girl's eyes ran appraisingly over the worn clothes and the
cracking and dusty shoes. Brice felt, rather than saw, her
appraisal. And he knew she was contrasting his costume with
his voice and his clean-shaven face. She broke the moment of
embarrassed silence by saying "You must be tired after your
long tramp, from Miami. Were you walking for fun and
exercise, or are you bound for any especial place?" He knew
she was fencing, that his clothes made her wonder if she ought
not to offer him some cash payment for finding her dog,--a
reward she would never have dreamed of offering on the
strength of his manner and voice. Also, it seemed, she was
seeking some way of closing the interview without dismissing
him or walking away. And he answered with per fect
simplicity:

"No, I wasn't walking for exercise or fun. There are better
and easier ways of acquiring fun than by plodding for hours in
the hot sunshine. And of getting exercise, too. I was on my
way to Homestead or to some farming place along the line,
where I might pick up a job."

"Oh!"

"Yes. I could probably have gotten a place as dishwasher or
even as a 'bus' or porter, in one of the big Miami hotels," he
pursued, "or a billet with one of the dredging gangs in the
harbor. But somehow I'd rather do farm work of some sort. It
seems less of a slump, when a chap is down on his luck, than
to go in for scrubbing or for section-gang hustling. There
are farms and citrus groves, all along here, just back of the