Obviously the man was a hobo.  The coffee boiling in a discarded tin can would have been proof positive of this without other evidence; but there seemed plenty more.  Yes, the man was a hobo.  Billy continued to stand listening.

  The mountains are all hid in mist, the valley is like amethyst,
  The poplar leaves they turn and twist, oh, silver, silver green! 
  Out there somewhere along the sea a ship is waiting patiently,
  While up the beach the bubbles slip with white afloat between.

“Gee!” thought Billy Byrne; “but that’s great stuff.  I wonder where he gets it.  It makes me want to hike until I find that place he’s singin’ about.”

Billy’s thoughts were interrupted by a sound in the wood to one side of him.  As he turned his eyes in the direction of the slight noise which had attracted him he saw two men step quietly out and cross toward the man at the camp fire.

These, too, were evidently hobos.  Doubtless pals of the poetical one.  The latter did not hear them until they were directly behind him.  Then he turned slowly and rose as they halted beside his fire.

“Evenin’, bo,” said one of the newcomers.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” replied the camper, “welcome to my humble home.  Have you dined?”

“Naw,” replied the first speaker, “we ain’t; but we’re goin’ to.  Now can the chatter an’ duck.  There ain’t enough fer one here, let alone three.  Beat it!” and the man, who was big and burly, assumed a menacing attitude and took a truculent step nearer the solitary camper.

The latter was short and slender.  The larger man looked as though he might have eaten him at a single mouthful; but the camper did not flinch.

“You pain me,” he said.  “You induce within me a severe and highly localized pain, and furthermore I don’t like your whiskers.”

With which apparently irrelevant remark he seized the matted beard of the larger tramp and struck the fellow a quick, sharp blow in the face.  Instantly the fellow’s companion was upon him; but the camper retained his death grip upon the beard of the now yelling bully and continued to rain blow after blow upon head and face.

Billy Byrne was an interested spectator.  He enjoyed a good fight as he enjoyed little else; but presently when the first tramp succeeded in tangling his legs about the legs of his chastiser and dragging him to the ground, and the second tramp seized a heavy stick and ran forward to dash the man’s brains out, Billy thought it time to interfere.

Stepping forward he called aloud as he came:  “Cut it out, boes!  You can’t pull off any rough stuff like that with this here sweet singer.  Can it!  Can it!” as the second tramp raised his stick to strike the now prostrate camper.

As he spoke Billy Byrne broke into a run, and as the stick fell he reached the man’s side and swung a blow to the tramp’s jaw that sent the fellow spinning backward to the river’s brim, where he tottered drunkenly for a moment and then plunged backward into the shallow water.