sad. Behind him was a bit of a tent not much larger than an umbrella.

Aggie touched my arm. "My heart aches for him," she said. "There is
despair in his very eyes."

I do not believe that at first he was very glad to see us, but he
softened somewhat when Tish held out the cake she had brought.

"That's very nice of you," he said, rising. "I'm afraid I can't ask you
to sit down. The ground's wet and there is only this log."

"I've sat on logs before," Tish replied. "We thought we'd call, seeing
we are neighbors. As the first comers it was our place to call first, of
course."

"I see," he said, and poked up the fire with a piece of stick.

"We felt that you might be lonely," said Aggie.

"I came here to be lonely," he replied gloomily. "I want to be lonely."

Tish, however, was determined to be cheerful, and asked him, as a safe
subject, how he felt about the war.

"War?" he said. "That's so, there is a war. To tell the truth, I had
forgotten about it. I've been thinking of other things."

We saw that it was going to be difficult to cheer him. Tish tried the
weather, which brought us nowhere, as he merely grunted. But Aggie
broached the subject of desperadoes, and he roused somewhat.