"Aw! Tisn't no such thing. She jes likes to hear me sing. _You're crazy!_" The tramp-boy's young voice had its fashion of breaking and shrilling into a high soprano, like a girl's, for emphasis; he was as red as a beet, and he put his foot back in the stirrup, thrust out his under jaw and looked at the stirrup as though he had to determine how much wood had gone into its making. Again Bruce was conscious of a little ache for the boy. "But you go on over tha'," insisted Piney. "No! Thank you for trying to look out for me, son, but I shouldn't like to do that. Oh, I can stand this all right," cried Bruce, with a flare of big bravery and, turning to face the hotel, was seized by his loneliness so violently that he shuddered again. "Here Piney!" he cried on a sudden inspiration, "why won't you come in and stay with me? Huh? How would that suit you? We can talk and smoke." "Naw," Piney extended his hand and shook his head, as though to push the hotel out of the range of possibilities for him, "I couldn't. Much oblige'. But I cayn't sleep in haouses. Got to git back to the shack in the woods. Wisht you'd go on over to Madeira's." "No. I'll buck it out here alone," lamented Bruce. He hated to lose Piney and take up the gloomy, rainy evening alone on this little, high, remote place in the Missouri hills. "See you again some day, then," Piney promised in final farewell. "I'm up an' daown the Ridge rat frequent, I'll run 'crosst you." "Well now, I should hope so," cried Bruce cordially. "Don't you ever come to Canaan?" "Nope. Hate a taown! But me an' Unc' Bernique will strike you sometime, somewheres along the trail. S'long!" "So long, Piney, so long!" The boy turned his pony to the hills. The man on the porch came on out to take charge of Bruce and Bruce's horse. Black night settled down. Through the darkness cut the sound of the squawking geese, the tinkling cow-bells, the grunting hogs. Lonely, lonely Missouri! Bruce went inside, to sit in a little room upstairs, with his chin in his hand, his eyes staring through the window, his thoughts roaming after Carington, the office on Nassau Street, a girl who was a dainty fluff of lace and silk. In his ears rang the sound of Carington's voice: "Why don't you try Missouri,--Miss Gossamer sails,--Why don't you try Missouri,--Miss Gossamer sails--" a faint, recedent measure, and intermingling with it the sound of a boy's voice singing gaily on the misty hills: "_A tater's good 'ith 'lasses._" Steering leaned far out of the window, eager for the lad's music. It was so sweet. _Chapter Three_ THE PROMISED LAND