head and stuffed it into a coat pocket which already bulged bulkily
against his flank. He gazed to right and left upon the glories of a
sun-bathed June morning and strolled bareheaded along the aisle of a
temple of the great Out-of-Doors.

He was young and stalwart and sunburnt.

A big, gray automobile squawked curt warning behind him and then swept
past and on its way, kicking dust upon him from its whirring wheels.

He gave the car only an indifferent glance, but, as he walked on, he
was conscious that out of the blur of impressions the memory of a girl's
profile lingered.

A farmer-man who had come to the end of a row in a field near the
highway fence leaned on his hoe-handle and squinted against the sun
at the face of the passer-by. Then the farmer shifted his gaze to the
stranger's clothing and scowled. The face was the countenance of a man
who was somebody; the clothing was the road-worn garb of a vagrant.

"Here, you!" called the farmer.

"I hear you," said the man who called himself Walker Farr, smiling and
putting subtle insolence into the smile.

"Do you want a job?"

"No, sir."

"Have you got a job?"