er of a darker color. He looked like an overworked Christy
minstrel with the briefest of intervals between his performances. There
were black rims in the orbits of his eyes, as if he gazed feebly out of
unglazed spectacles, which heightened his simian resemblance, already
grotesquely exaggerated by what appeared to be repeated and spasmodic
experiments in dyeing his gray hair. Without the slightest notice of
Lance, he inflicted his protesting and querulous presence entirely on
his daughter.

"Well! what's up now? Yer ye are calling me from work an hour before
noon. Dog my skin, ef I ever get fairly limbered up afore it's 'Dad!'
and 'Oh, Dad!'"

To Lance's intense satisfaction the girl received this harangue with an
air of supreme indifference, and when "Dad" had relapsed into an
unintelligible, and, as it seemed to Lance, a half-frightened
muttering, she said coolly,--

"Ye'd better drop that axe and scoot round getten' this stranger some
breakfast and some grub to take with him. He's one of them San
Francisco sports out here trout-fishing in the branch. He's got adrift
from his party, has lost his rod and fixins, and had to camp out last
night in the Gin and Ginger Woods."

"That's just it; it's allers suthin like that," screamed the old man,
dashing his fist on his leg in a feeble, impotent passion, but without
looking at Lance. "Why in blazes don't he go up to that there blamed
hotel on the summit? Why in thunder"--But here he caught his daughter's
large, freckled eyes full in his own. He blinked feebly, his voice fell
into a tone of whining entreaty. "Now, look yer, Flip, it's playing it
rather low down on the old man, this yer running in o' tramps and
desarted emigrants and cast-ashore sailors and forlorn widders and
ravin' lunatics, on this yer ranch. I put it to you, Mister," he said
abruptly, turning to Lance for the first time, but as if he had already
taken an active part in the conversation,--"I put it as a gentleman
yourself, and a fair-minded sportin' man, if this is the square thing?"

Before Lance could reply, Flip had already begun. "That's just it! D'ye
reckon, being a sportin' man and a A 1 feller, he's goin' to waltz down
inter that hotel, rigged out ez he is? D'ye reckon he's goin' to let
his partners get the laugh onter him? D'ye reckon he's goin' to show
his head outer this yer ranch till he can do it square? Not much! Go
'long. Dad, you're talking silly!"

The old man weakened. He feebly tr