nor any other recognized color; just a sort of mixture--like Pedro's
_estofados_. Your mouth, now--you always had a homely sort of mouth, too
big by far. And you were an idiot to shave off your mustache. You might
let it grow again, now that you're where you could have it trimmed once
in awhile, but I suppose it would take a month and look like a
nail-brush in the meanwhile! And then there's your complexion, you poor
ugly _hombre_. I remember when it was like anybody else's and there was
pink in the cheeks. Look at it now! It's like a saddle-flap. And your
hands!"

He viewed them disdainfully. They were immaculately clean and the nails
were well tended, but two years of pick and shovel had broadened them,
and at the base of each finger a calloused spot still remained. On the
left hand the tip of one finger was missing and another was bent and
disfigured. They were honorable scars, these, like the one on his cheek,
but he looked at them disgustedly and finally shoved them out of sight
in his pockets.

"No, don't you worry about her recognizing you," he said to the
reflection in the mirror. "Even if she did she'd be ashamed to own it!"

Wade, however, was over-critical. Whatever might be said of the
features individually, collectively they were distinctly pleasing. The
impression one received was of a clean, straight-limbed, clear-eyed
fellow, who, if he had worked with his hands, had won with his brain. He
looked a little older than his twenty-eight years warranted, and a
little taller than his scant five-feet-eleven proved. Above all, he
appeared healthful, alert, capable, and kindly. He made friends at sight
with men, children, and dogs and wore his friendships as easily as he
wore his clothes. The West puts an indefinable stamp on a man, and Wade
had it. When presently he donned a cloth cap, torn from the confused
depths of his valise, and passed out of doors he walked like a man who
was used to covering long distances afoot, and with a certain swing of
his broad shoulders that suggested a jovial egotism. And as he made his
way through the orchard and into the meadow beyond his mind was still
busy with Evelyn Walton.

Of course he would meet her sooner or later; he was bound to unless he
pulled up stakes and hiked out at once. And he didn't want to do that.
He was enjoying a totally new sensation, that of householder. And he
liked Eden Village with its big elms and shaded roads, its wide meadows
and encircling gre