bad, is it?"

"It's rotten!" Gardner paused. "From a news-desk point of view. Any
copy-reader would chuck it. Unless I happened to sign it," he added.
"Then they'd cuss it out and let it pass, and the dear old pin-head
public would eat it up."

"If it's of any use to you--"

"Not so, my boy, not so! I might pinch your wad if you left it around
loose, or even your last cigarette, but not your stuff. Let me take it
along, though; it may give me some ideas. I'll return it. Now, where can
I get a bed in the town?"

"Nowhere. Everything's filled. But I can give you a hammock out in my
shack."

"That's better. I'll take it. Thanks."

Banneker kept his guest awake beyond the limits of decent hospitality,
asking him questions.

The reporter, constantly more interested in this unexpected find of a
real personality in an out-of-the-way minor station of the high desert,
meditated a character study of "the hero of the wreck," but could not
quite contrive any peg whereon to hang the wreath of heroism. By his own
modest account, Banneker had been competent but wholly unpicturesque,
though the characters in his sketch, rude and unformed though it was,
stood out clearly. As to his own personal history, the agent was
unresponsive. At length the guest, apologizing for untimely weariness,