Glory turned upon him his beautiful, brown eyes, reproachfully questioning.

Weary pulled steadily.  Glory stretched neck and nose obediently, but as to feet, they were down to stay.

Weary glanced anxiously toward the hammock and perspired, then stood back and whispered language it would be a sin to repeat.  Glory, listening with unruffled calm, stood perfectly still, like a red statue in the sunshine.

The face of the girl was hidden under one round, loose-sleeved arm.  She did not move.  A faint breeze, freshening in spasmodic puffs, seized upon the hammock, and set it swaying gently.

“Oh, damn you, Glory!” whispered Weary through his teeth.  But Glory, accustomed to being damned since he was a yearling, displayed absolutely no interest.  Indeed, he seemed inclined to doze there in the sun.

Taking his hat—­his best hat—­from his head, he belabored Glory viciously over the jaws with it; silently except for the soft thud and slap of felt on flesh.  And the mood of him was as near murder as Weary could come.  Glory had been belabored with worse things than hats during his eventful career; he laid back his ears, shut his eyes tight and took it meekly.

There came a gasping gurgle from the hammock, and Weary’s hand stopped in mid-air.  The girl’s head was burrowed in a pillow and her slippers tapped the floor while she laughed and laughed.

Weary delivered a parting whack, put on his hat and looked at her uncertainly; grinned sheepishly when the humor of the thing came to him slowly, and finally sat down upon the porch steps and laughed with her.

“Oh, gee!  It was too funny,” gasped the girl, sitting up and wiping her eyes.

Weary gasped also, though it was a small matter—­a common little word of three letters.  In all the messages sent him by the schoolma’am, it was the precise, school-grammar wording of them which had irritated him most and impressed him insensibly with the belief that she was too prim to be quite human.  The Happy Family had felt all along that they were artists in that line, and they knew that the precise sentences ever carried conviction of their truth.  Weary mopped his perspiring face upon a white silk handkerchief and meditated wonderingly.

“You aren’t a train-robber or a horsethief, or—­anything, are you?” she asked him presently.  “You seemed quite upset at seeing the place wasn’t deserted; but I’m sure, if you are a robber running away from a sheriff, I’d never dream of stopping you.  Please don’t mind me; just make yourself at home.”

Weary turned his head and looked straight up at her.  “I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint yuh, Miss Satterly,” he said blandly.  “I’m just an ordinary human, and my name is Davidson—­better known as Weary.  You don’t appear to remember me.  We’ve met before.”

She eyed him attentively.  “Perhaps we have—­it you say so.  I’m wretched about remembering strange names and faces.  Was it at a dance?  I meet so many fellows at dances—­” She waved a brown little hand and smiled deprecatingly.