injury. "Of course not," he said, with a
smile that was, however, still thoughtful. "Why should I? Only I ought
to tell you that Susy Peyton is living with her adopted parents not ten
miles from here, and it might reach their ears. She's quite a young lady
now, and if I wouldn't tell her story to strangers, I don't think YOU
ought to, Jim."

He said this so pleasantly that even the skeptical Jim forgot what he
believed were the "airs and graces" of self-abnegation, and said,
"Let's go inside, and I'll introduce you," and turned to the house. But
Clarence Brant drew back. "I'm going on as soon as my horse is fed,
for I'm on a visit to Peyton, and I intend to push as far as Santa Inez
still to-night. I want to talk with you about yourself, Jim," he
added gently; "your prospects and your future. I heard," he went on
hesitatingly, "that you were--at work--in a restaurant in San Francisco.
I'm glad to see that you are at least your own master here,"--he glanced
at the wagon. "You are selling things, I suppose? For yourself, or
another? Is that team yours? Come," he added, still pleasantly, but in
an older and graver voice, with perhaps the least touch of experienced
authority, "be frank, Jim. Which is it? Never mind what things you've
told IN THERE, tell ME the truth about yourself. Can I help you in any
way? Believe me, I should like to. We have been old friends, whatever
difference in our luck, I am yours still."

Thus adjured, the redoubtable Jim, in a hoarse whisper, with a furtive
eye on the house, admitted that he was traveling for an itinerant
peddler, whom he expected to join later in the settlement; that he
had his own methods of disposing of his wares, and (darkly) that his
proprietor and the world generally had better not interfere with him;
that (with a return to more confidential lightness) he had already
"worked the Wild West Injin" business so successfully as to dispose of
his wares, particularly in yonder house, and might do even more if not
prematurely and wantonly "blown upon," "gone back on," or "given away."

"But wouldn't you like to settle down on some bit of land like this, and
improve it for yourself?" said Clarence. "All these valley terraces are
bound to rise in value, and meantime you would be independent. It could
be managed, Jim. I think I could arrange it for you," he went on, with a
slight glow of youthful enthusiasm. "Write to me at Peyton's ranch,
and I'll see you when I come back, and we'