"Yes. I hope he isn't sick, or--"

"I'll take you over to the hotel, and go tell him you're here," he
volunteered, somewhat curtly, and picked up her bag.

"Oh, thank you." This time her eyes grazed his face inattentively. She
followed him down the rough steps of planking and up an extremely dusty
road--one could scarcely call it a street--to an uninviting building with
crooked windows and a high, false front of unpainted boards.

The young fellow opened a sagging door, let her pass into a narrow hallway,
and from there into a stuffy, hopelessly conventional fifth-rate parlor,
handed her the bag, and departed with another tilt of the hat which placed
it at a different angle. The sentence meant for farewell she did not catch,
for she was staring at a wooden-faced portrait upon an easel, the portrait
of a man with a drooping mustache, and porky cheeks, and dead-looking eyes.

"And I expected bearskin rugs, and antlers on the walls, and big
fireplaces!" she remarked aloud, and sighed. Then she turned and pulled
aside a coarse curtain of dusty, machine-made lace, and looked after her
guide. He was just disappearing into a saloon across the street, and she
dropped the curtain precipitately, as if she were ashamed of spying. "Oh,
well--I've heard all cowboys are more or less intemperate," she excused,
again aloud.

She sat down upon an atrocious red plush chair, and wrinkled her
nose spitefully at the porky-cheeked portrait. "I suppose you're the
proprietor," she accused, "or else the proprietor's son. I wish you
wouldn't squint like that. If I have to stop here longer than ten minutes,
I shall certainly turn you face to the wall." Whereupon, with another