The moon shone brightly. I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy
sing. There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the
porch. I did not have a well-defined idea about the inside of the house.

Peeping in at the first lighted window I saw a large room. Miss Sampson
and Sally were there alone. Evidently this was a parlor or a sitting
room, and it had clean white walls, a blanketed floor, an open fireplace
with a cheery blazing log, and a large table upon which were lamp,
books, papers. Backing away I saw that this corner room had a door
opening on the porch and two other windows.

I listened, hoping to hear Steele's footsteps coming up the road. But I
heard only Sally's laugh and her cousin's mellow voice.

Then I saw lighted windows down at the other end of the front part of
the house. I walked down. A door stood open and through it I saw a room
identical with that at the other corner; and here were Colonel Sampson,
Wright, and several other men, all smoking and talking.

It might have been interesting to tarry there within ear-shot, but I
wanted to get back to the road to intercept Steele. Scarcely had I
retraced my steps and seated myself on the porch steps when a very tall
dark figure loomed up in the moonlit road.

Steele! I wanted to yell like a boy. He came on slowly, looking all
around, halted some twenty paces distant, surveyed the house, then
evidently espying me, came on again.

My first feeling was, What a giant! But his face was hidden in the
shadow of a sombrero.