Now he was like a child deprived of its candy. He ached with fatigue, his feet were blistered, his throat dry as a kiln. Throwing off his hat, he leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and cursed the marsh as if it were a living thing, cursed it with a slow, unctuous zest, spat out upon it the venom and wrath that had accumulated within him. Seeing him thus, his hat off, sullen indifference replaced by a malign animation, he was a very different being from the man who had accosted Mark. A dangerous chap beyond doubt, dangerous from a dark soul and a stored power of malevolence. His face, vitalized with rage, was handsome; a narrow forehead, the hair receding from the temples, a high-bridged nose with wide-cut nostrils, lips thin and fine, moving flexibly as they muttered. It matched with what the voice had told Mark, was not the face of the brutalized hobo or low-bred vagrant, but beneath its hair and dirt showed as the mask of a man who might have fallen from high places. Even his curses went to prove it. They were not the dull profanities of the loafer, but were varied, colorful, imaginative, such curses as might come from one who had read and remembered. Suddenly they stopped and his glance deflected, alert and apprehensive--his ear had caught a low crooning of song. It came from a small boy who, a little wooden boat in his hand, was advancing up the slope. This was Tito Murano, Junior, Tito's first-born, nine years old, softly footing it home after a joyous hour along the edge of the tules. Tito's mother was Irish, but the Latin strain had flowered forth strong in her son. He was bronze-brown, with a black bullet head and eyes like shoe buttons. A pair of cotton trousers and a rag of shirt clothed him and his feet were bare and caked with mud. A happy day behind him and the prospect of supper made his heart light and he gave forth its joy in fresh, bird-sweet carolings. He did not see the tramp and a sharp, "Hey, there, kid," made him halt, startled, gripping the treasured boat against his breast. Then he made out the man, and stood staring, poised to run. "Is there any way of getting across this infernal place?" The tramp's hand swept the prospect. Bashfulness held Tito speechless, and he stood rubbing one foot across the other. The man's eyes narrowed with a curious, ugly look. "Are you deaf?" he said very quietly. A muttered negative came from the child. The question contained a quality of scorn that he felt and resented. "I want to cross the marsh, get to the railway. What's the best way to go?" Tito's arm made a sweeping gesture round the head of the tules. "That. There's a trail. You go round." "Good God--that's _miles_. How do people go, the people here, when they want to get to the other side?" "That way." Tito repeated his gesture. "But they don't go often, and they mostly rides."