He was such a harmless looking, innocent, pitiable creature with his plaintive voice and childish eyes that her amusement turned to pity. "If you are very hungry and tired," she suggested gently, "you can lunch with me now. I always bring something along to eat." His eyes brightened and a smile set quick dimples in the round face. He released his bridle reins promptly, put his two hands on the horn of the saddle--Wanda noticed that they were hands like a girl's, soft and white with beautiful, tapering fingers and rosy nails--got a stiff leg over the cantle, wriggled over on his stomach and as his horse moved a little he fell off. For a moment he remained sitting. "Birds was made to fly and fishes to swim," he remarked impersonally and philosophically. "Me, I'm going to walk after this. I ain't ever going to split myself in two over a horse again." "You'll have to ride to the house." "You don't know me, Miss. I'm Mr. Willie Dart, and when I make up my mind like I done just now it's final. I'll walk those three miles on foot, and when I can't walk no further I'll crawl, and when I can't crawl I'll lay down and die. But I'm through being a cowboy." Thereupon he arose rheumatically, carefully dusted his gay checkered suit, gave much attention to the crease in his jaunty little hat, adjusted his bright blue tie, daintily tapped his cuffs back into his coat sleeves and bestowed a beaming, cherubic smile upon Wanda. "Let's eat," he suggested. She dismounted and spread out her luncheon upon the paper in which it had been wrapped, kneeling down on a grassy plot near the creek. Mr. Dart hovered over her in frank eagerness, giving vent to various chuckling sounds bespeaking deep satisfaction as he saw that there was cold chicken and ham, cheese and buttered bread. Then they ate, Wanda sparingly, pretending to have little appetite, Mr. Dart swiftly and joyously and noisily. And, with his mouth crammed full and his cheeks puffed out gopher-wise, he talked. He demanded her name and her father's business; he wanted to know what she was doing so far from home and if she wasn't afraid; he ascertained that buffaloes were extinct in this part of the West if they had ever been here which was to be doubted; he thrilled and drew closer to the girl upon learning that a bear had been shot near this spot; and, abruptly, he asked if she knew a guy named Shandon? "Wayne Shandon?" she asked curiously. "That's him. Red Head for sure, ain't he?" She admitted that he was, hesitated a moment at his next question, and then answered it by saying that Mr. Shandon was a friend of her family. "Good kid, ain't he?" he went on, a little flushed from his eating. "Friend of mine, too. We're great chums, me and Red. Ain't he ever told you about me, Willie Dart?" "I don't think so. You have known him long?" He poked into his mouth the last quarter of the sandwich in his left hand, secured a bit of cheese with his right, and answered: