xt7kwh2d8f9q https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7kwh2d8f9q/data/mets.xml Johnston, Annie F. (Annie Fellows), 1863-1931. 1911  books b92-237-31299390 English L.C. Page, : Boston : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Carman, Bliss, 1861-1929. Garrett, Edmund Henry, 1853-1929. Travelers five along life's highway  : Jimmy, Gideon Wiggan, the Clown, Wexley Snathers, Bap. Sloan / by Annie Fellows Johnston ... ; with a foreword by Bliss Carman ; frontispiece in full colour from a painting by Edmund H. Garrett. text Travelers five along life's highway  : Jimmy, Gideon Wiggan, the Clown, Wexley Snathers, Bap. Sloan / by Annie Fellows Johnston ... ; with a foreword by Bliss Carman ; frontispiece in full colour from a painting by Edmund H. Garrett. 1911 2002 true xt7kwh2d8f9q section xt7kwh2d8f9q 









travelers Jfive
Ellong Iffe'o Wobwap

 





             Works of
ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON



               The Little Colonel Series
            (Trade Mark, Reg. U. S. Pat. Of.)
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The Little Colonel Stories.    .     .     .       1.50
  (Containing in one volume the three stories, "The
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The Little Colonel's House Party                    1.50
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                     Other Books
oel: A Boy of Galilee
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Traaurdtrr

Along XTOfe's



btirn



31immg, (560ean 3Migan, 0f4e Vtown,
   3&rx1ru     atIkrr, Sap. Ian

               BY
     Annur 3klhiwi  a1Irnntion
Author of - The Little Colonel Series," ' Asa Holmes,"
       " Joel: A Boy of Galilee,' etc.
         With a Foreword by
           Befits (arman



Frontispiece In full colour from a paintinP by
        Ebtmurb is. GarrttN



Hi. (Ei. 1ape & (Timpang
'oNEoiin   ,p   fifbrrrrxi

 












       Copyright, 1901, 1904, bV
THE SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING COMPANY


         CJopyriyht, 1899, by
       THE S. S. MCCLURE CO.


          Cop-7yright, 1903, by
          Tii E CE.N IRY (Jo.


          CopIyright, 1911, by
       L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
          (INCORPORATED)


          All rights reserved




    First Impression, October, 1911













  Eleciro tI p ed end Printed bl
  T H    COrLONTA L      PR ESES
  C. H Sinonds & Co., Boston, U. S. A.

 
            loreworb

  OF all the elements that go to make
up a good story,-plot, verisimilitude,
happy incident, local colour, excellent
style, -none perhaps is more important
than the touch of understanding sym-
pathy. The writer must not only see his
characters clearly and draw them with a
masterly hand; he must have the large-
ness of heart that can share in all the tur-
bulent experience of the human spirit.
His people must be set against the vast
shifting background of destiny. He must
show their dramatic relations, one to an-
other, and the influence of life upon life;
he must also show their profounder, more
                   v

 

              Joreworb
moving and mysterious, relations to fate
and time and the infinite things.
  The writer of fiction creates for us a
mimic country, peoples it with creatures
of the fancy, like ourselves and yet dif-
ferent, and asks us to stray for our enter-
tainment through that new kingdom.
The scenes may be as strange or as
familiar as you please; the characters
as commonplace or as exceptional as you
will; yet they must always be within the
range of our sympathy. The incidents
must be such as we ourselves could pass
through; the people must be such as we
can understand. They may well be ex-
ceptional, for that enlists our interest and
enlivens our curiosity; they must not be
beyond our comprehension nor outside
our spiritual pale, for then we could have
no sympathy with them, and our hearts
would only grow cold as we read.
  And what is at the base of our sym-
                  Vi

 
              formworb
pathy and interest  Nothing but our
common life. They, too, -all the glad
or sorrowing children of imaginative
literature from Helen of Troy to Helena
Richie -are travelers like ourselves on
the great highway. We know well how
difficult a road it is, how rough, how
steep, how dangerous, how boggy, how
lined with pitfalls, how bordered with
gardens of deadly delights, how beset
by bandits, how noisy with fakirs, how
overhung with poisonous fruit and swept
by devastating storms. We know also
what stretches of happiness are there,
what days of friendship, what hours of
love, what sane enjoyment, what raptur-
ous content.
  How should we not, then, be interested
in all that goes by upon that great road
We like to sit at our comfortable win-
dows, when the fire is alight or the sum-
mer air is soft, and "watch the pass," as
                  Vii

