washing on the
quaking-asp. It was dry enough. Laying his pipe and hat on the ground, he
proceeded to get into the clean shirt.

"Poor little things!" he said from its somewhat damp depths. "They was
plum scared of me!"

The shirt on, he did its mate into a bundle, cut a forked stick upon which
to sling it, stamped out the last ember of his dying fire, took his hat
and pipe, and started north up the creek trail.

Vivian and Mary did not stop their wild gallop until they were well in
sight of the nearest house on the prairie. Blue gentians for Miss Wallace,
which had been their errand, were quite forgotten. So also was the glory
of the morning. Instead, there ever rose before their still startled eyes
a black-whiskered, coatless man, smoking the stub of a dirty pipe beneath
a cottonwood.

"Mary," said Vivian, gathering courage as the Keith house came into view,
and breaking a long, frightened silence, "Mary, did you ever see any one
so villainous-looking in your life--outside of the movies, I mean? I
guess my heart will never stop thumping! I wish Virginia had been with us!
She's always saying there's no one around here to harm any one. I just
wish she had!"

"I sort of wish we hadn't run so," returned Mary, pulling her horse down
to a walk. "Maybe he wasn't any one harmful at all, only he scared me so I
never stopped to think. I'd hate to be a snob, even to a tramp!"

"I wouldn't! I glory in it! And, besides, you needn't worry. It takes time
to be a snob, and we didn't waste a moment. Here's the Keith house. Hadn't
we best go in for a moment? There's Carver now playing with Kenneth."

The Keiths, upon hearing the story, quieted Vivian's fears, and confirmed
Mary's increasing regret. The man was only a hobo, Donald said, doubtless
seeking work. They looked unmistakably rough, but were often good fellows
inside. Probably he wouldn't have frightened them for the world.

"I wish this fellow would stray our way," he added. "We're going to be in
need of extra hands when threshing comes, and it won't be long now. Dad
would welcome him all right."

Vivian stared at Donald, incredulous and speechless. There was no need of
asking him if he meant what he had just said. Apparently that horrible
creature back there by the creek, the very remembrance of whom caused cold
shivers to run over Vivian, would be given a welcome by the Keith family.
Vivian's nose, already a trifle high, rose higher. Democracy was
unquestionably a