I'll take
your tramp if ye say so. We want a man to wash the wagons, and help Mike
clean up. John fired the macaroni we had last month and I didn't blame
him. What can yer man do?"

"Not much."

"What do ye know about him?"

"Nothing, except that he tried to rob me."

"And what do ye want me to take him on for? To have him get away some
night with a Saratoga trunk and--"

"No, to KEEP him from getting away with it. He's been on the ragged edge
of life for some months, if I read him aright, and has all he can do to
keep his footing. I found him a while ago by the merest accident, and he
is still holding on. A week with you and your husband will do him more
good than a legacy. He will get a new standard."

"What's he been doin' that he's up against it like this?" she asked,
ignoring the compliment.

"Trying to forget a wife who went back on him--so he tells me."

"Has he done it?"

"Yes. If you can believe him. She has become a drunkard."

"Well--that's about the worst thing can happen to a man--if he's telling
ye the truth. What's become of her?"

"He did not say. All I know is that he has not seen her since she went
away."

"Maybe he didn't want to," she flashed back. "Did ye get out of him
whose fault it was?"

Felix, whose remarks had been addressed to the red-hot coals in the
stove, glanced quickly toward Kitty, but made no answer.

"Ye don't know, that's it, and so ye don't say I'll tell ye that it's
the man's fault more'n half the time."

"And what makes you think so, Mistress Kitty?" he asked, trying to speak
casually, not daring to look at her for fear she would detect the tremor
on his lips, wondering all the time at her interest in the subject.

"It ain't for thinkin', Mr. O'Day, it's just seein' what goes on every
day, and it sets me crazy. If a man's got gumption enough to make a girl
love him well enough to marry him, he ought to know enough to keep
it goin' night and day--if he don't want her to forget him. Half of
'em--poor souls!--are as ignorant as unborn babes, and don't know any
more what's comin' to them than a chicken before its head's cut off. She
wakes up some mornin' after they've been married a year or two and finds
her man's gone to work without kissin' her good-by--when he was nigh
crazy before they were married if he didn't get one every ten minutes.
The next thing he does is to stay out half the night, and when she is
nigh frightened to death, and tells him so with her e