ust be well
after midnight. He saw the man hastily spade the soft soil over the
bones, saw him scatter loose dry top-sand over the completed job, and
saw the man and woman hurry back to the dark house.

The next morning Chi Foxy left his resting-place and climbed over the
wire fence. He looked curiously at the spot where the weird burial had
taken place, and went on toward the house. He knocked on the door, and
it was opened by the man--a tall, lanky, coarse-bearded specimen.

"Say, friend, how about givin' a feller some breakfast?" asked Chi
Foxy.

"How 'bout it, ma?" asked the man, turning his head. "Got some
breakfast for this feller?"

The woman looked toward the tramp. She evidently decided in his favor.

"Let him set on the step and I kin hand him out some coffee and some
meat, if that'll do him," she said, and Chi Foxy seated himself. The
breakfast she brought him on a chipped plate was all he could have
desired. There was a half of a veal cutlet, browned to a nicety, a
portion of fried potatoes, a thick slice of bread without butter, and
a cup of coffee. Chi Foxy ate and drank.

"Thanks, folks," he said. "I won't forgit you." And he continued on
his way toward Riverbank.

"So you're here," said the first policeman he met. "Right on time with
the first frosty breeze, ain't you? Well, my friend, you can blow out
of town on the breeze, just like you blew in. No more free board and
gentle stone-pile massage in this town. Drift along, bo!"

He turned up the first cross-street. He went from house to house
begging a hand-out, but the residents were colder than the weather. At
the twelfth house he knocked on the back door, but he was beginning to
feel hopeless. A thin streamer of smoke was issuing from the kitchen
chimney, and where there is smoke there is food; but here, instead of
a hard-faced woman coming to the door, a man put his face to the
kitchen window and looked out. It was the face of a tall, thin man
with a long neck and prominent Adam's-apple, and as the man peered out
of the window he looked something like a flamingo. He opened the door.

"Come right into the inside," said Philo Gubb pleasantly, "and heat
yourself up warm. The temperature is full of cold weather to-day."

Chi Foxy entered. He looked around the kitchen. There was a brisk fire
in the stove, but no sign of food.

"Say, pard," he said, "how about giving me a bite? I haven't had a
bite this morning. I ain't too late, am I?"

His