"'You may think so,' I joshed him, 'but if I couldn't keep a place lookin' a little slicker 'n this, I'd sell out and give some better man a chance.'

"Did that faze him? Not on your life. He checked up both horses before he opened his mouth again.

"'You don't look none too slick yourself. How comes it you're trampin'

this hot weather?'

"I see what he was driving at and so I fed him the dope he wanted.

"'Well, I've had hard luck,' I says. 'I've been sick.'

"'You don't look sick,' he snapped out, quick as a flash. 'You look tolerable husky. You 'pear like one o' these chaps that eat up all they earn--eat and drink and gamble,' he went on, pilin' it up. 'I don't pity tramps a bit; they're all topers.'

"I took it meek as Moses.

"'Well,' I says, 'I'm just out of the hospital, and whilst I may seem husky, I need a good quiet place and a nice easy job for a while.

Moreover, I'm terrible hungry.'

"'You go 'long up to the house,' he says, 'and tell the girl in the kitchen to hand you out a plate of cold meat. I'll be along in a minute.'

"And off he went to the barn, leavin' me shakin' with his jolt. He was game all right! He figured me out as the prodigal son, and wa'n't goin'

to knuckle. He intended for me to do all the knee exercise. I drifted along up the path toward the kitchen.

"Judas! but it did seem nice and familiar. It was all so green and flowery after camp. There ain't a tree or a patch of green gra.s.s left in Cripple; but there, in our old yard, were lylock-trees, and rose-bushes climbin' the porch, and pinks and hollyhocks--and beehives, just as they used to set--and clover. Say, it nearly had me snifflin'. It sure did."

The memory of it rather pinched his voice as he described it, but he went on.

"Of course I couldn't live down there now--it's too low, after a man has breathed such air as this."

He looked out at the big clouds soaring round Pike's Peak.

"But the flowers and the gra.s.s they did kind o' get me. I edged round on the front side of the house, and, sure enough, there sat mother, just as she used to--in the same old chair.

"Cap, I want to tell you, I didn't play no circus tricks on _her_. Her head had grown white as snow and she looked kind o' sad and feeble. I began to understand a little of the worry I'd been to her. I said good evening, and she turned and looked at me. Then she opened her arms and called out my name."

His voice choked unmistakably this time, and it was a minute or two before he resumed.

"No jokes, no lies doin' there! I opened right up to her. I told her I'd done well, but that I didn't want father to know it just yet, and we sit there holdin' hands when the old man hove round the corner.

"'Stephen,' says mother, kind o' solemn, 'here's our son Edward.'

"Did the old man wilt, or climb the line fence and offer to shake hands?

Nitsky! He just shoved one hip onto the edge of the porch and remarked:

"'Does this dry spell reach as fur as where you've been?'"

He broke into silent laughter again, and I joined him. This was all so deeply characteristic of the life I had known in my youth that I writhed with delight. I understood the duel of wits and wills. I could see it proceed as my companion chuckled.

"Well, sir, we played that game all the evening. I told of all the bad leases I'd tackled--and how I'd been thrown from a horse and laid up for six months. I brought out every set-back and bruise I'd ever had--all to see if the old man would weaken and feel sorry for me."

"Did he?"

"Not for a minute! And sometimes, as I looked at him, I was sorry I'd come home; but when I was with mother I was glad. She 'phoned to sis, who lived in Jackson, and sis came on the lope, and we had a nice family party. Sis touched on Nancy McRae.

"'You remember her?' she asked.

"'I seem to,' I says, kind of slow, as if I was dredgin' my mind to find something.

"'Well, she's on the farm, just the same as ever--takin' care of the old man. Her mother's dead.'

"I didn't push that matter any farther, but just planned to ride over the next morning and see how she looked.

"All that evening sis and I deviled the old man. Mother had told sis about my mine--and so she'd bring out every little while how uncertain the gold-seekin' business was and how if I'd stayed on the farm I could 'a' been well off--and she'd push me hard when I started in on one of my hard-luck stories. I had to own up that I had walked out to save money, and that I was travelin' on an excursion ticket 'cause it was cheap--and so on.

"The old man's mouth got straighter and straighter and his eyes colder--but I told mother not to say anything till next day, and she didn't, although he tossed and turned and grunted half the night. He really took it hard; but he finally agreed to harbor me and give me a chance--so mother told me next morning--which was Sunday. I had planned to get home Sat.u.r.day night.

"Next morning after breakfast--and it _was_ a breakfast--I strolled out to the barn and, the carriage-shed door being open, I pulled the old buggy out--'peared like it was the very same one, and I was a-dustin'

the cushions and fussin' around when the old man came up.

"'What you doin' with that buggy?' he asks.

"'I jest thought I'd ride over and see Nance McRae,' I says, just as I did eleven years before.

"'I reckon you better think again,' he says, and rolls the buggy back into the shed, just the way he did before. 'If you want to see Nance McRae you can walk,' he says, and I could see he meant it.

"'All right,' I says, and out I stepped without so much as saying good-by, intendin' to go for good this time.

"I went across the road to Martin's and got a chance to 'phone into Jackson, and in about twenty minutes I was whirlin' over the road in a red-cushioned automobile that ran smooth as oil, and inside of half an hour I was rollin' through McRae's gate.

"Now, up to this time, I hadn't any notion of a program as to Nancy; I was all took up with gettin' ahead of dad. But when I found myself in front of old McRae, more down at the heel and raggeder in the seat than ever, I was a whole lot set back. What was I to say to him and to her? I didn't know. He was gappin' at me with the eyes of an owl, and so I opened up.

"'I see you have no lightnin'-rods?' I says. 'In this day and age of the world you can't afford to go without lightnin'-rods.'

"He wa'n't no fool, if he did wear rats in his hair, and he says:

"'I thought you was a cream-separator man. Are lightnin'-rods comin'

into style again?'

"'My kind is,' I says.

"'Well, the trade must be lookin' up,' he says, walkin' round and round my machine and eyin' it. 'I'm thinkin' of havin' one of them wagons for haulin' milk to town. Won't you light out?'

"'Don't care if I do,' I says, and out I rolled, feelin' a little shaky.

"I was mighty anxious to see Nance by this time, but felt shy of askin'

about her.

"'What _is_ the latest kink in rods?' asked the old cuss.