at the end of
his cigar. Lorry Adams looked mighty like Jim Waring, of Sonora. Hardy
had heard that Waring had been killed down in the southern country. Some
one had made a mistake.

Waring had risen. He stood with one hand touching the table, the tips of
his fingers drumming the rhythm of a song he hummed to himself. The
boy's back was toward him. Waring's gaze traveled from his son's head to
his boot-heel.

Lorry noticed that his mother seemed perturbed. He turned to Waring
with a questioning challenge in his gray eyes.

Mrs. Adams touched the boy's arm. "This is your father, Lorry."

Lorry glanced from one to the other.

Waring made no movement, offered no greeting, but stood politely
impassive.

Mrs. Adams spoke gently: "Lorry!"

"Why, hello, dad!" And the boy shook hands with his father.

Waring gestured toward a chair. Lorry sat down. His eyes were warm with
mild astonishment.

"Smoke?" said Waring, proffering tobacco and papers.

Lorry's gaze never left his father's face as he rolled a cigarette and
lighted it. Mrs. Adams realized that Waring's attitude of cool
indifference appealed to the boy.

Lorry remembered his father dimly. He was curious to know just what kind
of man he was. He didn't talk much; that was certain. The boy remembered
that his mother had not said much about her husband, answering Lorry's
childish questionings with a promise to tell him some day. He recalled a
long journey on the train, their arrival at Stacey, and the taking over
of the run-down hotel that his mother had refurnished and made a place
of neatness and comfort. And his mother had told him that she would be
known "Mrs. Adams." Lorry had been so filled with the newness of things
that the changing of their name was accepted without question. Slowly
his recollection of Sonora and the details of their life there came back
to him. These things he had all but forgotten, as he had grown to love
Arizona, its men, its horses, its wide ranges and magic hills.

Mrs. Adams remembered that her husband had once told her he could find
out more about a man by watching his hands than by asking questions. She
noticed that Waring was watching his son's hands with that old,
deliberate coldness of attitude. He was trying to find out just what
sort of a man his boy had grown to be.

Lorry suddenly straightened in his chair. Mrs. Adams, anticipating his
question, nodded to Waring.

"Yes," said Waring; "I am the Waring of Sonora that yo