ame out from college and took positions
over other men's heads made fools of themselves; but Bob was not a fool.
He was a decent, likable young chap, who knew he had been luckier than the
next fellow and who took no advantage of it.

"Which is more than you can say of most rich men's sons," soliloquized
Scott. "But then why should you expect sense from a rich man's son?
Where'd they get it? It's hard knocks gives a man sense--if he's ever
going to get it, which most of them ain't!"

There was loneliness in the air. Scott, who was temperamental, as
out-of-doors men often are, felt it keenly. It brought before him more
clearly the loneliness of his own life, a life spent in out-of-the-way
places, largely among men; a life with no roots, he sometimes felt. Yet he
would not have traded his freedom, he would have told you, for any woman,
for a home or for children. To be foot loose, to go where fancy called
him, to have no ties--no clogs upon his precious liberty, that was what he
loved.

He was fond of women, too. He liked being with them and he liked measuring
each one he met with his ideal, a hazy creature who probably did not
exist. Well, he rather hoped she didn't, or if she did that he would never
meet her. He had known too many men who had traded their freedom for a
home and a fireside and who, once bound, had never been able to go back to
the old life. It had not always been the women who had held them, either;
the men themselves had seemed to change--to deteriorate, Scott would have
said--to have lost the energy and the vigor that made life worth while.
You cannot get anything for nothing and you paid for the happiness you
might find in marriage with the loss of the one thing which was to him the
most important thing in all life--liberty.

So they jogged along, Scott whistling to keep himself company.
Occasionally, Yellow would insist upon getting out for a run, but he
seemed glad to return. After a while it began to seem odd to Scott that he
did not see the lights of Mendoza's car. Even a cautious driver should
have made the distance by this time.

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head--one of those clammy ideas, which
come instantly, and come with a chill; ideas that are positively physical
in the way in which they affect one. Suppose it was Mendoza's car with
someone else driving it? Someone of the score of half-breeds who hung
around the livery stable where the car was kept? Scott leaned over and
laid the