THE HERMIT OF THE YUCCA. Late that same afternoon the three boy travelers found themselves riding amidst a perfect forest of stiff–armed yucca plants. Here they came upon a small shack where lived a strange character of the Texan wilds. This old man was known to the cowboys and ranchers who passed that way as Mad Mat. He was supposed to have been driven to the solitudes of the yucca desert by some unfortunate love affair, but of this he never talked, and all concerning his former life was merely rumor. Hot and dusty as the boys were, they decided that it would be pleasant to stop in at the shack and see if they could obtain some fresh water and a cooked meal, for, although they had plenty of cold grub, they had neglected to bring any cooking appliances. Jack knocked at the door of the dilapidated shack and the boys, who had not been prepared for the strange appearance of Mad Mat, almost shrank back as he appeared. The old hermit was dressed in a collection of filthy rags, apparently secured from all sources, for no two pieces matched. A long gray beard hung almost to his waist, and out of the hairy growth which half covered his face his eyes glowed like two coals of fire. However, he did not appear half so formidable as he looked, and the boys concluded that the old hermit of the yucca waste would be an interesting character to study. Mad Mat invited them cordially enough into his shack, and opened the door to them with as consequential a flourish of his hand as if this had been the dwelling place of an emperor. He lived, so he told them, by tending his little flock of sheep, most of which, so rumor in that part of the country had it, had been stolen from passing herds. However that might be, Mad Mat was able to set forth some excellent mutton before his hungry guests, and, although the surroundings were not suited to the fastidious, the boys had roughed it too much in the southwest to be over–particular. They found Mad Mat talkative on every subject but himself. In fact, when Ralph asked him where he came from the old man became quite angry and glared at them out of his beard like an “owl in an ivy bush,” as Ralph put it afterward. Jack found an opportunity to draw Ralph aside and warned him that it was not good policy in that country to ask personal questions of strangers. “Most of these odd characters of the plains have a reason for being out here which they don’t like to talk about,” he said. By way of changing the subject, Walt turned to that safe topic, the weather. “You evidently haven’t had much rain here lately?” he said. “Nope,” rejoined Mad Mat in his odd, jerky way of talking; “no rain. No rain for a year.” “No rain for a year!” echoed the boys. “That’s right. Maybe a drop now and then, but not to amount to anything.” “How do you get water then?” asked Ralph, for the ponies had been watered from a big tub filled from a wooden pipe. “Pipe it from a dry spring.”