"No," he said. "If you don't mind, Mr. Hallam, I'll be getting on
again."

"Come in!" said Hallam, a trifle more sharply, but for just a moment
Damer remained motionless. A few steps would take him down the
verandah stairway, and then the shadowy bush lay before him. Had he
had a horse, he would have obeyed the impulse which prompted him to
avoid the encounter; but, as it happened, owing to the fact that Alton
had met the rancher who would otherwise have lent him one, he had none.
So with evident unwillingness he came slowly forward, and dropping his
bundles on the floor flung himself into a chair.

"Well," he said, "I'm here."

Hallam, who had been watching him, nodded reflectively. "I guess you
didn't expect to find me, or you wouldn't have come," he said. "Where
were you going?"

"To the railroad," said Damer. "Out of the country!"

"Without telling me? That was kind of foolish of you. Still, you
haven't much sense, anyway. You had quite a well-paid job at Somasco."

"Well," said Damer dryly, "I haven't got it now."

Hallam laughed, though the glint in his eyes did not express good will.
"You have got a temper that will be the ruin of you, and don't know
when a man's too big for you, while, now I come to look at you, there's
a lump on your forehead that makes the thing quite plain. You have
been fooling with Alton, and he has 'most pounded the life out of you.