devil ain't yer?" demanded Mike. "I ain't takin' all the shade er all the earth, am I? Lie down and be quiet. What do yer want a beauty show for?"

"Aw, stow it!" snapped the Watermelon.

"Yes, I'll stow it all right when we're all sent to the jug. I tell yer I ain't fit to work. The last time I got pinched, I pretty near croaked. I wasn't made to work."

"We ain't going to get pinched," said James. "You make more talk over two suits of clothes—"

"It ain't the clothes. It's the damn fool notion of swipin' 'em and then comin' right back here, and not makin' no get-away—"

"This hang-out is more than four miles from the burg, you galoot," sneered the Watermelon. "No one would think of coppin' us here. They'll go to the next town, or else watch the railroads—"

"But they might—"

"Might what? Might be bloomin' fools like you."

"Where are you goin' to be shaved?"

"In a barber shop," said James mildly. "You probably favor a lawn-mower, but personally I prefer a barber."

"Yes," wailed Mike, "go to a barber shop and let every guy in town get his lamps on yer—"

"You're gettin' old, Mike, me boy, and losin' yer nerve," said James. He stretched and yawned. "Well, I'm off before church time or the barbers will be closed. Remember, Mike, this afternoon, between four and five."

He pulled his clothes into place, adjusted his hat at the most becoming angle and started up the narrow woodland path, whistling gaily through his teeth. As he disappeared among the trees, the far-off sound of church bells stole to them on the quiet of the Sabbath morning.

CHAPTER II

A CLOSE SHAVE

The Watermelon climbed the stone wall and paused a moment to view his surroundings. The road wound up the hill from the village nestling at its foot and dipped again out of sight farther on. On all sides were the hills, falling rocky pasture lands, rising to orchards or woods, and now and then a farmhouse. It was summer, glad, mad, riotous summer. The sky was a deep, deep blue, with here and there a drifting, snow-white cloud. The fields were gay with buttercups and daisies, and wild roses nodded shyly at him from the briers along the roadside. In the leafy recesses of the trees, the birds twitted and sang. A little gray squirrel peered at him from the limb close by and then scampered off with a whisk of its bushy tail. A brook laughed and tumbled under a slender bridge across the road.

The Watermelon was a vagabond in every fiber of his long graceful self. The open places, the sweep of the wind, the call of the birds, the rise and fall of the hills, hiding the fascinating "beyond," found unconscious harmony with his nature. As a captive animal, given a chance for freedom, makes for the nearest timber; as a cat, in a strange neighborhood, makes for the old, familiar attic, so the Watermelon sought the country, the peace and freedom and space where a man can be a man and not a manikin.

He paused a moment now, in perfect contentment with the world and himself, while up the valley, over the hills, through the sun-warmed air, borne on the breath of the new-mown fields came the sound of distant church bells, softly, musically, soothingly. Slipping from the wall, he set out for the village below in the valley, where the road wound steeply down.

The village boasted but one barber shop, a quiet, little, dusty-white, one-room affair, leaning in timid humility against the protecting wall of the only other public building in town, drygoods, grocery and butcher shop in one. The church bells had stopped for some time when the Watermelon turned into the wide empty street, and strolled carelessly up to the faded red, white and blue pole of Wilton's Tonsorial Parlor. In its Sunday calm the whole village seemed deserted. A few of the bolder spirits who had outgrown apron strings and not yet been snared in any one's bonnet strings, had remained away from church and foregathered in the seclusion of the barber shop. The Watermelon regarded them a moment through the window as he felt carelessly in his pockets for the coins that were never there. It was a quiet crowd, well brushed hair, nicely polished boots and freshly shaved faces. They were reading the sporting news of Saturday's papers and ogling any girl, fairly young and not notoriously homely, who chanced to pass. The barber was cleaning up after his last customer and talking apparently as much to himself as to any one. Convinced of what he knew was so, that he had no money, the Watermelon pushed open the door and entered.

"Hello," said he.

"Hello," said the barber.

All the papers were lowered and all conversation stopped as each man turned and scanned the new-comer with an interest the Watermelon modestly felt was caused by some event other than his own entry. He surmised that James had probably been there before him, and the next words of the barber confirmed his surmise.

That dapper little man scanned him coldly, from the rakish tip of his shabby hat to the nondescript covering on his feet which from force of habit he called shoes, and spoke with darkly veiled sarcasm:

"I suppose you are a guest from the hotel up to the lake?"

The Watermelon grinned. He recognized James' favorite role. "No," said he cheerfully, "I'm John D., and me car is waiting without."

"A guest up to the hotel," repeated the barber, upon whom James had evidently made a powerful impression. "Just back from a two weeks' camping and fishing trip—"

"No," said the Watermelon. "I don't like fishing, baiting the hook is such darned hard work."

"Just back," went on the barber, still quoting, his soul yet rankling with the deceit of man. "Look like a tramp, probably—"

"Am one," grinned the Watermelon.

"And you thought you would get a shave as you passed through the village, wouldn't dare let your wife see you—"

"Say," interrupted the Watermelon wearily, "what are you giving us? Did any one bunko you out of a shave with that lingo?"

"Yes," snapped the barber. "About an hour ago a feller blew in here and said all that. He talked well and I shaved him. He said he had sent his camping truck on to the hotel by his team; he had stopped off to get a shave. I shaved him and then he found he hadn't any money in his old clothes—but he would send it right down—oh, yes—the moment he got to the hotel. It ain't come and Harry, there, says there ain't no one up to the hotel like that. Harry's the porter."

"Sure," said Harry importantly. "I passed the feller as I was coming down and there ain't any one like him to the hotel."

The Watermelon laughed heartily. "A hobo, eh? Bunkoed you for fair. You fellers oughtn't to be so dog-goned easy. Get wise, get wise!"

"We are wise now," said the barber ruefully, and added sternly, "If you want a shave, you've got to show your money first."

"Sure, I want a shave,"