 

              foreworb
they say in Nantucket, -what our
neighbours are about, and what strangers
are in town. If we live in a small com-
munity, there is the monotony of our
daily routine to be relieved. When an
unknown figure passes down the street,
we may enjoy the harmless excitement of
novelty and taste something of the keen
savour of adventure. If we are dwellers
in a great city, where every passer is un-
known, there is still the discoverer's zest
in larger measure; every moment is
great with possibility; every face in the
throng holds its secret; every figure is
eloquent of human drama. The pageant
is endless, its story never finished. Who,
indeed, could not be spellbound, behold-
ing that countless changing tatterdernal-
ion caravan go by Yet all we may
hope for of the inner history of these
journeying beings, so humanly amazing,
so significant, and all moved like our-
                  Viii

 
              foreworb
selves by springs of joy and fear, hope
and discouragement, is a glimpse here
and there, a life-story revealed in a single
gesture, a tragic history betrayed in the
tone of a voice or the lifting of a hand,
or perhaps a heaven of gladness in a
glancing smile. For the most part their
orbits are as aloof from us as the courses
of the stars, potent and mystic manifesta-
tions of the divine, glowing puppets of
the eternal masked in a veil of flesh.
  This was the pomp of history which
held the mind of Shakespeare, of
Dickens, of Cervantes, of Balzac, in
thrall, and drew the inquiring eye of
Browning and Whitman, of Stevenson
and Borrow, with so charmed and com-
prehending a look. To understand and
set down faithfully some small portion
of the tale of this ever changing proces-
sion, which is for ever appearing over the
sunrise hills of to-morrow and passing
                   Lx

 
              joreworb
into the twilight valleys of yesterday, is
the engrossing task of the novelist and the
teller of tales.
  How well that task is accomplished, is
the measure of the story-teller's power.
Ile may pick his characters from homely
types that we know, and please us with
the familiar; or he may paint for us some
portion of the great pageant that has
never passed our door, and raise us with
the mystery of unaccustomed things. In
either case he will touch our hearts by
revealing the hidden springs of action in
his chosen men and women. He will en-
large the borders of our mental vision
and illumine our appreciation by his
greater insight, greater knowledge, finer
reasoning. In his magic mirror we shall
not only see more of life than we saw be-
fore, but we shall see it more clearly,
more penetratingly, more wonderfully.
And ever afterwards, as we look on the
                  x

 
              Joreworb
world we know, life which perhaps used
to seem to us so commonplace, and events
which used to seem such a matter of
course, wviII take on a significance, a dig-
nity, a glamour, which they never before
possessed, - or, to speak more truly,
which they always possessed, indeed, but
which we had not the power to see.
This is the great educative use of crea-
tive literature; it teaches us to look on
the world with more understanding, to
confront it in manlier fashion, to appre-
ciate the priceless gift of life more
widely and generously, and so to live
more fully and efficiently and happily.
  The great opportunity of literature,
then, and its great responsibility, are
evident.  As Matthew   Arnold put it,
" The future of poetry is immense." In
an age when men and women are coming
more and more to do their own thinking
and form their own ethical judgments,
                   xi

 
              foreworb
the power and moral obligation of letters
must tend to increase rather than to
diminish. It is an encouraging sign of
the times and of growing intelligence,
that we demand a greater veracity in
our stories, and like writers who find
significance and charm in common sur-
roundings.  Our genuine appreciation
has produced a very real national litera-
ture, great in amount and often reach-
ing true eminence and distinction in
quality. Books like Miss Alice Brown's
" Meadow Grass " and " Country Neigh-
bours " are at once truly native and full
of the dignity and poetry and humour of
life. At their best they reveal depths of
human feeling and experience with a
telling insight and sympathy, and with a
felicity of style, which belong only to
masterpieces of fiction.
  To this charming province in the wide
domain of letters " Travelers Five " be-
                  X.  

