The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Landloper, by Holman Day

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Title: The Landloper
The Romance Of A Man On Foot

Author: Holman Day

Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #4712]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LANDLOPER ***

Produced by Dagny; John Bickers

THE LANDLOPER

THE ROMANCE OF A MAN ON FOOT

By Holman Day

1915

THE LANDLOPER

I

IN THE DUST OF THE LONG HIGHWAY

The man who called himself Walker Farr plodded down the dusty stretches
of a country road.

He moved leisurely. He neither slouched like a vagabond nor did he swing
with a stride which indicated that he had aim in life or destination in
mind. When he came under arching elms he plucked his worn cap from his
head and stuffed it into a coat pocket which already bulged bulkily
against his flank. He gazed to right and left upon the glories of a
sun-bathed June morning and strolled bareheaded along the aisle of a
temple of the great Out-of-Doors.

He was young and stalwart and sunburnt.

A big, gray automobile squawked curt warning behind him and then swept
past and on its way, kicking dust upon him from its whirring wheels.

He gave the car only an indifferent glance, but, as he walked on, he
was conscious that out of the blur of impressions the memory of a girl's
profile lingered.

A farmer-man who had come to the end of a row in a field near the
highway fence leaned on his hoe-handle and squinted against the sun
at the face of the passer-by. Then the farmer shifted his gaze to the
stranger's clothing and scowled. The face was the countenance of a man
who was somebody; the clothing was the road-worn garb of a vagrant.

"Here, you!" called the farmer.

"I hear you," said the man who called himself Walker Farr, smiling and
putting subtle insolence into the smile.

"Do you want a job?"

"No, sir."

"Have you got a job?"

"Yes, sir."

"What is it?"

"Chopping down well-holes that have been turned inside out by a
cyclone."

The man in the highway flashed a wonderful smile at the farmer and
passed on. The farmer blinked and then he scowled more savagely. He
climbed the