sum, and they would cast you out?" But she said no more, realizing his condition made him unfit to argue with, and hurriedly she left the room to find Dick.
She had only known Dick Barry for twelve days, but they were the best of friends. He seemed well-educated and a gentleman; but rather ambitionless, she thought. Being an orphan and having no family restrictions upon him, he yielded to the call of the wanderlust and—as he had explained to her—"just drifted."
She spied him stretched out under a shade-tree. He was writing in a note-book. Upon seeing her, he put it away and sprang to his feet. Admiration and pity were intermingled in the way he looked at her.
"Well, assistant time-keeper," she said as gayly as she could, "what shall we do about this morning's episode?"
"Why," he replied, "there is only one thing to do, and that is to go right in to Naranjita and report Simons to headquarters."
"But I am afraid," she said, "that they will take his word to ours. He has been in their employ for a number of years, and is regarded as a capable man. If there were only another company down here to which we could sell our fruit!"
Dick Barry saw the tears—tears of anger at the injustice she was suffering—rise in her eyes. The man in him came forth. Gently he placed an arm about her and forced her to sit down upon an old piece of matting under a tree.
"Now you just calm yourself and forget about this morning," he said consolingly. "I'll go and try to hunt up something for both of us to eat; and when lunch is over I'll take the motor-car and hustle into Naranjita."
"You're a blessing, Dick," she said sincerely.
While Dick was getting the lunch, she suddenly remembered a pair of khaki trousers which she had just finished for him the night before, and she rushed into the house to get them. It would speak badly for the plantation, she thought, if Dick made his appearance at U. B. C. head quarters in dilapidated clothing.
When she returned, he was spreading the food out on an impromptu table in the shape of a board.
"You scamp! I thought you had run away," he jokingly scolded. Helping her to be seated, he added, "This is all Jess had ready, but it's enough, I guess."
"Surely," she said, sitting down. "Look, here’s a present for you. Let's hope they fit." Whereupon she held up a gray flannel shirt of her father's and the trousers. It struck them as funny—her presenting him with a pair of home-made trousers during their nomadic meal—and they both laughed over it. Then they thoroughly enjoyed their baked sweet potatoes, fried bananas, and coffee.