 

              foreworD
longs, and Mrs. Annie Fellows Johns-
ton's many admirers must congratulate
themselves on its appearance, as they stir
the fire of an autumn afternoon. Here
once more we may sit as at a pleasant
window and "watch the pass" on the
great highway.   Here you shall see
approaching, in that delightful and mot-
ley cavalcade, Irish Jimmy in his ranch-
man's dress, his warm Celtic heart urging
him on up the obscure trail of unselfish
good; here, grotesque old Gid Wiggan,
flouting the shows of fashion, yet him-
self a showman conspicuous in the greater
show of life; here, the old story, a fine
gentleman's sense and feeling masquera-
ding under the antics of a traveling
clown; next, an embarrassed villager
with something like greatness thrust
upon him; and last, another strange
example of silent persistent New Eng-
land idealism, too proud to confess itself
                 Xiii

 

              jorewori
and only reaching its goal through a life-
time of repression and apparent failure.
  But I am obstructing your view while
I prate! Forgive me. I will step aside
and let you have the window to your-
self, so that you may quietly observe these
Travelers going by.






NEW CANAAN, CONN.,
  26 September, igir.

 

           Contents


Zbe f Lrot traveler. 3immg
On tbe CratL of tbe aWtoe Men .
tbe SeconD 'traveler. ORi Aids
In tbe M1ake of a lonepmoon . .
Cbe 'btrD traveler. Cbe Clown
oCowarbs bia Ziccola'e .
'Cbe fourtb traveler. Wlexlep
   inatbers
 Ift Wap of an Inberiteb Ctrcus .
Zbe 1itftb 'traveler. Map. Sloan
'o ibti Mount of jptagab.



)an



PAGE

1

55



  l1


. 131

. 159

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the ffirst



traveler



        3immp
On Cbe 'Cratt of tbe Utse Men

 This page in the original text is blank.

 

       travelers five
       along Fife's Higbwap


       Zbe Ytrst Craveler

              3immp
   On tbe Pratt of tbe Xtoe Men


O   RDINARILY a fleck of cigar
        ashes in the pot of mashed po-
        tatoes would not have caused a
row in the ranch kitchen, but to-day old
Jimmy had had a sup too much. At
such times the mere sight of Matsu, the
Japanese cook, could provoke him to
oaths, and it was Matsu who had unwit-
tingly dropped the ashes into the pot, as
he laid his cigar stump on the shelf above
the stove, preparatory to dishing up din-
ner.
  Time was when Jimmy had been the
                 3

 
            travelers Yive
cook at Welsh's ranch, and had had it all
his own way in the greasy adobe kitchen.
But that was before Ben Welsh's last
round-up.  Since then his widow had
been obliged to turn part of the cattle-
ranch into a boarding camp for invalids;
the part that lay in a narrow strip along
the desert.  Health-seekers paid better
than cattle or alfalfa she found.
  Many things came in with the new ad-
ministration. Matsu was one of them, in
his white chef's cap and jacket. The
spotless linen was a delight to the board-
ers, but to Jimmy, deposed to the rank
of hewer of wood and drawer of water,
it was the badge of the usurper. Natu-
rally enough his jealousy took the form
of making Matsu live up to his linen, and
he watched him like a cat for the slight-
est lapse from cleanliness.
  This constant warfare with Matsu was
one of the few diversions the camp af-
                   4

 
        Cbe first Craveler
forded, and every man made much of it.
Had he been let alone, old Jimmy would
have accepted the situation as merely one
more ill-turn of Fate, which had left him
as usual at the bottom of the wheel. But
his futile resentment was too funny a
thing for his tormentors to allow to die
out.
  It was a remark made early that morn-
ing which set him to brooding over his
wrongs, and finally led to the sup too
much which precipitated the fight over
the potato-pot. Batty Carson made it, in
a hoarse whisper, all the voice left to him
since the grippe sent him West in his
senior year. (He had been the best tenor
in his college glee-club.)  Jimmy was
moving a table into the shadow of the
tents, in order that the daily game of
poker might begin. Poker was all there
was in that God-forsaken desert to save
a man's reason, Batty declared, so they
                  5

