ught he was a tramp! The young man
smiled, and glanced down ruefully at his shabby attire. Well, so had
others thought, whom he had encountered in his journey.

But who and what was the girl herself? She had asked no questions as to
how he had come to the condition in which she found him, but had nursed
his hurt, brought him to this cool resting-place; and was sharing her
food with him as unconcernedly as though she had known him all her life.

That quantity of provisions, the package of humble toilet articles, and
her furtiveness and haste to get away from the open road all pointed to
one fact--the girl was running away. But from whom or what? She had
taken him at his face value, and he had no right in the world to
question her, at least without giving some sort of account of himself.

"I have no intention of traveling by rail," he assured her. "A little
while before you found me--I don't quite know how long--I was crossing
that pasture which adjoins the wheat-field, thinking that this road
might be a short cut to Hudsondale, when something came after me from
behind and butted me over the fence. I think my head must have been cut
open by striking against a stone, for I don't remember anything more
until you poured that water over my face."

The girl nodded.

"I seen the stone with blood on it right near you; you must have bumped
off it an' turned over," she averred. "Anybody who goes traipsin'
through old Terwilliger's pasture is apt to meet up with that bull of
his."

So she had reasoned his predicament out without asking any of the
questions that another girl would have heaped upon him.

He turned to her suddenly with a fresh spark of interest in his eyes.

"How did you know that I didn't belong here?" he demanded.

The corners of her lips curled upward in a comical little grimace of
amusement, and he realized that before they had been set in a straight
line far too mature for her evident youth.

"No grown men 'round these parts wears short pants, an', anyhow, I knew
you were different from the way you talk; somethin' like the welfare
workers, with the hell an' brimstone left out," the girl replied
soberly. "I'm goin' to talk like you some day."

It was the first remark she had made voluntarily concerning herself, and
he was quick to seize his advantage.

"Who are you, young lady? You've been awfully kind to me, and I don't
know to whom my gratitude is due."

"Not to anybody." She turned her head away