Page:Ritchie - Trails to Two Moons.djvu/155

 four fraternal organizations glittered conspicuously from as many vantage points on his person.

"Warren J. Von Tromp, Cheyenne," was the signature he put in a sprawling hand upon the Occidental's register, and he went smiling into breakfast.

Now to Henry Quick, the Occidental's proprietor, this name carried nothing. Perhaps there were not more than half a dozen men in all the Big Country who would appreciate that the arrival of Warren J. Von Tromp, of Cheyenne, was a weighty event for town and country equally. If one could plump the question, "Who are you?" at Von Tromp with a fair assurance of receiving an answer even half truthful that answer might be, "I am a lawyer." In so far as a certain parchment upon the wall of Von Tromp's office in Cheyenne attested to his admission to the bar, that reply to the supposititious query would be truthful.

But only a modicum of truth therein. Warren J. Von Tromp was much more than a lawyer. His field of activity lay far beyond the confines of the State capital. Washington knew him better than Cheyenne, and he was not a stranger even to the Hyde Park Hotel