.

The other laughed and shook his head, and Billy could not guess that he
was an ex-captain of a 'Varsity Eleven, and incidentally the father of
a family and the author of many books. He looked Billy over with an eye
trained in measuring freshmen aspirants for the gridiron.

"You're some body of a man," he appreciated. "You'd strip with the best
of them. Am I right in guessing that you know your way about in the
ring?"

Billy nodded. "My name's Roberts."

The swimmer scowled with a futile effort at recollection.

"Bill--Bill Roberts," Billy supplemented.

"Oh, ho!--Not BIG Bill Roberts? Why, I saw you fight, before the
earthquake, in the Mechanic's Pavilion. It was a preliminary to Eddie
Hanlon and some other fellow. You're a two-handed fighter, I remember
that, with an awful wallop, but slow. Yes, I remember, you were slow
that night, but you got your man." He put out a wet hand. "My name's
Hazard--Jim Hazard."

"An' if you're the football coach that was, a couple of years ago, I've
read about you in the papers. Am I right?"

They shook hands heartily, and Saxon was introduced. She felt very small
beside the two young giants, and very proud, withal, that she belonged
to the race that gave them birth. She could only listen to them talk.

"I'd like to put on the gloves with you every day for half an hour,"
Hazard said. "You could teach me a lot. Are you going to stay around
here?"

"No. We're goin' on down the coast, lookin' for land. Just the same, I
could teach you a few, and there's one thing you could teach me--surf
swimmin'."

"I'll swap lessons with you any time," Hazard offered. He turned to
Saxon. "Why don't you stop in Carmel for a while? It isn't so bad."

"It's beautiful," she acknowledged, with a grateful smile, "but--" She
turned and pointed to their packs on the edge of the lupine. "We're on
the tramp, and lookin' for government land."

"If you're looking down past the Sur for it, it will keep," he laughed.
"Well, I've got to run along and get some clothes on. If you come back
this way, look me up. Anybody will tell you where I live. So long."

And, as he had first arrived, he departed, crossing the sandhills on the
run.

Billy followed him with admiring eyes.

"Some boy, some boy," he murmured. "Why, Saxon, he's famous. If I've
seen his face in the papers once, I've seen it a thousand times. An' he
ain't a bit stuck on himself. Just man to man. Say!--I'm beginnin' to
have faith in the