As Cal neared the fellow it became evident that he could hardly lift one foot after the other. His soiled worn garb attested to the possibility of contact with brush and a bed on the ground. Cal slowed up, naturally, expecting the man to turn and ask for a ride. But he did neither. Then Cal stopped and hailed him.

“Hey, want a lift?”

The young man raised a cadaverous pale face that quickly aroused Cal’s sympathy.

“Thanks. I’ll say I would,” replied the traveler, and he lifted the bundle down from his stooped shoulders.

“Throw it in back an’ ride in front with me,” suggested Cal, eyeing him with growing interest. Upon closer view this individual appeared to Cal to be the most singularly built human being he had ever seen. He was very tall, and extremely thin, and so loose jointed that he seemed about to fall apart. His arms were so long as to be grotesque—like the arms of an ape—and his hands were of prodigious size. He had what Cal called a chicken neck, a small head, and the homeliest face Cal had ever looked into. Altogether he presented a ridiculous and pathetic figure.

“I was all in—and lost in the bargain,” said he. The freckles stood out prominently on his wax-colored skin. He was so long and awkward, and his feet were so huge, that Cal thought he was not going to be able to get into the front seat. But he folded himself in, and slouched down with a heave of relief.

“Lost? What place were you trying to find?” queried Cal as he started the car again.

“I’ve hiked from Phoenix. And a couple of days this side of Roosevelt Dam I butted into a gas station along the road—Chadwick. The man there told me I could get a job at the Bar XX ranch, and where to find the trail. I found a trail all right, but it led nowhere. I got lost and couldn’t find my way back to Chadwick. Been ten days and nights.”

“Huh! You must be hungry?”

“I’ll say so.”

“Well, you’re way off the track. Bar XX ranch is east. You’ve traveled north. An’ I happen to know Bloom, the foreman of that outfit. He doesn’t want any men.”

“It’s kinda hard to get a job,” replied the fellow, with a sigh. “Made sure I could catch on in the Salt River Valley. But everybody’s broke there, same as me, and I guess they’d just as lief not see any servicemen.”

“You were in the army?” asked Cal, with a heightening of sympathy.

“No. I was a marine,” replied the other, briefly.

His tone of aloofness rather reminded Cal of Boyd upon his return from France. These servicemen who had seen service were reticent, strange.

“Marine? That’s a sailor, huh? Did you get over?”

“I’ll say so. I went through Château Thierry, and now by God! I can’t get work in my own country,” he replied, bitterly.

“Say, Buddy, if you’re on the level you can get a job in the Tonto,” returned Cal, rather curtly. His companion vouchsafed no reply to this, and the conversation, so interestingly begun, languished. Cal thought the fellow seemed cast down by this remark.