Riders West. Ernest Haycox

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      "No," said Nan, pointedly brief.

      "Then I'd better help you to the hotel."

      It further irritated her that he refused to accept the implied dismissal. He was only an arm's length away, looking down from his height, immovably certain. She couldn't read his expression very well through the dark, but she believed he was smiling with that same faintly amused manner he had used on Hugo in the car. A critical inner voice told her she was being ungracious and a fool, yet her answer went curtly back to him: "I'm quite able to help myself."

      He didn't hear it, or if he did he brushed it aside as being inconsequential. His body swung around to meet the arriving sound of some other person. A shadow, small and narrow, made a breach in the night, and a voice containing the surcharged weariness of the world drifted forward: "Wasn't sure you'd be on this train, Dan. Your horse is in front of Townsite's."

      "Solano," said Bellew, "you lean against the wall over yonder for about ten minutes. If you see anybody walking up the track, come and tell me."

      "Yeah," murmured Solano and backed away.

      Bellew took possession of the luggage. "There is only one hotel," he explained, "and it's a potluck affair. Around the left side of the station."

      Nan closed her lips against a quick, resenting answer and fell in step. He was, she decided, one of those dogged men against which irony made no impression; and she was too weary to argue. When they turned the corner of the station she saw the lights of the town run irregularly down one long street and halt against the farther darkness of the flats. There were a few tall trees growing up from the sidewalks, and the buildings she passed beside were all of weathered boards, set apart by narrow alleys. A rider loped out of the shadows and drew into a hitch rack, leaving a series of dust bombs behind him. He crossed in front of them, threw a musical "Howdy, Dan," over his shoulder, and pressed through the swinging doors of a saloon, Yellow radiance momentarily gushed out, and a confused murmuring of many voices rose—and died as the doors closed. They arrived at a square which seemingly centered the town, went over it and came up to a building identified by a faded sign on its porch arch: "TRAIL HOUSE—1887—Maj. Cleary." Bellew stepped aside, and thus Nan preceded him into a lobby—gaunt beyond description. Behind a desk stood a cherubic man whose eyes were brilliant beads recessed in a pink round cushion; there was the air about him of having been waiting indefinitely for her.

      "Customer for you, Cleary." said Bellew.

      "Et supper?" asked Major Cleary in a ridiculously treble voice.

      "Yes," said Nan. She was busy for a moment signing the register, one part of her mind wondering how she should thank a man she had no desire to thank. When she turned around she found Bellew had settled the problem for her; he had quietly retreated and stood now at the doorway. A woman's quick pleased exclamation raced in from the street: "Hello, Dan—I thought you'd be back this evening."

      Cleary came about the counter and took Nan's luggage, saying, "Up these stairs, please." But Nan, faintly curious, remained still. Dan Bellew was smiling, and in another moment a girl walked into the lobby with a swift, boyish stride. She was very slim, not more than twenty. Her face was slightly olive and clearly modeled. Black hair clung loosely and carelessly to a restless little head, and two shining eyes seemed to gather all the light of the lobby lamps and throw it laughingly up to Bellew. "She's pretty," Nan found herself thinking, impartially. "Very pretty." The rest was obvious, for the very manner in which this girl took Bellew's arm and raised her shoulders was a frank, unconscious admission of what she thought.

      Bellew was indolently speaking:

      "I'm put out with you, Helen. Didn't meet me at the train. No girl of mine can neglect me like that."

      Helen's laugh was exuberant, throaty. "Careful. Dan, careful. I'm apt to take you seriously."

      Nan followed the heaving Major Cleary up the stairs, vexedly asking herself why she had spent the time looking on. Cleary went into a musty room, lit a lamp, and retreated. When the door closed behind him, Nan relaxed suddenly on the bed, bereft of all energy. She had hoped, distantly, for some glamour of the country to carry her through; but she saw nothing of it, felt nothing of it. Trail was a drab and common and flimsy cattle town on the prairie, and she sat in a room cheerless beyond words. A yellow mirror hung on the wall, a chair covered with dust sat in one corner. These articles and the iron bed on which she sat made up the furnishings. A shade flapped full length against an open window; and there was a hole—it looked like a bullet hole—through one partition. All this grated on her sense of neatness. But, studying her gloved fingertips, she quietly warned herself: "The trouble is not with the place. It is with me. I must not ask for too much." Tired and forlorn as she was, some restlessness would not let her sit still. She got up and went to the mirror, to see there the clouded reflection of a person she scarcely knew. The image disturbed her, and she turned away, thinking: "I've got to keep moving or I'm lost." Abruptly she left the room and went down the stairs. Major Cleary was in a lobby chair, rocking himself to sleep.

      "I want to talk with somebody about a house," she said uncertainly. "Something that will be outside of town."

      "You'd want to see Townsite Jackson."

      "Would you mind getting him for me?"

      Cleary looked at her through nearly shut lids. "I doubt if he'd come," he said indifferently. "Better go see him."

      "Where?"

      Cleary's pipestem described a half-circle. "Catty-corner from here across the square. They's a building there with four doors—bank, post office, store, and land office. Any one of 'em will lead you to Townsite. Fact simply is, any business you may do will by and by take you to Townsite."

      Nan said "Thank you" soberly and left the lobby. Certain shadowed forms loitered on the porch, and an idle talk died as she went down the steps and along the boardwalk. Men strolled casually from place to place, without hurry or apparent purpose. The air was sharper than it had been, and she caught the keen taint of burning wood and an intermingling dust scent. Water trickled pleasantly from a trough; a densely black stable's mouth yawned at her, through which traveled the patient stamp of stalled horses. There was, she thought slowly, an air of deep peace here, the peace following a hard day's work. The yellow dust settled beneath her shoes as she crossed the square and turned into the doorway of a starkly rectangular two-story building. Bright bracket lamps hung over a counter, but the long shelves of supplies ran into a dim background, and great mounds of sacked and boxed stuff made breastworks along the floor.

      A man walked slowly from some other room.

      "I'm looking for Mr. Jackson."

      "I'm Townsite," said the man cheerfully.

      He was, she decided, a rawboned General Grant; with the same square, closely bearded face, the same indomitable mouth. His eyes were a clear blue and patiently kind. Past middle age, he had the appearance of physical strength. She thought of all this while framing her request. It was more difficult than she had imagined, for she stood on wholly alien grounds, a transparent Easterner. Unconsciously she threw her shoulders back.

      "This," she said, slowly, "is what I've come to see you about: I want some sort of a place, a house only large enough for myself with just a little ground around it. I want it away from town. The rest is entirely up to your judgment. Pick the place, arrange for it. Select whatever I shall need. Tonight, if you please. In the morning I will be here with a check to pay for it—and ready to go."

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