fireplace, while she passed back and forth, clearing away the
dishes. Crane set out a decanter of whisky, which spirit he mixed
sparingly with his cider, as did also his guest--none too
sparingly.

Now was the Man's heart loosened, and he told of all he had seen
and done and lived; of his spendthrift youth, passed aboard tramp
freighters between Lisbon and Rio, Leith and Natal, Tokyo,
Melbourne and the Golden Gate--wherever the sea ran green; of
ginseng-growing in China, shellac gathering in India,
cattle-grazing in Wyoming. He spoke of Alaskan totem-poles, of
Indian sign language, of Aztec monoliths buried in the forest. He
sang "Lather an' Shavin's," "La Golondrina," "The Cowboy's
Lament," and, clicking his fingers castanet-wise, hummed little
Spanish airs whose words he would by no means translate.

Crane marveled that this man should be still on the hitherward
side of thirty; and as the stranger sat there, his very clothes,
poor rags of civilization, seemed to bulk with heroic lines, his
face to reflect man's primal freedom, while his every word rang
with the sheer joy of the things he had seen and known.

At a break in the talk, the girl, who, though she had constantly
busied herself about the room, had missed not a word, nodded
significantly to her father, then walked from the house and out
into the night. He glanced after her for a moment, then turned
with a queer smile.

"We're all 'baout the same, I reckon," he said, "so far as furren
countries is consarned. That's to say, a man allaways conceits