 
           Travelere ftve
played it from breakfast till bed-time.
As the usual group joined him around
the table, he opened a new deck of cards
and began shuffling it. Automatically
he found the joker and flipped it out of
the pack. It fell face up on the dry Ber-
muda grass and old Jimmy stooped to
pick it up.
  Batty stopped him with a laugh. " A
seasoned old poker player like you stoop-
ing to pick up the joker!" he teased.
" You know well enough only one game
goes on this ranch, and the joker's no
good in that." Then he winked at the
others.
  "That's what you'll be after awhile,
Jimmy, if you don't stand up for your
rights better than you are doing. Matsu
will be taking every trick in the game,
and you'll count for nothing more than
just the joker of the pack."
  Jimmy flared up with an indignant
                   6

 
         Zbe first Craveler
oath at the laugh which followed, tore
the card in two, and would have gone off
muttering vengeance on Batty himself,
had not the young fellow stopped him
and teased him back into good humour.
But the remark rankled afterward be-
cause there was such a large element of
truth in it. Jimmy was no fool even if
he was slow-witted. He knew as well as
any one else that he had never counted
for much in any game Life had ever
given him a hand in. He brooded over
the fact until some sort of solace was
necessary. After that he burned for an
occasion to assert himself. It came when
Mrs. Welsh called to him to fill the
wood-box. Just as he threw down his
first armful of mesquite, the accident be-
fell the potatoes, and he waited to see
what Matsu would do.
  What could Matsu do with sixteen
hungry men listening for the dinner bell,
                  7

 

            Cravelers five
but scoop out a big spoonful from the
side of the pot where the ashes had fallen,
toss it out of the window and heap the
rest of the white fluffy mass into the hot
dish awaiting it Jimmy would have
done the same in his day but now he thun-
dered, " Throw out the whole potful, you
pig of a heathen! Do you want to drive
away every boarder on the ranch with
your dirty tricks Throw it out, I say."
  With the good-nature that rarely failed
him, Matsu only shrugged his shoulders,
giggled his habitual giggle and pro-
ceeded, unmoved by threats.
  "Go get 'notha drink," he advised, as
Jimmy continued to glare at him.
"Make you have heap much betta feel-
ing. Not so big mad. Go get full."
  Dinner was twenty minutes late that
day. The boarders heard the reason from
Hillis, who came in in his shirt sleeves
to wait on the table, in place of Mrs.
                  8

 

         Cbe firstf Craveler
'Welsh. Hillis was the dish-washer, a
tall big-fisted lumberman from Maine,
who, stranded at the close of an ill-
starred prospecting tour, had token tem-
porary service in iIrs. Welsh's kitchen.
He talked cheerfully of the disturbance
as he clumped around the table, thrusting
the dishes at each boarder in turn. They
forgave his awkwardness in their inter-
est in the fight.
  " Jimmy began it," he told them.
"Swung on to the pot and tried to pull
it away from Jappy and throw out the
stuff himself. But Jappy wouldn't have
it, and batted him one on the head with
the potato masher. Then Jimmy went in
for blood, and grabbed the meat-knife,
and would have put it into him in a pair
of seconds if I hadn't tripped him up and
sat on him. There was a hot time in
there for a spell, the air was blue. Old
Jimmy cussin' for all he was worth in
                   9

 
           travelers five
the sand-flapper lingo, and Matsu going
him one better every time in his pigeon
English! "
  " I suppose they'll both throw up their
jobs now," remarked a dyspeptic looking
man near the foot of the table.   " I
thought it was too good to last, and this
God-forsaken Arizona desert can't hold
more than one chef like Matsu. He's
the perfection of his kind, I'd feel like
hitting the trail myself if he should
go."
  "That's what Mrs. Welsh is afraid
of," replied Hillis. " She's out there now
trying to patch up the peace with him
and coax him to stay. She told me not to
tell you about the potatoes - thought it
might turn some of you against your
victuals; but it's too blamed funny to
keep."
  " For my part I hope she'll patch up
the peace with Jimmy, too," said Batty
                  IO

