They were such nice lads; we already seemed like old friends. Yet they were strangers who had scratched their hands and muddied their clothes, and relinquished cheerfully the Sunday society of their ladies on our behalf. Too much to offer pay for, it seemed too much to accept without offering to pay. We learned then that such an offer outrages neither Western independence nor Southern chivalry when made in frank gratitude and good-fellowship. The first suggestion of payment invariably meets an off-hand but polite refusal, which tact may sometimes change to acceptance. If accepted, it is never as a tip, but as a return for services; offer it as a tip, and you offer an insult to a friend. We found it a good rule, as Americans dealing with Americans, to be graceful enough to play the more difficult role of recipient when we decently could, and in the spirit of the West, “pass it on to the next fellow.” Eagle Lake seemed as difficult to attain as the treasure beyond seven rivers of fire and seven mountains of glass. An hour’s clear sailing over roads no worse than ploughed fields brought it nearly in sight,--seven miles to go, under a pink sky lighted by a silver crescent. And then Toby, seeing a grassy lake on the side of the road, forsook two tried and trusty mud-holes for it, and ditched us again! Nearby was a farmhouse, with two men and a Ford standing in the driveway. Hardly had we “boaged,” our wheels churning a pool deep enough to bathe in, when we saw them loading shovels and tools into the car, and driving to our aid. They came with foreboding haste. They greeted us cheerfully--too cheerfully, we thought; joked about the hole, and admitted they spent most of their time shovelling people out. They knew their job--we had to admit that. They wrestled with the jack, setting it on a shovel to keep it from sinking in the swamp; profanely cheerful, fussed over the chains, which we later guiltily discovered were too short for our over-sized tires, backed their car to ours, tied a rope to it, and pulled. We sank deeper. They shoveled, jacked, chopped sage-brush, and commandeered every passing man and car. The leader of the wreckers was a Mr. Poole, a typical Westerner of the old school,--long, flowing gray whiskers, sombrero, and keen watchful face. He had also a delightful sense of humor,--was in fact so cheerful that we became more and more gloomy as we noted the array of Fords and men clustered about. It looked to us like a professional mud-hole. They hitched two Fords to the car, while eight men pushed from the back, but nothing came of the effort. A fine looking man named Sinclair, with gentle manners, was elected by the crowd to go for his mule team, “the finest pair in the county.” An hour later he came back. He had gone two miles, changed to overalls, and hitched up his mules in the meantime, returning astride the off beast.