The gate was opened and the stranger strode up the cinder walk to the porch.  He stopped a whole minute and looked at her.  At last.

“Well, Mattie!” he said, “don’t you know me?”

A flood of the wildest hypotheses flashed through Miss Mattie’s mind without enlightening her.  Who was this picturesque giant who stepped out of the past with so familiar a salutation?  Although the porch was a foot high, and Miss Mattie a fairly tall woman, their eyes were almost on a level, as she looked at him in wonder.

Then he laughed and showed his white teeth.  “No use to bother and worry you, Mattie,” said he, “you couldn’t call it in ten years.  Well, I’m your half-uncle Fred’s boy Bill—­and I hope you’re a quarter as glad to see me as I am to see you.”

“What!” she cried.  “Not little Willy who ran away!”

“The same little Willy,” he replied in a tone that made Miss Mattie laugh a little, nervously, “and what I want to know is, are you glad to see me?”

“Why, of course!  But, Will—­I suppose I should call you Will?  I am so flustered—­not expecting you—­and it’s been so warm to-day.  Won’t you come in and take a chair?” wound up Miss Mattie in desperation, and fury at herself for saying things so different from what she meant to say.

There was a twinkle in the man’s eye as he replied in an injured tone: 

“Why, good Lord, Mattie!  I’ve come two thousand miles or more to see you, and you ask me to take a chair.  Just as if I’d stepped in from across the way!  Can’t you give a man a little warmer welcome than that?”

“What shall I do?” asked poor Miss Mattie.

“Well, you might kiss me, for a start,” said he.

Miss Mattie was all abroad—­still one’s half-cousin, who has come such a distance, and been received so very oddly, is entitled to consideration.  She raised her agitated face, and for the first time in her life realised the pleasure of wearing a moustache.

Then Red Saunders, late of the Chanta Seeche Ranch, North Dakota, sat him down.

“I’m obliged to you, Mattie,” he said in all seriousness.  “To tell you the truth, I felt in need of a little comforting—­here I’ve come all this distance—­and, of course, I heard about father and mother—­but I couldn’t believe it was true.  Seemed as if they must be waiting at the old place for me to come back, and when I saw it all gone to ruin—­Well, then I set out to find somebody, and do you know, of all the family, there’s only you and me left?  That’s all, Mattie, just us two!—­whilst I was growing up out West, I kind of expected things to be standing still back here, and be just the same as I left them—­hum—­Well, how are you anyhow?”

“I’m well, Will, and”—­laying her hand upon his, “don’t think I’m not glad to see you—­please don’t.  I’m so glad, Will, I can’t tell you—­but I’m all confused—­so little happens here.”