her pan and came to the door

"Hullo, Mrs. Ward," Bob shouted at her. "That smells good to me; I haven't had a bite since last night!" The woman dropped her pan and came to the door. A lank and lean Pike County Missourian rose from the shadows and advanced. "Light and rest yo' hat, Mr. Orde!" he called before he came well into view. "But yo' already lighted, and you ain't go no hat!" he cried in puzzled tones. "Whar yo'all from?" "Came from north," Bob replied cheerfully, "and I lost my horse down a canon, and my hat in a river." "And yere yo' be plumb afoot!" "And plumb empty," supplemented Bob. "Maybe Mrs. Ward will make me some coffee," he suggested with a side glance at the woman who had once tried to poison him. She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow complexion. "Shore, Mr. Orde--" she began. "We didn't rightly understand each other," Bob reassured her. "That was all." "Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?" asked Ward. "What yo' palaverin' about?" "She isn't refusing to make me some now," said Bob. He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who a few months ago had been ready to murder him. The next morning early, supplied with an ample lunch, he set out. Ward offered him a riding horse, but he declined. "I'd have to send it back," said he, "and, anyway, I'd neither want to borrow your saddle nor ride bareback. I'd rather walk." The old man accompanied him to the edge of the clearing. "By the way," Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, "if some one asks you, just tell them you haven't seen me." The old man stopped short. "What-for a man?" he asked. "Any sort." A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.