ajestic manner, meaning, if I know anything about the sign language,
'Exit in case of dog.' So we exits without even passing the time of the
day with her and continues upon our way through the bright sunshine. The
thermometer now registers at least ninety-eight in the shade, but then
of course we don't have to stay in the shade, and that's some
consolation.

"The next female land-owner we encounters lives away down in the woods.
She's plump and motherly-looking, with gold bows on her spec's. She is
out in her front garden picking pansies and potato bugs and other flora
and fauna common to the soil. She looks up as the gate-latch clicks, and
beholds me on the point of entering.

"'Madam,' I says, 'pardon this here intrusion but in us you behold two
weary travelers carrying no script and no purse. Might I ask you what
the chances are of us getting a square meal before we perish?'

"'You might,' she says.

"'Might what?' I says.

"'Might ask me,' she says,'but I warn you in advance, that I ain't very
good at conundrums. I'm a lone widder woman,' she says, 'and I've got
something to do,' she says, 'besides standing out here in the hot sun
answering riddles for perfect strangers,' she says. 'So go ahead,' she
says.

"'Madam,' I says pretty severe, 'don't trifle with me. I'm a desperate
man, and my friend here is even desperater than what I am. Remember you
are alone, and at our mercy and--'

"'Oh,' she says, with a sweet smile, 'I ain't exactly alone. There's
Tige,' she says.

"I don't see no Tige,' I says, glancing around hurriedly.

"'That ain't his fault,' she says. 'I'll call him,' she says, looking
like it wont be no trouble whatsoever to show goods.

"But we don't wait. 'Sweet Caps,' I says to him as we hikes round the
first turn in the road, 'this district ain't making no pronounced hit
with me. Every time you ast 'em for bread they give you a dog. The next
time,' I says,' anybody offers me a canine, I'm going to take him,' I
says. 'If he can eat me any faster than I can eat him,' I says, 'he'll
have to work fast. And,' I says, 'if I should meet a nice little clean
boy with fat legs--Heaven help him!'

"And just as I'm speaking them words we comes to a lovely glade in the
woods and stops with our mouths ajar and our eyes bulged out like push
buttons. 'Do I sleep,' I says to myself, 'or am I just plain delirious?'

"For right there, out in the middle of the woods, is a table with a
white cloth on it, and