tte and waited. A large, yellow tom-cat came out
of the brush and threw his green headlights on him, meaowing
tentatively.

"Hello, pussy!" said Red. "You hungry too? Well, just wait a
minute, and we'll help that feeling--like bread, pussy?" The cat
gobbled the morsel greedily, came closer and begged for more. The
tin can boiled over. Red popped the eggs in, puffed his cigarette
to a bright coal, and looked at his watch by the light. "Gee! Ten
minutes more, now!" said he. "Hardly seems to me as if I could
wait." He pulled the watch out several times. "What's the matter
with the damn thing? I believe it's stopped," he growled. But at
last "Time!" he shouted gleefully, kicked the can over and gathered
up its treasures in his handkerchief.

"Now, Mr. Cat, we're going to do some real eating," said he. "Just
sit right down and make yourself at home--this is kind of fun, by
Jinks!" Down went the eggs and down went the loaf of bread in
generous slices, never forgetting a fair share for the cat.

"Woosh! I feel better!" cried Red, "and now for some sleep." He
swung up into the hay-loft, spread the blanket on the still
fragrant old hay, and rolled himself up in a trice.

"I did a good turn when I came on here," he mused. "If I have got
only one relation, she's a dandy--so pretty and quiet and nice.
She's a marker for all I've got, is Mattie."

The cat came up, purring and "making bread." He sniffed feline
fashion at Red's face.

"Foo! Shoo! Go 'way, pussy! Settle yourself down and we'll pound
our ear for another forty miles. I like you first rate when you
don't walk on my face." He stretched and yawned enormously. "Yes
sir! Mattie's all right," said he. "A-a-a-ll ri-" and Chantay
Seeche Red was in the land of dreams. Here, back in God's country,
within twenty miles of the place where he was born, the wanderer
laid him down again, and in spite of raid and foray, whisky and
poker-cards, wear-and-tear, hard times, and hardest test of all,
sudden fortune, he was much the same impulsive, honest, generous,
devil-may-care boy who had left there twenty-four years ago.

II

The next morning when Red awoke,
arrows of gold were shooting through
the holes in the old barn, and outside, the bird
life, the twittering and chirping, the fluent
whistle and the warble, the cackle and the
pompous crow, were in full chorus.

"Where am I at, this time?" said he, as
he took in the view. "Oh, I remember!" a