We met by chance, the usual way, and the play come up like this: I'm going cross country, per short-cut a friend tells me about--this was when I was young; I could have got to where I was going in about four hours' riding, say I moved quick, by the regular route, but now I'm ten hours out of town, and all I know about where I am is that the heavens are above me and any quantity of earth beneath me. For the last two hours I've been losing bits of my disposition along the road, and now I'm looking for a dog to kick. Here we come to a green gulch with a chain of pools at the bottom of it. I got off to take a drink. Soon's I lay down there's a snort and a clatter, and my little horse Pepe is moving for distance, head up and tail up, and I'm foot loose forty miles from nowhere. This was after the time of Victorio, still there was a Tonto or two left in the country, for all the government said that the Apaches were corralled in Camp Grant, so I made a single-hearted scamper for a rock. Then I looked around--nothin' in sight; I raised my eyes and my jaw dropped. Right above me on the side-hill sits a man, six foot and a half high and two foot and a half wide, dressed in a wool hat, short skirts, and bare legs. His nose and ears looked like they'd been borrowed from some large statue. His hair was red; so's mine, but mine was the most lady-like kind of red compared to his--a gentle, rock-me-to-sleep-mother tint, whilst his got up and cussed every other colour in the rainbow. Yes, sir; there he sat, and he was knittin' a pair of socks! For ten seconds I forgot how good an excuse I had to be vexed, and just braced myself on my arms and looked at him and blinked. "Well, no wonder, Pepe busted," thinks I, and with that my troubles come back to me. "I don't know what in the name of Uncle Noah's pet elephant you are," says I to myself. "Male and female he made 'em after their kind, and your mate may do me up, but if I don't take a hustle out of you there'll be no good reason for it." And feeling this way, I moved to him. [Illustration: Yes, sir; there he sat, and he was knittin' a pair of socks!] "Now," says I, "explain yourself." "Heugh!" says he, just flittin' his little gray eyes on me and going on with his knittin' as if he hadn't seen anything worth wasting eyesight on. I swallered hard. "Another break like that," I thinks, "and his family have no complaint." "One more question and you are done," says I. "Do you think it's fair to sit on a hill and look like this? How would you feel if you come on me unexpected, and I looked like you?"