alf the year. Yes, I been there.
'Course, now, I'm doin' high finance, and givin' advice to the young,
and livin' on my income. And say, when it comes to real brain work, I'm
the Most Exhausted Baked High Potentate, but I wouldn't do no mineral
labor for nobody. If I can't work in the saddle, I don't work--that's
all."

"Mineral labor? What, mining?" asked Louise.

"No, not mining. Jest mineral labor like Japs, or section-hands, or
coachmen with bugs on their hats. Ain't the papers always speakin' of
that kind as minerals?"

"Don't you mean menials?"

"Well, yes. It's all the same, anyway. I never do no hair-splittin' on
words. Bein' a pote myself, it ain't necessary."

"A--a poet! Really?"

"Really and truly, and carry one and add five. I've roped a lot of
po'try in my time, Miss. Say, are we campin' on your land?"

"No. This is government land, from here to our line up above--the
Moonstone Rancho."

"The Moonstone Rancho?" queried Overland Red, breaking a twig and
feeding the fire.

"Yes. It's named after the canon. But don't let me keep you from
breakfast."

"Breakfast, eh? That's right! I almost forgot it, talkin' to you.
Collie's got the coffee to boilin'. No, _you_ ain't keepin' us from our
breakfast any that you'd notice. It would take a whole reg'ment of
Rurales to keep us from a breakfast if we seen one runnin' around loose
without its pa or ma."

Louise Lacharme did not smile. This was too real. Here was adventure
with no raconteur's glamour, no bookish gloss. Here was Romance. Romance
unshaven, illiterate, with its coat off making coffee in a
smoke-blackened tomato-can, but Romance nevertheless. That this romance
should touch her life, Louise had not the faintest dream. She was
alone ... but, pshaw! Boyar was grazing near, and besides, she was not
really afraid of the men. She thought she rather liked them, or, more
particularly, the boisterous one who had said his name was Overland Red.

The tramp gazed at her a moment before he lifted the tomato-can from the
embers. "We know you won't join us, but we're goin' to give you the
invite just the same. And we mean it. Ma'am, if you'll be so kind as to
draw up your chair, us gents'll eat."

"Thank you!" said Louise, and Overland's face brightened at the
good-fellowship in her voice. "Thank you both, but I've had breakfast."

She gazed at the solitary, bubbling, tomato-can coffee-pot of
"second-edition" coffee. There was nothing else to grace the