T

HE Windy Kid tarried on the sum

mi of the Saratoga Ridge to bid farewell to the Santa Clara Valley. The Kid was certainly out of his latitude. He was a tramp, not a "dynamiter"a member of a debased fraternity of wanderers who work-but a genuine tramp who lived by grace of misguided sympathy and traveled wherever he pleased in spite of the vigilance of brakemen. The inhabitants of the Santa Cruz Mountains do not encourage tramps. They work hard themselves, and have no compassion for loafers. But the Kid had determined to explore the mountains, and his was a nature that seldom fought an impulse.

The Kid was a tall, athletic youth of twenty-four, and but for a shifty expression in his face might have been held fairly good looking. That expression came from lying many times a day for a livelihood. His sobriquet-the professional term is "monica"-of the Windy Kid was earned by the gift of ready and fluent speech. He had served in the Salvation Army in nearly all the larger cities of the United States, and was very successful as a curb-stone orator. He could expound socialism, which is the tramp's religion, in a far more convincing way than many of its better educated exponents. Given an incentive and a moral sense the Kid might have made something of himself, but as he said, "What's the use? The elements provide, and it is good to travel."

A blue jay called the Kid bad names from the top branch of a young redwood and roused him from his reverie.

"So long," said the Kid regretfully, waving his hand to the valley. "The elements will provide." And turning his

head from the land of milk and honey he strode rapidly down the mountain road toward Boulder.

Boulder is a little lumbering town hidden in the heart of the mountains. The Kid arrived there late in the afternoon with a naturally healthy appetite much sharpened by unwonted exercise. Though he was possessed of an ample "grouch bag" (reserve fund) he did not care to draw upon it unless a meal could not be obtained by any other means. He selected the neat cottage of a German lumber teamster and knocked at the back door, prepared to tell a most touching tale of misfortune.

The door opened, disclosing a girl with Teutonic blue eyes and flaxen hair. The Kid had the reputation of being "de smoothest moocher on de road" and "the hobo orator," but for once his flow of eloquence failed. The calm, steady gaze of those blue eyes made the Kid lower his, and the Kid forgot all about the Brotherhood. He stammered a request that he might buy a meal. In the mountains any and everything is for sale, and after a consultation with someone inside, the girl ushered the Kid into the kitchen, which was also the dining room. He sat down before a table covered with immaculate oilcloth, and was helped to a plain but generous dinner by the girl and her mother. His easy manner and ready tongue captivated them immediately, and he was soon possessed of their history. Then and there the impulse came to the Kid to quit the road forever, and to become a useful citizen of Boulder. He had knocked about, he reflected, until there was hardly anything he had not seen. It would be pleasant to have a neat little cottage among the redwoods -and-Louise Hoffman was very pretty.

"Are there any chances of getting work in this place?" asked the Kid. He had asked that question many thousands of times, but this time he asked it in earnest.

"If you are a teamster, yes," replied the mother.

"Then I will stay here," replied the Kid watching the daughter's face intently. A tramp is an expert reader of expression, and the Kid was satisfied with what he saw in the face of Louise.

"Vater will tell you all about it, and take you to the boss of the lumber company when he comes," volunteered Mrs. Hoffman.

"Vater," six feet tall, heavy and slow of speech, arrived, and was introduced to the Kid, now Mr. Joseph Harris, teamster out of a job.

"You can drive, yes?" inquired Hoffman. "Vare have you drove?"

"San Francisco-milk wagon," replied the Kid with the quickness of the ready prevaricator.

Hoffman looked dubious. "This teaming is different, yes. Seven horses or mules, a wagon and a trailer. Up, up, like you go into the sky. Down, Gott! vat a grade. The wheel hang over the edge of the cliff. Below it is a thousand foot drop, yes. The bridges shake like the devil, yes. Von foot the wrong way und down goes everything. City driving anyone can do, but Gott! mountain teaming in California is no schnap, mein frient."

Nevertheless, before nightfall the Kid was hired as a teamster by the Big Basin Lumber Company, and accepted as a lodger by the Hoffmans. He returned early to the neat little bed room assigned to him, knowing that he had a hard day before him. When he reported at the stables the next morning he had to watch another teamster perform the feat before he could harness the seven mules assigned to him. But the Kid had lived most of his life on his wits, consequently they were sharpened. Still his life and the team were in the balance for 2 week. Heaven only knows by how narrow a margin they escaped falling a thousand feet into a canyon. By the end of the week the Kid was recognized as a cap

able teamster, who could haul his two loads safely and on time. He received the first money he had honestly earned with a new pride. The stiffness and soreness of the first few days had disappeared, and he began to believe that it was as easy to be a useful member of the community as it was to be a parasite.

A cottage of his own and Louise-that was the prize that brought the Kid to the path of righteousness, and it was within his grasp.

Mrs. Hoffman noted that the Kid did not frequent any of the numerous saloons of Boulder where the unmarried and some of the married teamsters spent their week's earnings on a howling Sunday spree. The Kid had opened his first bank account. Often on Saturday nights he would take Mrs. Hoffman and Louise to a temperance drama or some other outrage on art committed at the W. C. T. U. Hall in the town.

