ng the path by the shack.
Clark was inside, whistling loudly, and evidently preparing his evening
meal, for a thin stream of bluish smoke emerged into the still air from
the mouth of the drain-pipe. Adelle called,--

"Mr. Clark!"

The mason came to the open door. He was bareheaded and barearmed,
clothed merely in khaki trousers and red flannel undershirt, but he was
glisteningly clean and shaved. In one hand he carried his frying-pan
into which he had just put some junks of beef. He seemed surprised on
seeing the lady of Highcourt at his door and scowled slightly in the
sunlight.

"I was going by," she explained without any embarrassment, "and wanted
to ask you about something."

The mason removed his pipe from his teeth and stood at attention.

"Do you know where your family came from before they lived in Missouri?"
she asked. "I mean the Clarks, your grandfather's people."

The mason looked surprised to find this was the important question she
had come all the way to his shack to ask.

"No, I don't know, Mrs. Davis."

"Did you ever hear any one of them speak of Alton?"

He slowly shook his head.

"Never heard the name of the place before that I know of."

"Oh," Adelle observed in a disappointed tone, "I thought you might know
where they came from before the Missouri time."

The mason gave a short, harsh laugh and stuck his pipe back between his
teeth.

"I don't see as it makes any odds where they came from," he remarked. "I
guess we ain't got any fancy family tree to boast of."

"Well," Adelle observed; and then, recollecting her other intention, she
said,--

"Don't you want some flowers or fruit or stuff from the garden? You
can't raise much up here."

"No, thanks; I don't want nothin'--much obliged to you."

In spite of the conventional terms there was a surly burr to his tone
that belied the courtesy. Adelle was surprised at the hardness of his
mood. She felt quite friendly, almost intimate with him, after all their
talks, and now he was as gruff as he had been the first day. She looked
at his face for an explanation. He was scowling slightly, and in the
reddish light of the setting sun his face seemed to burn as with fever,
and his blue eyes glinted dangerously. She could not make out what was
going on in the man's mind. Probably he did not himself rightly know.
The discovery that he bore the same name as his employer had once might
have set off some unpleasant train of subconscious reflectio