 
        Cbe first Craveter
Carson in his hoarse whisper. " He's the
only amusing thing in all this howling
wilderness. His being so far off the
track himself makes it all the funnier
when he goes to playing human guide-
post for everybody else."
  " He'll get his neck wrung a-doing it
sometime," rejoined Hillis. " I told him
so when he came fussing around at first,
sticking his fingers in my dish-water to
see if it was hot enough to kill germs.
I told him I'd scald him instead of the
dishes if he didn't let me alone. But it's
just his way I suppose. He's been here
off and on ever since Welsh bought the
ranch."
  " It's off this time," came Battv's
croaking whisper. " There he goes now.
Whew! He's hot! Just watch him hump
himself along! "
  The eight men whose backs were
toward the window, turned in their chairs
                  II

 
           raveders live
to follow the gaze of the others. They
had a glimpse of a tall spare figure,
hurrying stiffly past the house as fast as
his rheumatic joints would allow. There
was anger in every line of it. Even the
red bandana around his throat seemed to
express it. The fierce curves of his old
hat-brim, the bristling hairs of his griz-
zly mustache, the snap of his lean jaws
as the few snags left in his sunken gums
opened and shut on a quid of tobacco, all
told of an inward rage which would be
long in cooling.
  "'Well, it's all over now," announced
Hillis a moment later, coming back from
the kitchen with a bowl of hot gravy.
"Jimmy vowed one of them had to go,
so Mrs. Welsh said he'd have to be that
one. She could get a Mexican to chop
wood and carry water, but she couldn't
get another cook like Matsu.    And
Jimmy's that mad and insulted and hurt
                  1 2

 
         Cbe first Craveler
he can't get off the place fast enough.
He's gone now to pack his kit, muttering
as if he'd swallowed a lot of distant thun-
der."
  A laugh went around the long table.
Usually the meals proceeded in silence
except for a few spasmodic outbursts.
Sitting all day in the sun, gazing at the
monotonous desert landscape while one
waits for winter to crawl by, is not a con-
versational stimulant. But to-day, even
Maidlow, the grumpiest invalid in the
lot, forgot his temperature and himself
in adding his mite to the fund of anec-
dotes passing around the table about
Jimmy. The conversation was less re-
strained than usual in the absence of the
only lady and child which the ranch
boasted. The Courtlands were spending
the day in Phcenix, so there were three
vacant chairs at the foot of the table.
One was a child's high-chair with a bib
                  '3

 

           travelers live
hanging over its back. Hillis laid his
hand on it in passing.
   Here's one that will miss the old
rain-crow," he said, as if glad to find
some good word about Jimmy. " Little
Buddy Courtland comes about as near
loving him as anybody could, I guess.
He'll miss him."
  " It's Dane Ward who'll really miss
him," declared the dyspeptic, glancing
out of the window at the farthest row of
tents to the one at the end whose screen
door was closed. " Now Jimmy's gone
I don't see what that poor fellow will do
when he needs some one to sit up with
him of nights."
  " That's right," agreed Batty Carson.
"Jimmy's been his right bower ever
since he came. I'll give the old devil
credit for that much."
  While they talked, Jimmy, outside in
the shack which he shared with Hillis,
                  14

 
         Uhe first traveler
was gathering up in a furious rage his
small bundle of belongings, cursing
darkly as he threw boots, shirts and over-
alls into a confused heap in the middle
of his bunk. Near at hand the tents
stood empty in the December sun; five
rows of them, four in a row with twenty
foot spaces between. Each canvas-cov-
ered screen door swung open, and out-
side sat a camp chair or a big wooden
rocker, with blanket or overcoat trailing
across it, just as its occupant had left it
to go in to dinner. A litter of news-
papers and magazines lay all around on
the dry Bermuda grass.
  There was one exception. One screen
door was closed, that of the farthest tent
on the back row in line with Jimmy's
shack. A sound of coughing -choked,
convulsive coughing, had been coming
from that direction for several minutes,
but the sound did not penetrate Jimmy's
                  '5

