"Guess we can put you up," said Jeff.

"No chance of getting my old room, I suppose?"

"I shouldn't wonder. If there's any one in it, I guess mother could
change 'em."

"Is that so?" asked Westover, with a liking for being liked, which his
tone expressed. "How is your mother?"

Jeff seemed to think a moment before he answered:

"Just exactly the same."

"A little older?"

"Not as I can see."

"Does she hate keeping a hotel as badly as she expected?"

"That's what she says," answered Jeff, with a twinkle. All the time,
while he was talking with Westover, he was breaking out to his horses,
which he governed with his voice, trotting them up hill and down, and
walking them on the short, infrequent levels, in the mountain fashion.

Westover almost feared to ask: "And how is Jackson?"

"First-rate--that is, for him. He's as well as ever he was, I guess, and
he don't appear a day older. You've changed some," said Jeff, with a look
round at Westover.