and fell again to considering his main problem. He did not smoke.
His tobacco was nearly exhausted and he was no longer reckless. His head
was not turned now by the feeling that he was at home. He considered
soberly as to the probable owner of the house and whether he would be
allowed to remain its tenant. Very soon, however, his doubt concerning
that was set at rest. He saw a disturbance of the shadows cast by the
thick boughs over the cart path by a long outreach of darker shadow
which he knew at once for that of a man. He sat upright, and his face
at first assumed a defiant, then a pleading expression, like that of
a child who desires to retain possession of some dear thing. His heart
beat hard as he watched the advance of the shadow. It was slow, as
if cast by an old man. The man was old and very stout, supporting
one lopping side by a stick, who presently followed the herald of his
shadow. He looked like a farmer. Stebbins rose as he approached; the two
men stood staring at each other.

"Who be you, neighbor?" inquired the newcomer.

The voice essayed a roughness, but only achieved a tentative
friendliness. Stebbins hesitated for a second; a suspicious look came
into the farmer's misty blue eyes. Then Stebbins, mindful of his prison
record and fiercely covetous of his new home, gave another name. The
name of his maternal grandfather seemed suddenly to loom up in printed
characters before his eyes, and he gave it glibly. "David Anderson," he
said, and he did not realize a lie. Suddenly the name seemed his own.
Surely old David Anderson, who had been a good man, would not grudge the
gift of his unstained name to replace the stained one of his grandson.
"David Anderson," he replied, and looked the other man in the face
unflinchingly.

"Where do ye hail from?" inquired the farmer; and the new David Anderson
gave unhesitatingly the name of the old David Anderson's birth and life
and death place--that of a little village in New Hampshire.

"What do you do for your living?" was the next question, and the new
David Anderson had an inspiration. His eyes had lit upon the umbrella
which he had found the night before.

"Umbrellas," he replied, laconically, and the other man nodded. Men
with sheaves of umbrellas, mended or in need of mending, had always been
familiar features for him.

Then David assumed the initiative; possessed of an honorable business
as well as home, he grew bold. "Any objection to my staying here?" h