was not entirely remote from the West. Men
like Howard and his friend John Carr, types she had never looked to
find here, linked East and West.

Juanito, with lowered, bashful eyes, brought coffee, ripe olives from
the can, potato salad, and thick, hot steaks. Soon thereafter the boys
began to straggle in. Helen heard them at the gate, noisy and eager;
for them the supper hour was diurnally a time of a joyous lift of
spirit. They clattered along the porch like a crowd of schoolboys just
dismissed; they washed outside by the kitchen door with much splashing;
they plastered their hair with the common combs and brushes and entered
the shortest way, by the kitchen. They called to each other back and
forth; there was the sound of a tremendous clap as some big open hand
fell resoundingly upon some tempting back and a roar from the stricken
and a gale of booming laughter from the smiter and the scuffle of boots
and the crashing of two big bodies falling. Then they came trooping in
until fifteen or twenty had entered.

One by one Howard introduced them. Plainly none of them knew of
Helen's presence; all of their eyes showed that. Among them were some
few who grew abashed; for the most part they ducked their heads in
acknowledgment and said stiffly, 'Pleased to meet you,' in wooden
manner to both Longstreet and his daughter. But their noisiness
departed from them and they sat down and ate in business-like style.

Never had Helen sat down with so rough a crowd. They were in shirt
sleeves; some wore leathern wrist guards; their vests were open, their
shirts dingy, they were unshaven and their hair grew long and ragged;
they brought with them a smell of horses. There was one man among them
who must have been sixty at the least, a wiry, stoop, white-haired,
white-moustached Mexican. There were boys between seventeen and
nineteen. There were Americans; at least one Swede; a Scotchman;
several who might have been any sort of mixture of southern bloods.
And among them all Helen knew at once, upon the instant that he
swaggered in, El Joven, Yellow Barbee.

The two names fitted him as his two gloves may fit a man's hands; among
the young he was The Youngster, as among blondes he was Yellow Barbee.
His dress was extravagantly youthful; his boots bore the tallest heels,
he was full-panoplied as to ornate wristbands and belt and chaps as
though in full holiday attire; one might wager on the fact of his hat
on a nail outsid