Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Foreman Of The L.X. "Now what for an outfit's that!" Mr. Poth's disparaging voice in the doorway caused Nan to lift her eyes from the magazine she was reading in the shade of the cottonwood, which had become her favorite seat during the week that had elapsed since her arrival in Hopedale, to look at a prairie schooner drawn by a thin gray horse and a little mule which was crawling up the street. The wagon had been mended often with baling wire and the harness was a patch-work of ropes, chains, and leather straps. A dusty, sun-blistered boy in an orange sweater pulled the wagon to a standstill in front of the hotel and inquired: "Ary place about here we-all can camp?" "Toother side of the Merchantile Emporium air a pop'lar place," Poth responded hospitably. "Ary opery-house here?" "Think you're strikin' a one-horse town?" inquired Mr. Poth with asperity. "We-all are a troupe"—he seemed to force bravado into his boyish voice—"and we're all right people, too. We belong to Froh- man's company over at New York, but the season's closed and we're doin' this for our health." " 'Twon't be good for your health if you're as bum as the last Frohman troupe what showed here," responded Mr. Poth candidly. "Air you comedy or tragedy?" "We runs the gamut." "Oh, acrobats! Well, they takes pretty well here. I leases the op'ry-house; so you can come around and see me after you make camp.'' As the boy lifted the lines a hollow cough came from the interior of the wagon and a look of disapproval came over the landlord's face. "Lunger," he said laconically. The turn of the wagon disclosed through the opening in the rear, a tall young man, gaunt to emaciation, while, lying in the bottom, sound asleep with her head on a bag ofcorn, was a girl of sixteen whose ...