The still hush of evening was over everything, creeping with the lengthening shadows across the pasture. A flock of turkeys was making noisy preparations for bed in some trees near by. The frogs had begun to croak and once in a while a whippoorwill called from the woods. In an adjoining hay-field, hurrying to get in the last load before dark, the Watermelon saw the farmer. A pair of sorry looking nags drooped drearily, attached to the cart with its high, shaky load of new-mown hay. "I’m going to speak to him myself," said the Watermelon, stopping. "It will save time. You wait here. I won’t be long." "Give me the food," said Billy. "I will take it to the others. Poor things, they must be starving." "I won’t be long," objected the Watermelon. "You can’t carry it alone." "Indeed, I can," protested Billy. The Watermelon laughed down at her. "You couldn’t get up the other side of the crossing," he teased. "A girl," said Billy sagely, "is a lot more capable when she is alone than when she is with a man." She took the ungainly bundle and he watched her hurry away across the fields, slim and graceful, dainty and sweet, while he was—a tramp! His eyes darkened with pain and he threw one hand out after the small figure in a gesture that was full of mingled longing and hopelessness. "Billy, Billy," he whispered, then turned from the thoughts which were coming thick and fast and started toward the distant field and the farmer. [Illustration: "Billy, Billy," he whispered] The farmer listened with blunt stupidity, hot and tired and cross. Yes, he would come for the car as soon as he could, but the hay had to be got in first. It was late now. That train whistle you could hear was the seven o’clock express. His horses were tired, too, but, of course, if he were paid, why that made a difference. He would be around as soon as he could get his load in. It was the last load, anyway. The Watermelon turned and far in the distance, echoing and reëchoing through the hills, he heard again the scream of the approaching train. "Billy win be across the tracks by this time," he thought. "I will have to wait for it to pass. Glad it ain’t a freight." He hurried moodily through the field. His position had become intolerable and yet he could find no chance to get away without revealing his identity, and to do that now would do no good. They could not reach the railroad any sooner than they were trying to. He longed for the morrow that would end it all and yet dreaded the barrenness of the future without Billy. As he approached the cut, he saw the smoke of the train rising above the bushes, an express, tearing its way through the evening calm like some terrible passion searing the soul. The Watermelon stepped to the edge of the cut and glanced carelessly downward.