"He is a very steady young man, Joe," observed Mrs. Hoffman one evening after the Kid had retired.

"He is a good teamster, yes," said Vater, "und he is no fool."

Louise said nothing.

Town lots in Boulder were remarkably cheap, and it was not long before one of them became the property of Mr. Joseph Harris, alias "The Windy Kid."

"Why, I can own this town in a few years," he exclaimed exultantly, as he surveyed his property. "It's dead easy."

One Sunday Louise and the Kid strolled far into the woods outside of Boulder. They had brought lunch with them and the Kid lighted a fire to heat some coffee.

"Why don't you come near the fire?" asked the Kid suddenly.

"Oh, the smoke will get into my dress and it smells so," replied the ever-dainty Louise.

The Kid frowned. He loved the smoke of a wood fire, for that is the true gypsy's incense. Then he realized with a start that he was no longer a gypsy.

But after that incident the long-smouldered fires of unrest began to show signs of re-kindling. A branch railroad ran into Boulder, and coming to town one

day a little before his usual time, the Kid heard the far-off echo of the whistle of the freight train that left every after

noon.

Even as the heart of the retired veteran bounds when he hears unexpectedly the blare of a bugle, as the little heart of the caged bird flutters when he hears the call of his wild mates, the Kid's heart thumped violently and his eyes glistened.

He thought of the wild rides on the "rod," where life hung by a thread; of the more comfortable but always uncertain rides on the blind baggage; of the thousands of hobo camps of old companions who held him in high esteem. Respectability had begun to pall, and he longed for the freedom of the road. Then he thought of Louise, and cursed himself because he could not control that wild. colt, his heart. He determined to avoid hearing that discordant siren voice in future.

He

The Thanksgiving dinner at the Hoffman's that year was to be a memorable affair, because it was to celebrate the betrothal of Louise and the Kid. volunteered to go to town early in the forenoon to secure the turkey without which the Thanksgiving dinner is no dinner. Now, a railroad superintendent who was totally unaware of the Kid's existence had ordained that a special freight train should leave Boulder that morning because a ship in San Francisco bay needed a cargo of lumber in a hurry. As the Kid passed the railroad station he heard the huge locomotives panting like a wild thing held in bondage, but he resolutely looked the other way and hurried toward the meat market.

Just as he reached the station on his return, carrying a sixteen-pound turkey, the engine whistled a farewell, causing every nerve in the Kid's body to tingle. He watched the long line of lum

ber cars file past, with the air of one in a trance, stepping as though drawn by some unseen power nearer and nearer the track. The last car that came in sight was an empty box car. The Kid threw the turkey in through the open door and swung himself in after it.

He flung himself down on a little heap of straw and buried his face in his arms. "It's no use," he sobbed, "it's no use." A few minutes later the Windy Kid laughed lightly. "Oh, well, I wasn't built for it, I guess."

At Los Gatos the Kid and the turkey were ejected by a stalwart brakeman. The Kid shouldered the bird, and walked a little way out of the town along the track. He then took a well-worn path which led from the track into a little wooded canyon. Three gentlemen of the Brotherhood were lying there beside the creek discussing ways and means as to obtaining a Thanksgiving dinner.

"Is dis a dream!" exclaimed Boston Slim, one of the brethren, as the Kid strode into the "hobo camp."

"De Windy Kid and a turk!" cried Fresno Shorty.

"A blessing in disguise," observed Soldier Jack, facetiously.

"Where in have you been sleeping?" inquired the three in chorus.

"Oh, I've been yachting with my friend Pierpont Morgan," replied the Kid lightly. "The turk is a present from him."

"Oh, don't bother de Kid," put in Fresno Shorty. "He's been working some wise graft, I'll bet."

"Yes," said the Kid, absently. "I've been up against the biggest graft of my life, and I couldn't make it. But," he laughed rather harshly, "oh, the elements will provide."

"Meanwhile," said Soldier Jack, "we eats Thanksgiving dinner on J. P. Morgan!"

AM going up into Deaf Smith County," I announced with perhaps some uncalled-for aggres

siveness.

It is desirable to have your remarks received by your family with due attention, but I must say the silence which followed my statement was considerably more flattering than reassuring.

"Well," said mother finally, with that peculiar, sliding inflection of hers which always makes the little chills begin to creep up and down my spine.

"How long do you propose remaining?" inquired father in his suave "jury" tone which usually presages trouble.

"I shall stay," I broke out, "till I feel like coming back."

"You perhaps contemplate entering the cattle trade," suggested father, still ominously suave, "and you desire to inspect a ranch, no doubt."

"I don't," I rejoined briefly. "I have no wish to sneak behind any such pretence with you and mother. I am going solely because I don't know my own mind, and I shall stay there till I uo know it."

"But Judge Winter!" pronounced mother, sternly.

"Judge Winter may take the explanation I sent him," I replied. "He may simply accept the consequences of engaging himself to a girl young enough to be his daughter."

"Are you aware," inquired mother, "that your trousseau is about half completed?"

