Kate and I felt like perfect tramps beside her in our muddy old raiment , with our hair dressed by dead reckoning -- for we had not included a mirror in our baggage . There was a mirror in the shack , however -- small but good -- and we quickly made ourselves tidy at least , and Kate even went to the length of curling her bangs -- bangs were in style then and Kate had long , thick ones -- using the stem of a broken pipe of Mr. Hopkins 's for a curler . I was so tired that my vanity was completely crushed out -- for the time being -- and I simply pinned my bangs back . Later on , when I discovered that Mr. Lonsdale was really the younger son of an English earl , I wished I had curled them , but it was too late then . He did n't look in the least like a scion of aristocracy . He wore a cowboy rig and had a scrubby beard of a week 's growth . But he was very jolly and played the violin beautifully . After tea -- and a lovely tea it was , although , as Kate remarked to me later , there was no ham -- we had an impromptu concert . Mr. Lonsdale played the violin ; Mrs. Hopkins , who sang , was a graduate of a musical conservatory ; Mr. Hopkins gave a comic recitation and did a Cree war-dance ; Kate gave a spirited account of our adventures since leaving home and mother ; and I described -- with trimmings -- how I felt sitting alone in the democrat in a mud-hole , in a pouring rain on a vast prairie . Mrs. Hopkins , Kate , and I slept in the one bed the shack boasted , screened off from public view by a calico curtain . Mr. Lonsdale reposed in his accustomed bunk by the stove , but poor Mr. Hopkins had to sleep on the floor . He must have been glad Kate and I stayed only one night . * * * * * The fourth morning found us blithely hitting the trail in renewed confidence and spirits . We parted from our kind friends in the shack with mutual regret . Mr. Hopkins gave us a haunch of jumping deer and Mrs. Hopkins gave us a box of home-made cookies . Mr. Lonsdale at first thought he could n't give us anything , for he said all he had with him was his pipe and his fiddle ; but later on he said he felt so badly to see us go without any token of his good will that he felt constrained to ask us to accept a piece of rope that he had tied his outfit together with . The fourth day we got on so nicely that it was quite monotonous . The sun shone , the chinook blew , our ponies trotted over the trail gallantly . Kate and I sang , told stories , and laughed immoderately over everything . Even a poor joke seems to have a subtle flavour on the prairie .
For the first time I began to think Saskatchewan beautiful , with those far-reaching parklike meadows dotted with the white-stemmed poplars , the distant bluffs bannered with the airiest of purple hazes , and the little blue lakes that sparkled and shimmered XXXXX the sunlight on every hand .
although at by for in on over to with without