o done the intrudin'?" asked Tom Osby, calmly. "Here's me and him
have flew down here as a bird to our mountings. We was wantin' to hear
about a 'face that was the fairest.' We was a-settin' here, calm and
peaceful, eating _frijoles_, who intruded? Was it us? Or, what made us
intrude?" He looked at her keenly, his eyes narrowed in the sunlight.

Constance abandoned the skillet and returned to the blanket roll.

"Now," went on Tom Osby, "things happens fast out here. If I come and
set in your parlor in New York, it takes me eight years to learn the name
of your pet dog. Lady comes out and sets in my parlor for eight minutes,
and I ain't such a fool but what I can learn a heap of things in that
time. That don't mean necessary that I'm goin' to tell any _other_
fellow what I may think. It _does_ mean that I'm goin' to see fair
play."

The girl could make no protest at this enigmatic speech, and the even
voice went on.

"How I know things is easy," he continued. "If you think he"--once more
nodding his head toward the group beyond--"come down here to hear a op'ry
singer sing, I want to tell you he didn't. That was me. He come to give
me fair play in regards to a 'face that was the fairest.' I'm here to see
that he gets fair play in them same circumstances--"

"I just came down with my father," Constance interrupted hotly, suddenly
thrown upon the defensive, she knew not why. "He's been ill a great
deal. I've been alarmed about him. I _always_ go with him."

"Of course. I noticed that. Your dad's goin' to run the railroad into
Heart's Desire, and we'll all live happy ever after. You come along just
to see that your dad didn't get sun stroke, or Saint Vitus dance, or
cerebrus meningittus, or something else. I understood all that
perfectly, ma'am. And I understand too, perfectly, ma'am," he continued,
tapping his pipe on a wagon wheel, "that back yonder in the States,
somewhere, Dan Anderson knowed a 'face that was the fairest'; I reckon he
allowed it was 'the fairest that e'er the sun shone on.' Now, I'm old and
ugly, and I don't even know whether I'm a widower any or not; so I know,
ma'am, you won't take no offence if I tell you it's a straight case of
reasonin'; for _yore_ own face, ma'am,--and I ain't sayin' this with any
sort of disrespect to any of my wives,--is about the fairest that Dan
Anderson ever did or could see--or me either. I don't reckon, ma'am,
that he's lookin' for one that's any f