d friends? It was only
last week I heard him wonder to Father if you were ever coming back to
this country. How did you like it up at the Bend?"

"Right fine," he told her, settling himself comfortably in the chair
she had indicated. "But a feller gets tired of one place after a
while. I thought maybe I'd come back to the Lazy River and get a job
ridin' the range again."

"Aren't there any ranches round the Bend?" she asked, poking up the
fire and setting on the coffee-pot.

"Plenty, but I--I like the Lazy River country," he told her. "Fort
Creek country for yores truly, now and hereafter."

In this fashion did the proposed journey to Arizona go glimmering. His
eye lingered on the banjo where it lay on the table.

"Can you play it?" she asked, her eye following his.

"Some," said he. "Want to hear a camp-meeting song?"

She nodded. He rose and picked up the banjo. He placed a foot on the
chair seat, slid the banjo to rest on his thigh, swept the strings,
and broke into "Inchin' Along". Which ditty made her laugh. For it is
a funny song, and he sang it well.

"That was fine," she told him when he had sung it through. "Your voice
sounds a lot like that of a man I heard singing in Farewell yesterday.
He was in the Happy Heart when I was going by, and he sang _Jog on,
jog on the footpath way_. If it hadn't been a saloon I'd have gone in.
I just _love_ the old songs."

"You do?" said he, delightedly, with shining eyes. "Well, Miss Dale,
that feller in the saloon was me, and old songs is where I live. I
cut my teeth on 'The Barley Mow' and grew up with 'Barbara Allen'. My
mother she used to sing 'em all. She was a great hand to sing and she
taught me. Know 'The Keel Row?'"

She didn't, so he sang it for her. And others he sang, too--"The Merry
Cuckoo" and "The Bailiff's Daughter". The last she liked so well that
he sang it three times over, and they quite forgot the coffee.

Racey Dawson was starting the second verse of "Sourwood Mountain" when
someone without coughed apologetically. Racey stopped singing and
looked toward the doorway. Standing in the sunken half-round log that
served as a doorstep was the stranger he had seen with Lanpher.

There was more than a hint of amusement in the black eyes with which
the stranger was regarding Racey. The latter felt that the stranger
was enjoying a hearty internal laugh at his expense. As probably he
was. Racey looked at him from beneath level brows. The lid of the
str