 
           travelers five
consciousness until he heard his name
called in an agonized tone. He craned
his head out to listen. The call came
again in a frantic gasp:
  "Jimmy! Jimmy! Oh, somebody
come ! "
  Then he recognized the voice. It was
Dane Ward calling him. In his row
with Matsu he had forgotten the boy;
forgotten that he was to carry him his
dinner and give him his medicine. He
remembered with a pang of self-reproach
that he had promised to come back with
fresh wood as soon as he had carried an
armful of wood to the kitchen.   He
started off on a stiff jog-trot towards the
tent.
  A moment later, maybe not even so
long as that, for as he ran he knew that
he might be racing against death, he
dashed into the kitchen which he had
sworn never again to enter, and caught
                  i6

 
         Cbe ftrst Craveler
up a handful of salt. Hillis, thinking he
had lost his mind, almost dropped the
tray of dessert dishes he was holding for
Matsu to fill; but Mrs. Welsh recogni-
zing the import of Jimmy's act, followed
without question as he called back over
his shoulder, " It's Dane! The worst
hemorrhage the lad's had yet."
  Hillis carried the news into the dining
room with the dessert. Big and strong,
never having had a sick day in his life,
he could not know the effect it would
produce, and Mrs. Welsh had not
thought to warn him. The room grew
silent. It was what might happen to any
one of them; had happened in fact to all.
The apprehension of it was the skeleton
at their every feast. First one man and
then another pushed back his plate and
Nvent out into the sunshine. They all
liked Dane, the shy, quiet boy from some
village in the New York hills. That was
                  I7

 
           travelere live
all they knew of him, for he always sat
apart. Sometimes there was a book in
his lap but he rarely read just sat and
gazed off towards the east with a hungry
look in his big grey eyes. The homesick
longing of them was heart-breaking to
see.
  They went back to their chairs and
their naps and their newspapers, but the
usual afternoon monotony was broken by
the interest centering in the farthest tent
in the last row. They glanced up fur-
tively every time the door opened. It
swung many times in the course of the
afternoon, for Mrs. Welsh to go in and
out, for the doctor to make a hurried
visit, for Jimmy to come and go with
crushed ice and clean towels, a spoon or
a pitcher of fresh water.
  For Jimmy, in his anxious ministra-
tions, forgot his fight with Matsu, forgot
that he had had no -dinner, and that he
                  i8

 
         Cbe first Braveler
was in the midst of preparations for leav-
ing the ranch. l1he ugly facts did not
come back to him till several hours had
passed. Then he started up from the
chair beside Dane's bed and tip-toed
heavily across the floor. He would fin-
ish making up his bundle while the boy
was asleep. The danger was past now.
If he could get down to the Tempe road
before dark, probably he could catch a
ride the rest of the way into Phcenix. A
board creaked and Dane opened his
eyes.
  ' I wasn't asleep," he said weakly.
  Hand me that little picture off the
bureau, won't you, Jimmy " Then as
his fingers closed over it-" And roll
the canvas to the top of the door please.
I can't see."
  Jimmy sat down again, impelled by
the pitifulness of the thin white face. He
knew the picture, having examined it
                  I9

 
           Crareters jftve
privately on several occasions while
sweeping the tent. It was a tin-type of
two laughing school-girls, with their
arms around each other. It was plain to
him that one was Dane's sister.    He
guessed the relationship of the other
when he saw that it was on the face un-
like his that Dane's wistful eyes rested
longest.  Presently he slipped it under
his pillow and lay so still that Jimmy
thought he was asleep, until he saw a tear
slipping slowly from under the closed
eve-lids. Involuntarily the rough hand
went out and closed in a sympathetic
grasp over the white fingers on the cover-
let. Dane bit his lip to hide their twitch-
ing and then broke out bitterly, but in a
voice so weak that it came in gasps:
  "That doctor back home lied to me!
He lied! He knew that I was past sa-
ving when he sent me out here. He ought
to have told me. Do you suppose I'd
                   20