"Rather painfully aware of it," I answered, as I buttered another waffle with great accuracy. "But-I-I don't feel like being married next month, and," gaining heat and courage as I went on -"I don't intend to be."

From mother's expression one might have supposed that I had declared an intention of taking up stage robbing as an occupation.

"What is Judge Winter to think?" she ejaculated.

"I really can't say," I replied steadily, though both the questions had daunted and intimidated me for weeks, and still had the power to wake me in the nigut with a cold finger laid upon my throbbing heart. "I really can't say what Judge Winter may think," I answered, "but he shares with the rest of us the privilege of doing his own thinking."

An alarmed voice came from behin father's paper denouncing dishonest prac tices in business or social relations, and stating that the decent man's or woman's word was as good as his-or her-bond.

This was a little too much. "My word!" I cried scornfully, "the word of a nineteen year old girl! I hadn't a friend or relative who didn't push the thing on, and persuade me to believe that I knew my own mind. I was a fool when I gave my word, and an assisted fool. I have at least sense enough now to know that."

I had exploded my bomb, and its ef fect was certainly profound. Father was white-he was incandescent. I could see he dared not speak for fear he should say what we would all always regret. Mother was as silent, save for what, in some less majestic person I should have described as a small snort. And I went up to Deaf Smith County without another word on either side.

Cousin Milton from the beginning of my stay took up the pleasing hypothesis that I came to them a jilted maid, or as he put it, disappointed in love.

"I tell you what, Sis," he said, "there's nothing in the world for a broken heart like a round-up, and I'm going to take you and Johnny over to the big roundup at the Quita Que."

I had just accepted Johnny as one of the delightful facts of life at Cousin Milton's. He was six feet tall, deep-chested, sunburned, full of laughter and good

humor. Cousin Milton introduced him as Mr. John Dement and said he was ranch boss; but then Cousin Milton was always skylarking and joking. I asked Viola, who has no more sense of humor than a cat, and she said that really she did not know; it was possible Milton had hired him (she has to the full a wifely appreciation of Cousin Milton's importance) but that she had understood he was a lawyer in the East, and that he had written something for the papers that was pretty successful, and concluded to come West and write a book about Texas.

This struck me as rather more improbable than Cousin Milton's explanation, and as Johnny stayed with the cowboys over at the bachelors' quarters I decided he couldn't be a guest. But as he didn't work, but might be found at almost any time during the day somewhere in my own vicinity (a fact upon which Cousin Milton somewhat broadly commented), I decided he was not an employee, and there I let the matter drop.

"Ah, but this is the country, and this is the life!" he said as we sat one evening on the porch. "It was known in the beginning, I take it, that people would make much unhappiness for each other; that they would build cities, for the cramping of free limbs and the free individuality, and the soiling of the free air; places where the brain might be wearied out and the heart made sick in the shortest possible time, by divers great and ingenious engines of man's contriving; and SO the plains-the great sun-lit, wind-raked plains-and horses, and saddles, and cattle, were arranged as sort of antidote, and here they are, all ready for those wise enough to recog⚫ nize and avail themselves of them."

a

It struck me that Cousin Milton had been talking to Johnny about my affairs, and I resented it. I had no intention of posing as a stricken deer, before Johnny or anybody else, so I answered rather tartly: "It appears to me that a man, with a man's work to do in the world, shouldn't leave it to come riding around here like a great school boy for the mere enjoyment of it."

"No!" said Johnny. Then in a sort

of parenthesis: "You're out of temper, I see. Maybe I have offended or irritated you about something, but I don't know what it is. A man can't run away from his work nor a woman from ner worries," and then he gave me a glance which I chose to think extremely personal.

"The only thing that worries me," I returned flippantly, "is that I failed to bring along two quarts of some good sunburn specific," and I glanced complacent. ly down at my hands.

Johnny took the one that was on the side from the other people-he had, by the way, a very pretty notion of spooning "They are as white as lilies, and as soft as snow," he whispered. "What do you want of a sunburn specific?"

"Wait till you get through with that round-up," chimed in Viola's voice. She had caught the word "sunburn." "You'll need to have your face poulticed, that is if you ride horseback, as Milton says you are madly determined to do."

"I am," I replied firmly. "Johnny and I are going to learn to 'cut out.'" I called him Johnny "by request," as every one else did.

"Well, Kate," began Viola in that tone a woman uses to impart something disagreeable, "for a girl who is going to be married next month I must say you are reckless with your complexion."

I turned and stole a guilty look at Johnny. I could see that he was white under the tan, and sundry passages in which I had "told him all" (well, all but one thing) in answer to very copious confidences from himself, rose up to

accuse me.

He met my stolen glance with a look of pained inquiry, but the time was not propitious for explanations.

"Who told you I was going to be married next month?" I inquired with an effort at unconcern.

"Why, Kate, how absurd you are," rejoined Viola, as I walked away, and I knew she only waited to hear me safely in my own room to impart to Johnny all of the miserable details with which she was conversant, for when I met him again he was Mr. John Dement, a successful young lawyer, a rising writer,