Jeff had ignored Milt. But at this absurd second intrusion on his decidedly private dinner-party he flipped to the center of the room and said "I beg your pardon!" in such a head-office manner that the pink-locked Mystery halted in his bombast. Claire felt wabbly. She had no theories as to where Milt had acquired a private jester, nor as to what was about to happen to Milt--and possibly to her incautious self. CHAPTER XVII THE VAGABOND IN GREEN As Milt had headed westward from Butte, as he rattled peacefully along the road, conscious of golden haze over all the land, and the unexpectedness of prairie threshing-crews on the sloping fields of mountainsides, a man had stepped out from bushes beside the road, and pointed a .44 navy revolver. The man was not a movie bandit. He wore a green imitation of a Norfolk jacket, he had a broad red smile, and as he flourished his hat in a bow, his hair was a bristly pompadour of gray-streaked red that was almost pink. He made oration: "Pardon my eccentric greeting, brother of the open road, but I wanted you to give ear to my obsequious query as to how's chances on gettin' a lift? I have learned that obsequiousness is best appreciated when it is backed up by prayer and ca'tridges." "What's the idea? I seem to gather you'd like a lift. Jump in." "You do not advocate the Ciceronian style, I take it," chuckled the man as he climbed aboard. Milt was not impressed. Claire might have been, but Milt had heard politics and religion argued about the stove in Rauskukle's store too often to be startled by polysyllabomania. He knew it was often the sign of a man who has read too loosely and too much by himself. He snorted. "Huh! What are you--newspaper, politics, law, preacher, or gambler?" "Well, a little of all those interesting occupations. And ten-twent-thirt trouping, and county-fair spieling, and selling Dr. Thunder Rapids' Choctaw Herbal Sensitizer. How far y' going?" "Seattle." "Honest? Say, kid, this is---- Muh boy, we shall have the rare privilege of pooling adventures as far as Blewett Pass, four to six days' run from here--a day this side of Seattle. I'm going to my gold-mine there. I'll split up on the grub--I note from your kit that you camp nights. Quite all right, my boy. Pinky Parrott is no man to fear night air." He patted Milt's shoulder with patronizing insolence. He filled a pipe and, though the car was making twenty-five, he lighted the pipe with distinguished ease, then settled down to his steady stride: "In the pride of youth, you feel that you have thoroughly categorized me, particularly since I am willing to admit that, though I shall have abundance of the clinking iron men to buy my share of our chow, I chance just for the leaden-footed second to lack the wherewithal to pay my railroad fare back to Blewett; and the bumpers and side-door Pullman of the argonauts like me not. Too damn dusty. But your analysis is unsynthetic, though you will scarce grasp my paradoxical metaphor."