Andy started guiltily. He had been dimly aware that some one was sitting there, but, being occupied with other things, had not given a thought to the sitter, or a glance. Now he did both while he said good afternoon with perfunctory politeness. "Such a _beau_tiful day, isn't it? _so_ invigorating, like rare, old wine!" Andy assented somewhat dubiously; it had never just struck him that way; he thought fleetingly that perhaps it was because he had never come across any rare, old wine. He ventured another glance. She was not young, and she wore glasses, behind which twinkled very bright eyes of a shade of brown. She had unpleasantly regular hair waves on her temples, and underneath the waves showed streaks of gray. Also, she wore a black silk waist, and somebody's picture made into a brooch at her throat. Further, Andy dared not observe. It was enough for one glance. He looked again for the much-desired meat-pie. The strange lady ingratiatingly passed him the bread. "You're a cowboy, aren't you?" was the disconcerting question that accompanied the bread. "Well, I--er--I punch cows," he admitted guardedly, his gaze elsewhere than on her face. "I _knew_ you were a cowboy, the moment you entered the door! I could tell by the tan and the straight, elastic walk, and the silk handkerchief knotted around your throat in that picturesque fashion. (Oh, I'm older than you, and dare speak as I think!) I've read a great deal about cowboys, and I do admire you all as a type of free, great-hearted, noble manhood!" Andy looked exactly as if someone had caught him at something exceedingly foolish. He tried to sugar his coffee calmly, and so sent it sloshing all over the saucer. "Do you live near here?" she asked next, beaming upon him in the orthodox, motherly fashion. "Yes, ma'am, not very near," he was betrayed into saying--and she might make what she could of it. He had not said "ma'am" before since he had gone to school. "Oh, I've heard how you Western folks measure distances," she teased. "About how many miles?" "About twenty." "I suppose that is not far, to you knights of the plains. At home it would be called a _dreadfully_ long journey. Why, I have known numbers of old men and women who have never been so far from their own doors in their lives! What would you think, I wonder, of their little forty acre farms?" Andy had been brought to his sixteenth tumultuous birthday on a half-acre in the edge of a good-sized town, but he did not say so. He shook his head vaguely and said he didn't know. Andy Green, however, was not famous for clinging ever to the truth. "You out here in this great, wide, free land, with the free winds ever blowing and the clouds--" "Will you pass the butter, please?" Andy hated to interrupt, but he was hungry.