AT THE DIAMOND BAR 181 
last ‘‘good night’’ said, as we walked campward up 
the creek, we could not quite adjust ourselves to the 
situation. We looked curiously, now and again, at 
Horace. He strode along vigorously, proudly, head. 
in air, rapt and still intoxicated by the luxury of 
self expression and the incense of unstinted admira- 
tion. 
Each one of us was silent, busy with his own 
thoughts. Horace’s mood remained undesecrated, 
his triumph and his happiness complete, without a 
flaw. 
The next day, Sunday, Horace was still under the 
spell of the events of the preceding night. His ela- 
tion had not perceptibly ebbed. He was in far bet- 
ter conceit with himself than we had been used to 
seeing him of late. We wondered whether it might 
not become necessary to tone him down a little be- 
fore he could be trusted to work to advantage. But 
as it happened, fate spared us that task. 
Most of us had washing to do, that morning, so 
we walked down the creek about a half mile to where 
we might precede the laundry work by a swim. The 
water was ice-cold and no one stayed in very long. 
Horace, a good swimmer, was the last to acknowl- 
edge its chilling effect. He even ventured on some 
mild ‘‘horsing,’’ as one by one we others, blue lipped 
and shaking, sought the bank and hastily donned our 
clothes. 
We were nearly dressed and Horace, for our de- 
lectation, was demonstrating the ‘‘crawl’’ in about 
