A most amazing message was duly
inscribed thereon.
"Erastus has acquired a sinewy chicken from somebody's barn yard," it
read. "Why not bring your own plate, knife, fork, spoon and a good saw
over to my hay-camp and dine with me?
"Philip."
Diane stared with rising color at the load of hay. From its ragged,
fragrant bed, a tall, lean young man with a burned skin, was rising and
lazily urging a nondescript yellow dog to do the same. The dog
conceivably demurred, for Philip removed him, yelping, by the simple
process of seizing him by the loose skin at the back of his neck and
dropping him overboard. Having brushed his clothes, the young man
came, with smiling composure, through the forest, the yellow dog
waggling at his heels.
"I've read so much about breaking the news gently," apologized Philip,
smiling, "that I thought I'd better try a bit of it myself. Hence the
sylvan note. Ras, if you go to sleep by that tree, I'll like as not
let you sleep there until you die. Go back to camp and build a fire
and hollow out the feathered biped."
Ras slouched obediently off toward the hay-camp.
"You've hay in your ears!" exclaimed Diane, biting her lips.
"I'm a nomad!" announced Philip calmly. "So's Erastus--so's Dick
Whittington here.
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