Loring glanced idly at the passport as it lay open on his knee. As he did so he wondered what the friends who knew him ten years back, at the time when that document was issued, would say to his appearance now. “Wild oats gone to seed. I guess that about describes me,” he murmured, with a grim smile, as he folded the passport and slipped it back into the frayed lining of his pocket. Dissipation and wreck do not change the color of a man’s eyes, the shape of his forehead or the outline of his face, so that it had still been possible to recognize Loring by his old passport. Had it been a description of his personality instead of his measurements, no one could have recognized the original. Mathematically it is but the difference of an inch from a retreating chin to one thrust forward; artistically a very slight touch will turn frank eyes into hopeless ones; philosophically the turning of the corners of the lips downward instead of upward may change the whole viewpoint of life. Experience is mathematician, artist, and philosopher combined, and it had accomplished all these changes in Stephen Loring. Through the parting kindness of friends, most of the men had some food, which they proceeded to chew with noisy satisfaction. Loring began to feel cravings. The Chinaman beside him was gnawing at a huge ham sandwich with a very green pickle protruding from between the edges of the bread. He eyed Loring, then turned to him and asked: “You hab bite? My name Hop Wah. I go cook for the outfit. Me heap fine cook,” solemnly added the celestial. Loring gratefully shared the food. The men in the car, who until now had been rather morose and silent, began to cheer up, and to sing noisily. Loring lazily wondered why, until he saw several black bottles passed promiscuously about. McKay handed his own flask to Loring. “Have another drink!” he said, “there is nothing like it for a hang-over.” Loring took a deep pull at the flask. “Hey, Chink, have some?” continued McKay. Wah smiled and shook his head. “Don’t drink, eh? Well, I’ll bet then that you are strong on dope,” said McKay, as he returned the flask to his pocket. Night began to turn the color of the hills to a rich cobalt. Now and then the train crawled past shacks whose evening fires were beginning to twinkle in the dusk. Little camps scattered in the niches of the foothills showed gray and blurred. Jagged masses of rock, broken by cuts and hollows, now overshadowed the train. Giant cacti, growing at impossible angles from pinnacles and crevasses, loomed against the sky line. As the hills shut in, the roar of the train echoed of a sudden louder and louder where the desert runs flat as a board to the hills, and then with no transition becomes the hills. “Only fifteen miles more now, boys,” sang out McKay; “but it may take two hours,” he added under his breath.