Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/22

 of the next step. Everybody else who came on the train had gone his way; only he and a barrel of kerosene remained on the platform. Smoke was rising from a car in the boarding train, the cook car, Bill knew. An invisible woman in it began to sing, and this was her song:

Bill was further relieved by the song. He liked to think the singer was young and pretty, although he had his doubts.

For a town no bigger than Pawnee Bend there were a great many hotels, it appeared to Bill. True, some of them were not much bigger than tents, but all of them made free with the sign HOTEL & ROOMS. There was one near the track, only the broad dusty space representing the railroad right-of-way and the public road lying between, that appeared to be the biggest in town. It had a square front like a grocery, that much of it having been painted blue, the rest of its walls remaining as the planks had come from the mill.

While Bill's prejudice rose against this hotel on account of its painted face, which gave it the appearance of being a very Jezebel among hotels, he was assured in some measure by the sign FAMILY HOTEL which this false front presented. It was making a bid for respectable trade, although the sign might cover any amount of deceit. Bill had seen