wash-tubs,
grouped together in a semicircle, stood on wooden trestles, and a
quaint-looking little man was bending over one of them washing
clothes, rubbing and beating a handful of garments on a board like any
washerwoman. His back was turned to the path, and he faced the river.
On his right stood an iron furnace and boiler, with steam escaping
from under the lid. And all around him the bushes were hung with
drying clothes.

"Hello!" cried Tresler, as he slipped to the ground.

"Holy smoke!"

The scrubbing and banging had ceased, and the most curiously twisted
face Tresler had ever seen glanced back over the man's bowed shoulder.
A red, perspiring face, tufted at the point of the chin with a knot of
gray whisker, a pair of keen gray eyes, and a mouth--yes, it was the
mouth that held Tresler's attention. It went up on one side, and had
somehow got mixed up with his cheek, while a suggestion of it was
continued by means of a dark red scar right up to the left eye.

For a second or two Tresler could not speak, he was so astonished, so
inclined to laugh. And all the while the gray eyes took him in from
head to foot; then another exclamation, even more awestruck, broke
from the stranger.

"Gee-whizz!"

And Tresler sobered at once.

"Where's Mosquito Bend Ranch?" he asked.

The little man dropped his washing and turned round, propping himself
against the edge of the tub.

"Skitter Bend Ranch?" he echoed slowly, as though the meaning of the
question had not penetrated to his intellect. Then a subdued whisper
followed. "Gee, but I----" And he looked down at his own clothes as
though to reassure himself.

Tresler broke in; he understood the trend of the other's thoughts.

"Yes, Mosquito Bend," he said sharply.

"Nigh to a mile on. Keep to the trail, an' you'll strike Blind Hell in
a few minutes. Say----" He broke off, and looked up into Tresler's
face.

"Yes, I'm going there. You don't happen to belong to--to Blind Hell?"

"Happen I do," assured the washerman. "I do the chores around the
ranch. Joe Nelson, once a stock raiser m'self. Kerrville, Texas.
Now----" He broke off, and waved a hand in the direction of the drying
clothes.

"Well, I'm John Tresler, and I'm on my way to Mosquito Bend."

"So you're the 'tenderfoot,'" observed the choreman, musingly. "You're
the feller from Noo England as Jake's goin' to lick into shape."

"Going to teach, you mean."

"I s'pose I do," murmured the other gently, but