"Oh, he's only a boy," said Louise, glancing casually at the youth crouched above the fire.
The boy, a slim lad of sixteen or thereabout, flushed beneath the battered brim of his black felt hat. He watched the tomato-can coffee-pot intently. Louise could not see his face.
"Yes, Miss. I'm all right and so is he." And a humorous wistfulness crept into the tramp's eyes. "He's what you might call a changeling."
"Changeling?"
"Uhuh! Always changin' around from place to place—when you're young. Ain't that it?"
"Oh! And when you are older?" she queried, smiling.
Overland Red frowned. "Oh, then you're just a tramp, a Willie, a Bo, a Hobo."
He saw the girl's eyes harden a little. He spoke quickly, and, she imagined, truthfully. "I worked ten years for one outfit once, without a change. And I never knowed what it was to do a day's work out of the saddle. You know what that means."
"Cattle? Mexico?"
Overland Red grinned. "Say! You was born in California, wasn't you?"