the Easterner?"

"Just the Western feeling, partner. Get that an' you'll be at home."

"If you were a little further East and said that, people might be
inclined to smile a bit."

"Partner, if they did, they wouldn't finish their smile. But I heard a
feller say once that the funny thing about men east and west of the
Rockies was that they was all--"

He paused as if trying to remember.

"Well?"

"Americans, Mr. Bard."

CHAPTER IX

"THIS PLACE FOR REST"

As the white heat of midday passed and the shadows lengthened more and
more rapidly to the east, the sheep moved out from the shade and from
the tangle of the brush to feed in the open, and the dogs, which had
laid one on either side of the man, rose and trotted out to recommence
their vigil; but the shepherd did not change his position where he sat
cross-legged under the tree.

Alternately he stroked the drooping moustache to the right and then to
the left, with a little twist each time, which turned the hair to a
sharp point in its furthest downward reach near his chin. To the right,
to the left, to the right, to the left, while his eyes, sad with a
perpetual mist, looked over the lake and far away to the white tops of
the Little Brothers, now growing blue with shadow.

Finally with a brown forefinger he lifted the brush of moustache on his
upper lip, leaned a little, and spat. After that he leaned back with a
sigh of content; the brown juice had struck fairly and squarely on the
centre of the little stone which for the past two hours he had been
endeavouring vainly to hit. The wind had been against him.

All was well. The spindling tops of the second-growth forest pointed
against the pale blue of a stainless sky, and through that clear air the
blatting of the most distant sheep sounded close, mingled with the light
clangour of the bells. But the perfect peace was broken rudely now by
the form of a horseman looming black and large against the eastern sky.
He trotted his horse down the slope, scattered a group of noisy sheep
from side to side before him, and drew rein before the shepherd.

"Evening."

"Evening, stranger."

"Own this land?"

"No; rent it."

"Could I camp here?"

The shepherd lifted his moustache again and spat; when he spoke his eyes
held steadily and sadly on the little stone, which he had missed again.

"Can't think of nobody who'd stop you."

"That your house over there? You rent that?"

He pointed to a broken-back