n't much that grows in the
way o' standin' timber on the Pacific Slope that I don't know and can't
locate, though I DO say it. I've got ez big a mill, and ez big a run in
my district, ez there is anywhere. Ef you're ever up my way, you ask for
Bowers--Jim Bowers--and that's ME."

There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation between
strangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each other's
foibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superior woman,
naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped would reassure her
that she was not compromising herself in accepting his civility, and so
satisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On the other hand, the woman
regained her self-possession by this exhibition of Mr. Bowers's vanity,
and, revived by the refreshing breeze caused by the rapid motion of the
buggy along the road, thanked him graciously.

"I suppose there are many strangers at the Green Springs Hotel," she
said, after a pause.

"I didn't get to see 'em, as I only put up my hoss there," he replied.
"But I know the stage took some away this mornin': it seemed pretty well
loaded up when I passed it."

The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as a possible
return of her former nervous weakness. Her attention must at once be
distracted at any cost--even conversation.

"Perhaps," he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, "I'm a-talkin'
to Mrs. McFadden?"

"No," said the woman, abstractedly.

"Then it must be Mrs. Delatour? There are only two township lots on that
crossroad."

"My name IS Delatour," she said, somewhat wearily.

Mr. Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at all anxious to
know her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggest that there was
nothing more to say. He would, of course, have preferred to ask her
if she had read the poetry about the Underbrush, and if she knew the
poetess, and what she thought of it; but the fact that she appeared
to be an "eddicated" woman made him sensitive of displaying technical
ignorance in his manner of talking about it. She might ask him if it was
"subjective" or "objective"--two words he had heard used at the Debating
Society at Mendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?"
For a few moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiative
in conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as if
appreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding some relief
in monoto