Page:Short Grass (1926).pdf/24



proprietor of the Family Hotel to whose shelter Bill Dunham was about to entrust his body and his belongings, was spreading his elbows on the showcase reading a Kansas City paper when the guest arranged himself before the register. MacKinnon relinquished his reading reluctantly, a finger on the print to mark the point of interruption, turning abstractedly to see who was bungling across his grazing. He had given up the thought of any business from the west-bound train, which was twenty miles along its way by that time, Bill had stood so long on the edge of the station platform trying to adjust himself to the stunning perspective of the town.

The host saw a tall, but not exceedingly broad, young man, neatly dressed in a well-fitting blue serge suit, squaring off with a sort of apologetic expectancy before the counter. MacKinnon quickened to his business, seeing that it was business, giving the stranger an affable greeting, hastening along the counter to the register on its merry-go-round arrangement bordered by advertising cards of local concerns. He had a quick eye for men, and the possibilities of them; he would not have been wanting the right word if an ambassador had appeared as unexpectedly as Bill Dunham had come, the glittering adornments