rass hook with scrupulous
care.

"I'll be sendin' fur 'em when I git red o' this pesterin' cough."

II.

A very quiet, unobtrusive guest Mrs. Brandt found the man Brice; talking
little save in a sudden gush of confidence, and always of his wife and
child; choosing a quiet corner of the kitchen in the chill California
nights, where he watched his hostess's deft movements with wistful
admiration.

"Try huntin', Brice; the doctors mostly say it's healthy."

And Brice tried hunting, as Joel advised, taking the gun from its crotch
over the door after breakfast, and wandering for hours in the yellow,
wine-like air of the mesa. He came in at noon and nightfall always
empty-handed, yet no one derided his failure. There was something about
the man that smothered derision.

"A sort o' thunderin' patience that knocks a fellow," Bert Fox put it.

Mrs. Brandt had always an encouraging word for the hunter.

"Greasewood's bad fer huntin'. Joel says it don't pay to look fer quail
in the brush when he does fetch 'em down."

"Like enough. I dunno, ma'am. Reckon I've had a good many shots at the
little wild critters, but they allus turn their heads so kind o'
innocent like. A man as has been blowed up oncet hisself ain't much at
separatin' fam'lies. But I s'pose it ain't the shootin' that's healthy,
mebbe."

And so the hunting came to an end without bloodshed. Whether the doctors
were right, or whether it was the mingled resin and honey of the sage
and chaparral, no one cared to ask. Certain it is that the "pesterin'
cough" yielded a little, and the bent form grew a trifle more erect.

"I think likely it's the lookin' up, ma'am. Mountains seem to straighten
a fellow some way. 'Pears to me somebody writ oncet uv liftin' his eyes
to the hills fer help. Mebbe not, though. I ain't much at recollectin'
verses. Loisy's a powerful hand that way."

Perhaps the man was right. It was the looking up.

He followed Joel from the table one morning, stopping outside, his face
full of patient eagerness.

"I'm gittin' right smart o' strength, neighbor. Ef there's odd jobs you
could gi' me; I'd be slow, mebbe, but seems like 'most anything 'ud be
better 'n settin' 'round."

Joel scratched his head reflectively. The big, brawny-handed fellow felt
no disposition to smile at his weak brother.

"Fox and I wuz sayin' yesterday we'd like to put another man on the
ditch; it'll be easy work fer a week, till we strike rock again. Then
there's