exhibition was only "airs." Nevertheless, at the present moment Clarence
was to be placated.

"You didn't mind my telling that story about your savin' Susy as my own,
did ye?" he said, with a hasty glance over his shoulder. "I only did it
to fool the old man and women-folks, and make talk. You won't blow on
me? Ye ain't mad about it?"

It had crossed Clarence's memory that when they were both younger
Jim Hooker had once not only borrowed his story, but his name and
personality as well. Yet in his loyalty to old memories there was
mingled no resentment for past injury. "Of course not," he said, with a
smile that was, however, still thoughtful. "Why should I? Only I ought
to tell you that Susy Peyton is living with her adopted parents not ten
miles from here, and it might reach their ears. She's quite a young lady
now, and if I wouldn't tell her story to strangers, I don't think YOU
ought to, Jim."

He said this so pleasantly that even the skeptical Jim forgot what he
believed were the "airs and graces" of self-abnegation, and said,
"Let's go inside, and I'll introduce you," and turned to the house. But
Clarence Brant drew back. "I'm going on as soon as my horse is fed,
for I'm on a visit to Peyton, and I intend to push as far as Santa Inez
still to-night. I want to talk with you about yourself, Jim," he
added gently; "your prospects and your future. I heard," he went on
hesitatingly, "that you were--at work--in a restaurant in San Francisco.
I'm glad to see that you are at least your own master here,"--he glanced
at the wagon. "You are selling things, I suppose? For yourself, or
another? Is that team yours? Come," he added, still pleasantly, but in
an older and graver voice, with perhaps the least touch of experienced