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port. However, the station agent in the edge of Lane County is accustomed to meeting vague demands. Abner received a ticket to Marked Tree, Arkansas, and twelve cents in change. The agent did not ask Abner if he had any baggage to check; Abner's type never had. When such a youth travelled, he travelled unencumbered.

When Abner returned to his room with the ticket he found Tug Beavers and Zed in a low conversation which they broke off when he entered. Tug arose with the air of a man making his farewells.

"Well, Zed," he drawled out, "if it so happens that I don't see you no more, we shore won't meet fer a long time."

"Be good, Tug," countered Zed, with the worn parting phrases of the hill country, "an' if you kain't be good, be keerful."

"So long, Zed," put in Abner, "don't do nothin' I wouldn't do."

"All right, an' don't you boys shoot craps with nobody that uses loaded dice."

"We won't. Good-bye, Zed."

"Good-bye, boys, an' I if don't git back the ol' gray mare's yo'rn."

So the three teamsters parted, glossing over the bleakness of their parting with mock moral injunctions after the manner of their kind. Abner and Tug tramped downstairs and started to work.

They were late, and as they hurried along the street, Abner was stung with certain jealous twinges because Zed had told Tug his real troubles and had not told him. He wanted to ask Tug, but pride forbade. If Zed did not trust him, then he didn't want to know. He was just as indifferent to Zed as Zed was to him. Then squarely in the midst of these thoughts he turned to his brooding companion and asked, "Tug, what's Zed havin' to leave town fer?"

Tug came out of a trance to say, "Oh—he jest took a ramblin' spell."

So that was the way the land lay—Abner was to be ex-