"Why should you?" she said, without offering to relinquish them. "I prefer to carry my own sticks--then I don't have to build fires for other people." He laughed, and followed her up the path toward the shack. "Let us sit down here." She led the way to a homemade bench in the open. "Daddy has had a hard day and has gone to bed, and I don't want to disturb him. He's very tired and has been upset over this lease business." That was an opening, but before he could take advantage of it she abruptly changed the conversation: "But you haven't told me why you didn't bring your fiddle this time. I'd love to hear it on a night like this." Dusk was coming swiftly and the stars had begun to glimmer. "Oh, I don't carry it round as a business," he answered. "Fact is, until the other night I had not played it but twice in eight years." "Why?" She turned to him with curious interest. "It hasn't usually brought me good luck." "What happened the other two times?" [Illustration: Jenkins and Lolita awed by Percy's fiddling.] He looked off at the very bright star in the west and smiled with whimsical ruefulness. "I love music--that is, what I call music. When I was in the Ozarks I fiddled a lot, but discovered it did not bring me what I wanted, so I went to work. I got a job in a bank at Oakville; was to begin work Monday. I was powerful proud of that job, and had got a new suit of clothes and went to town Saturday. That night there was a dance, and they asked me to play for it." He stopped to chuckle, but still a little regretfully. "My playing certainly made a hit. Sunday morning a preacher lambasted the dance, and called me the special messenger of the devil. My job was with a pillar of his church. I didn't go to work Monday morning. It's a queer world; that preacher was the father of Noah Ezekiel Foster, who is now working for Benson." She was looking out at the west, smiling; the desert wind pushed the hair back from her forehead. "And the other time you played?" "That was up at Blindon, Colorado." He showed some reluctance to go ahead. "Yes?" "An old doctor and his daughter came to the camp to invest. I overheard them in the next room at the boarding house, and knew a gang of sharks was selling them a fake mine. I tried to attract their attention through the partition by playing a fool popular song--'If you tell him yes; you are sure to cry, by and by.'" "Did you make them understand?" She had locked her hands round her knees and leaned interestedly toward him. "Yes--and also the gang. The camp made up money to pay the undertaker to bury me next day. I still have the receipt." "You have had a lot of experience," she said with a touch of envy. "More than the wisdom I have gathered justifies, I fear," he replied.