was a bitter memory. All the more bitter because he did not know
where burrowed the root of his hot resentment. In a strong man's
love for his home and his mate was it rooted, and drew therefrom
the wormwood of love thwarted and spurned.

After awhile the high air currents flung aside the clouds like
curtains before a doorway. The sunlight flashed out dazzlingly
and showed Bud that the world, even this tumbled world, was good
to look upon. His instincts were all for the great outdoors, and
from such the sun brings quick response. Bud lifted his head,
looked out over the hills to where a bare plain stretched in the
far distance, and went on more briskly.

He did not meet any one at all; but that was chiefly because he
did not want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes
alert, and was not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes
when two horsemen rode down a canyon trail just below him. Also
he searched for roads and then avoided them. It would be a fat
morsel for Marie and her mother to roll under their tongues, he
told himself savagely, if he were arrested and appeared in the
papers as one of that bunch of crooks!

Late that afternoon, by traveling steadily in one direction, he
topped a low ridge and saw an arm of the desert thrust out to
meet him. A scooped gully with gravelly sides and rocky bottom
led down that way, and because his feet were sore from so much
sidehill travel, Bud went down. He was pretty well fagged too,
and ready to risk meeting men, if thereby he might gain a square
meal. Though he was not starving, or anywhere near it, he craved
warm food and hot coffee.