That gave Honora a cue. She was wanting something more to do than to look after the house, now that servants had again been secured. It occurred to her that it might be a good idea to call on the women down at Wander. She was under no error as to their character. Broken-down followers of weak men's fortunes,--some with the wedding ring and some without,--they nevertheless were there, flesh and blood, and possibly heart and soul. Not the ideal but the actual commended itself to her these days. Kate had taught her that lesson. So, quite simply, she went among them. "Call on me when you want anything," she said to them. "I'm a woman who has seen trouble, and I'd like to be of use to any of you if trouble should come your way. Anyhow, trouble or no trouble, let us be friends." In her simple dress, with her quiet, sad face and her deep eyes, she convinced them of sincerity as few women could have done. They bade her enter their doors and sit in their sloven homes amid the broken things the Italians had left behind them. "Why not start a furniture shop?" asked Honora. "We could find some men here who could make plain furniture. I'll see Mr. Wander about it." That was a simple enough plan, and she had no trouble in carrying it out. She got the women to cooperate with her in other ways. Among them they cleaned up the town, set out some gardens, and began spending their men's money for necessaries. "Do watch out," warned Karl; "you'll get to be a Lady Bountiful--" "And you a benevolent magnate--" "Damned if I will! Well, play with your hobo brides if you like, Honora, but don't look for gratitude or rectitude or any beatitude." "Not I," declared Honora. "I'm only amusing myself." They kept insisting to each other that they had no higher intention. They were hilarious over their failures and they persisted in taking even their successes humorously. At first the "short-stake men" drifted away, but presently they began to drift back again. They liked it at Wander,--liked being mildly and tolerantly controlled by men of their own sort,--men with some vested authority, however, and a reawakened perception of responsibility. Wander was their town--the hoboes' own city. It was one of the few places where something was expected of the hobo. Well, a hobo was a man, wasn't he? The point was provable. A number of Karl Wander's vagrants chose to prove that they were not reprobates. Those who had been "down and out" by their own will, or lack of it, as well as those whom misfortune had dogged, began to see in this wild village, in the heart of these rich and terrific mountains, that wonderful thing, "another chance." "Would Miss Barrington approve of us now?" Karl would sometimes ask Honora. "Why should she?" Honora would retort. "We're not in earnest. We're only fighting bankruptcy and ennui."