sing. The stranger's
face had been almost blackened by the snow-reflected glare of the clear
winter sun, and yet both girls decided that he was hardly a
representative specimen of the wandering fraternity of tramps.

Helen Savine was slender, tall, and dark. Though arrayed in a plain
dress of light fabric, she carried herself with a dignity befitting the
daughter of the famous engineering contractor, Julius Savine, and a
descendant, through her mother, from Seigneurs of ancient French
descent who had ruled in patriarchal fashion in old-world Quebec. Jean
Graham, whose father owned the ranch on the slope behind them, was
ruddy in face, with a solidity of frame that betokened Caledonian
extraction, and true trans-Atlantic directness of speech.

"He must be hungry," whispered Jean. "Quite good-looking, too, and
it's queer he sits there munching those crackers, instead of walking
straight up and striking us for a meal. I don't like to see a
good-looking man hungry," she added, reflectively.

"We will go down and speak to him," said Helen, and the suggestion that
she should interview a wandering vagrant did not seem out of place in
that country where men from many different walks of life turned their
often ill-fitted hands to the rudest labor that promised them a
livelihood. In any case, Helen possessed a somewhat imperious will,
which was supplemented by a grace of manner which made whatever she did
appear right.

Geoffrey, looking round at the sound of approaching steps, stood
suddenly upright, thrusting the more dilapidated boot behind the other,
and wondering with what purpose the two girls had sought him. One he
recognized as a type common enough throughout the Dominion--kindly,
shrewd, somewhat hard-featured and caustic in speech; but the other,
who looked down on him with thinly-veiled pity, more resembled the
women of birth and education whom he had seen in England.

"You are a stranger to this district. Looking for work, perhaps?" said
Helen Savine. Geoffrey lifted his wide and battered felt hat as he
answered, "I am."

"There is work here," announced Helen. "I can offer you a dollar
now--if you would care to earn it. Yonder rock, which I believe is a
loose boulder, obstructs our wagon trail. If you are willing to remove
it and will follow us to the ranch, you will find suitable tools."

Geoffrey flushed a little under his tan. When seeking work he had
grown used to being sworn at by foremen wit