vigilant."

He spoke lightly, even airily, through his pain and weakness.
But, as before, his every faculty was on guard. A born and
trained expert in reading human nature, he felt this giant
somehow suspected him and was trying to trap him in an
inaccuracy. Wherefore, he fenced, verbally, calmly confident
he could outpoint his clumsier antagonist.

"You don't look like the kind of man who need sleep out of
doors," replied Standish, speaking slowly, as one who chooses
his every word with care, and with his cold blue eyes
unobtrusively scanning Gavin's battered face. "That's the
bedroom for bums. You aren't a bum. Even if your manner, and
the way you fought out yonder, didn't prove that. A bum
doesn't walk all this way and back, on a hot day, unless for a
handout. And you--"

"But a handout is just what I asked for," Gavin caught him up.
"When I brought Bobby Burns back I traded on the trifling
little service by asking Miss Standish if I could get a job
here. It was impertinent of me, I know. And I was sorry as
soon as I'd done it. But she told me, in effect, that you
were 'firing, not hiring.' So I--"

"Why did you want a job with me?" insisted Standish. "Rather
than with any of a dozen farmers or country house people along
here?"

And, this time, any fool could have read the stark suspicion