r, said hesitatingly, in a lower voice: "I don't think you
will be able to get in at the Springs Hotel. If--if--you care to come
with me to--to--the ranch, I can take care of you."

The young editor--a man of action--paused for an instant only. Then
seizing his bag, he said promptly: "Thank you," and followed his
newly-found friend to the ground. The whip cracked, the coach rolled
away.

"You know Wilkes?" he said.

"Ye-ee-s. He's my father."

"Ah," said the editor cheerfully, "then you're going home?"

"Yes."

It was quite light in the open, and the stranger, after a moment's
survey of the prospect,--a survey that, however, seemed to be
characterized by his previous hesitation,--said: "This way," crossed
the road, and began to follow a quite plain but long disused wagon track
along the slope. His manner was still so embarrassed that the young
editor, after gayly repeating his thanks for his companion's thoughtful
courtesy, followed him in silence. At the end of ten minutes they had
reached some cultivated fields and orchards; the stranger brightened,
although still with a preoccupied air, quickened his pace, and then
suddenly stopped. When the editor reached his side he was gazing with
apparently still greater perplexity upon the level, half obliterated,
and blackened foundations of what had been a large farmhouse.

"Why, it's been burnt down!" he said thoughtfully.

The editor stared at him! Burnt down it certainly had been, but by no
means recently. Grasses were already springing up from the charred
beams in the cellar, vines were trailing over the fallen chimneys,
excavations, already old, had been made among the ruins. "When were you
here last?" the editor asked abruptly.

"Five years ago," said the stranger abstractedly.

"Five years!--and you knew nothing of THIS?"

"No. I was in Tahiti, Australia, Japan, and China all the time."

"And you never heard from home?"

"No. You see I quo'led with the old man, and ran away."

"And you didn't write to tell them you were coming?"

"No." He hesitated, and then added: "Never thought o' coming till I saw
YOU."

"Me!"

"Yes; you and--the high water."

"Do you mean to say," said the young editor sharply, "that you brought
ME--an utter stranger to you--out of that coach to claim the hospitality
of a father you had quarreled with--hadn't seen for five years and
didn't know if he would receive you?"

"Yes,--you see that's just WHY I did it. You see, I re