I see.
But she ought to do it. She will be tiredits a long, dusty ride for a well woman, let alone one that has been ill.
So it is, so it is!
De Spain looked now shamelessly at his ready-witted aid. See that her pony is lame when she gets herecant be ridden. But youll take good care of him and send him home in a few daysget it?
McAlpin half closed his eyes. Hell be so lame it would stagger a cowboy to back him ten feetand never be hurt a mite, neither. Trust me!
No other horse that she could ride, in the barn?
No horse she could ride between Calabasas and Thief River.
If she insists on riding something , or even walking home, continued de Spain dubiously, for he felt instinctively that he should have the task of his life to induce Nan to accept any kind of a peace-offering, Ill ride or walk with her anyway. Can you sleep me here to-night, on the hay?
Sleep you on a hair mattress, sir. Youve got a room right here up-stairs, didnt you know that?
Dont mind the bed, directed de Spain prudently. I like the hay better.
As you like; weve got plenty of it fresh up-stairs, from the Gap. But the beds all right, sir; it is, on me word.
With arrangements so begun, de Spain walked out-of-doors and looked reflectively up the Sleepy Cat road. One further refinement in his appeal for Nans favor suggested itself. She would be hungry, possibly faint in the heat and dust, when she arrived. He returned to McAlpin: Where can I get a good cup of coffee when the stage comes in?
Go right down to the inn, sir. Its a new chap running ita half-witted man from Texas. My wife is cooking there off and on. Shell fix you up a sandwich and a cup of good coffee.
It was four oclock, and the sun beat fiercely on the desert. De Spain walked down to the inn unmindful of the heat. In summer rig, with his soft-shirt collar turned under, his forearms bare, and his thoughts engaged, he made his way rapidly on, looking neither to the right nor the left.
As he approached the weather-beaten pile it looked no more inviting in sunshine than it had looked in shadow; and true to its traditions, not a living being was anywhere to be seen. The door of the office stood ajar. De Spain, pushing it all the way open, walked in. No one greeted him as he crossed the threshold, and the unsightly room was still bare of furnishings except for the great mahogany bar, with its two very large broken mirrors and the battered pilasters and carvings.
De Spain pounded on the bar. His effort to attract attention met with no response. He walked to the left end of the bar, lifted the hand-rail that enclosed the space behind it, and pushed open the door between the mirrors leading to the back room. This, too, was empty. He called outthere was no response. He walked through a second door opening on an arcaded passageway toward the kitchennot a soul was in sight. There was a low fire in the kitchen stove, but Mrs. McAlpin had apparently gone home for a while. Walking back toward the office, he remembered the covered way leading to a patio, which in turn opened on the main road. He perceived also that at the end next the office the covered way faced the window at the end of the long bar.
Irritated at the desertion of the place, due, he afterward learned, to the heat of the afternoon, and disappointed at the frustration of his purpose,
he walked back through the rear room into the office. As he lifted the hand-rail and, passing through, lowered it behind him, he took out his watch to see how soon the stage was due. While he held the timepiece in his hand he heard a rapid clatter of hoofs approaching the place. Thinking it might be Scott and Lefever arriving from the south an hour ahead of time, he started toward the front doorwhich was still opento greet them. Outside, hurried footsteps reached the door just ahead of him and a large man, stepping quickly into the room, confronted de Spain. One of the mans hands rested lightly on his right side. De Spain recognized him instantly; the small, drooping head, carried well forward, the keen eyes, the long hand, and, had there still been a question in his mind, the loud-patterned, shabby waistcoat would have proclaimed beyond doubtDeaf Sandusky.
CHAPTER X THE GLASS BUTTON
Morgan, eying de Spain with insolence, as was his wont, closed the door behind him with a bang. Then he backed his powerful frame significantly against it.
A blind man could have seen the completeness of the snare. An unpleasant feeling flashed across de Spains perception. It was only for the immeasurable part of a secondwhile uncertainty was resolving itself into a rapid certainty. When Gale Morgan stepped into the room on the heels of his two Calabasas friends, de Spain would have sold for less than a cup of coffee all his chances for life. Nevertheless, before Morgan had set his back fairly against the door and the trap was sprung, de Spain had mapped his fight, and had already felt that, although he might not be the fortunate man, not more than one of the four within the room would be likely to leave it alive.