A lank, strong, red-faced man with a Wellington beak and small, fiery
eyes tempered by flaxen lashes, sat on the station platform at Los
Pinos swinging his legs to and fro. At his side sat another man, fat,
melancholy, and seedy, who seemed to be his friend. They had the
appearance of men to whom life had appeared as a reversible coat--seamy
on both sides.

"Ain't seen you in about four years, Ham," said the seedy man. "Which
way you been travelling?"

"Texas," said the red-faced man. "It was too cold in Alaska for me.
And I found it warm in Texas. I'll tell you about one hot spell I went
through there.

"One morning I steps off the International at a water-tank and lets it
go on without me. 'Twas a ranch country, and fuller of spite-houses than
New York City. Only out there they build 'em twenty miles away so you
can't smell what they've got for dinner, instead of running 'em up two
inches from their neighbors' windows.

"There wasn't any roads in sight, so I footed it 'cross country. The
grass was shoe-top deep, and the mesquite timber looked just like a
peach orchard. It was so much like a gentleman's private estate that
every minute you expected a kennelful of bulldogs to run out and bite
you. But I must have walked twenty miles before I came in sight of a
ranch-house. It was a little one, about as big as an elevated-railroad
station.