a silence of some moments' duration.

"Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable," said the man
at last.

"Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face
of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my
tongue."

"Hallo! That's a lie," shouted the man with another strange wild laugh.
"You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it, certainly, but
it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast
ain't your'n."

"Mr Neal's," answered I.

"See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a
good seventy mile to his plantation, right across the prairie. Ain't
stole the horse, have you?"

"Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."

These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk.

"Four days without eatin'," cried the man, with a laugh like the
sharpening of a saw, "and that in a Texas prairie, and with islands on
all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain
enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies
was like the prairies in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn't know how
to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the
earth?"

"Bees? Strawberries?" repeated I.

"Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's
sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees, eh? Perhaps you don't
know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese
or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are, and that _they_
don't grow upon the trees."

All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before, with
the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder, while his features
were distorted into a contemptuous grin.

"And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey without an
axe?"

"How did you lose yourself?"

"My mustang--ran away"--

"I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But
what d'ye mean to do now?"

"I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an
inn--anywhere where men are."

"Where men are," repeated the stranger, with his scornful smile. "Where
men are," he muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.

I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange in
the man's movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent effort, I
changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again