The vagrant’s life was insolvent in all those assets of friendship that had once enriched it. He had deliberately bankrupted himself of them when he had buried his identity in that of the hobo Tug, driven to it by the shame of his swift declension. It had been many months since any woman had clung so obstinately to a belief in him regardless of facts. He had no immediate family, no mother or sister with an unshakable faith that went to the heart of life.
But this girl who had crossed his path—this girl with the wild-rose color, the sweetness that flashed so vividly in her smile, the dear wonder of youth in every glance and gesture—believed in him and continued to believe in spite of his churlish rejection of her friendliness.
Though he was one of the lost legion, it was an evidence of the divine flame still flickering in him that his soul went out to meet the girl’s brave generosity. In his bosom was a warm glow. For the hour at least he was strong. It seemed possible to slough the weakness that rode him like an Old Man of the Sea.
His free hand groped its way to an inner pocket and drew out a package wrapped in cotton cloth. A fling of his arm sent it into the stubble.
“What you doin’?” demanded Forbes.
“Throwing away my gun and ammunition,” the tramp answered, his sardonic mouth twitching.
“It don’t buy you anything to pull that funny stuff,” growled the foreman. “You ain’t got a gun to throw away.”
Forbes turned the captured vagrant over to Burwell, one of the extra harvest hands, and left him at the bunkhouse while he went to telephone the doctor and the sheriff.
It was a busy night at the Diamond Bar K. The foreman drove away and presently returned. Tug heard the voices of Betty and her father as they moved toward the house. Some one chugged up to the house in a car with one spark plug fouled or broken.
Burwell went to the door of the bunkhouse.