TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 9 



also, for these two never part, if they can help it. 

 They were at Sandhurst together, and afterwards 

 joined the same regiment. 



Then, in a flash, I guessed why Cecily had come 

 by way of Butte 1 



" You are as good at scratching as Miss Mamie 

 Potts," I said sternly. 



Cecily looked guilty, and I hope she blushed. We 

 peered round the door, and yes, there was Ralph, 

 running his finger down the back numbers of the 

 hotel register. He turned and spoke to his friend, 

 standing alongside, and in another moment came in 

 like a whirlwind, afire with pleasure at seeing Cecily 

 us, I mean. Ralph and his fidus Achates had been 

 after big-horn and wapiti in Wyoming and Montana, 

 and had come off with some fine heads, which we 

 might see on the morrow. Don't you love to- 

 morrow? To-morrows have but one drawback, they 

 so soon become yesterdays, and I hate yesterday as 

 much as old Omar did. 



'Twas such a glorious evening, such a merry 

 dinner, such retrospections, quips, and teasings. If 

 Cecily found a seventh heaven in a corner seat with 

 Ralph, I felt equally contented in my chat with the 

 elder warrior. He caught my meanings so quickly, 

 he loves the same things that I do, the humorous, 

 trie playful, the joyous, the pitiful, the pathetic, the 

 imaginative. We discussed the heads they had, and 

 the heads they hadn't, for with the sportsman it is 

 always the heads that are most worth having which 

 are not there. We spoke of our prospective Alaskan 



