Page:Son of the wind.djvu/24

 hotel keepers. She eluded him, even while he saw her adding up his sum.

"Do you mind telling me what you want to see Mr. Rader about?" she said at last.

He had been expecting this, and was ready for it. "I am after deer," he explained. "I missed my guide at Beckwith—left word for him to join me at Mohawk, and came along. But I got on the wrong road somehow, and a chap I met a few miles below here told me that Raders might take me in over-night, and put me on the right road back in the morning."

She came forward to the edge of the porch and stood, leaning on her broom like a wand of office. She looked weary and scarcely interested. "We've closed for the season," she said. "Why don't you go down to Ferriers'? It's only half a mile along on the main road."

"But my mare is almost done, I shouldn't like to take her any farther to-night. Would Mr. Rader object to an informal boarder, even if it is a little out of season?"

"Oh, he!" she exclaimed, as if Mr. Rader were not at all the question. "But the house is so upset, and I don't keep any dining-room girl in the winter," she hesitated.

"I'm not a fellow who is much trouble," Carron