?” I assured him he was correct so far. “Well, then, see here, Cunny, why don’t you kind of fill in around the tent with sods? You can’t make much of a vacuum out of good deep-cut sods, I’ll bet my wardrobe. You see the place where the vacuum would have to be, to do you dirt, will be occupied and it can vacuumize all it wants to around the prairie after that, and you needn’t care.” “An ex-cellent idea! “cried Cunningham. “I thank you very much, Mr. Wykam.” So it came to pass that Tent Cunningham was surrounded by a wall of sod eight feet high and four feet thick. The only criticism I heard was from a stranger who put up at Billy’s for a while. One morning he came in and took me by the shoulder, “Come with me,” he said. We went on until Tent Cunningham hove in sight. “I’ve seen lots of what strikes me as strange things in this country,” the stranger said, “but that place knocks the spots off the cards. Would you be kind enough to tell me what that wild-Injun-peaceful-settler contraption is?” “That?” I asked with a sober face. “Why, that’s Camp Cunningham.”