 
         Cbe first Craveler
have let my mother mortgage her home
- all she had in the world - to send me,
if he hadn't led us to believe that the
Arizona climate could work a miracle
He made it so certain that I'd get wcll
right away, it seemed suicidal not to take
the chance."
  He stopped, almost strangled by a
paroxysm of coughing, lay panting for a
moment, and then began again, despite
Jimmy's warning that it would make
him worse to talk.
  " Mother can never pay out without
my help, and I've got to lie here to the
end and think of what's in store for her
and Sis, and then-die and be buried
out here in this awful desert! It'll cost
too much to be sent back home. Oh, how
could a man lie like that to a person that's
dying "
  The question staggered Jimmy a mo-
ment. He turned his eyes uneasily from
                  2 I

 
           Cravelers J've
Dane's piercing gaze in order that he
might lie cheerfully himself.
  "What are you thinking about dying
for " he demanded in his bluff way.
" You'll be better than ever after this
spell. It sort of cleaned out your pipes
you know. You'll be busting bronchos
with the best of them by spring if you
keep up your courage.   Look at M r.
Courtland now. He was worse off than
you when he came, a heap sight. Had
to be brought on a stretcher. He's get-
ting well."
  "'No, it's different-everyway," an-
swered Dane wearily.   " He's got his
family with him, and money and-
everything. I haven't even my mother's
picture. She never had any taken. If I
had even that when the end comes it
xvouldn't seem quite so lonesome. But to
think of all strange faces, and afterwards
-to lie among strangers hundreds of
                  22

 
         be ftrzt Craveler
miles away f rom home - oh, it nearly
makes me crazy to think of the miles
and miles of cactus and sand between
us!  I hate the sight of this awful
country."
  Jimmy looked out through the open
door of the tent, across the dreary waste
of desert, separated from the camp by
only the irrigating ditch, and the unfre-
quented highroad, as if he were seeing
it in a new light.
  " 'Spect it might strike a fellow as sort
of the end of nowhere the first time he
sees it," he admitted. " I've lived here
so long I kind of like it myself. But I
know what you're craving to see. I lived
back in the hills myself when I was a kid.
I was brought up in York state."
  Dane raised himself on his elbow, an
excited flush on his face. " You, from
home," he began. " New York "
  Jimmy pushed him    back.  "You're
                  23

 
           Cravelers five
getting too frisky," he admonished.
You'll be took again if you ain't care-
ful. Yes, I know just what you're pining
for. You want to see the hills all red
with squaw berries or pink in arbutus
time; and the mountain brooks -noth-
ing like these muddy old irrigating
ditches - so clear you can see the peb-
bles in the bottom, and the trout flipping
back and forth so fast you can hardly see
their speckles.  But Lord! boy-you
don't want to go back there now in mid-
winter. The roads are piled up with
drifts to the top of the stone fences and
the boughs of the sugar-bush are weighed
down with snow till you'd think you was
walking through a grove of Christmas
trees."
  " Oh, go rn!/" pleaded Dane, as he
paused.  His eyes were closed, but a
smile rested on his face as if the scenes
Jimmy described were his for the mo-
                  24

 
         ENe First Craveler
ment.  "Jimmy, it's - it's like heaven
to hear you talk about it! Don't stop."
  To keep the smile on the white face,
that rapt, ineffable smile of content,
Jimmy talked on. Over forty years lay
between him and the scenes he was re-
calling. He had wandered far afield
from his straight-going, path-keeping
Puritan family. He had been glad at
times that they had lost track of him, and
that wherever he went he wvas known
only as "Jimmy." Gradually the remi-
niscences like the touch of a familiar
hand on a troubled brow, soothed Dane
into forgetfulness of his surroundings,
and he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
  just at dusk that evening, when Batty
Carson wvent around to the kitchen for his
usual glass of new milk, he was surprised
to see Jimmy down by the wood-pile.
He was vigorously at work, helping un-
load a wagon of mesquite, and quite as
                  2  

 
           travelers live
v