Page:The Baron of Diamond Tail (1923).pdf/181

 ing in his low droning voice, the pair left the hotel, walking away together in the dark.

Dan's mystification, astonishment, curiosity, combined in his face in a speechless stare. He turned from Kate to Barrett; from Barrett back again to Kate. She smiled, understanding him better than if he had expressed his thoughts with his lips.

"I wouldn't like to be the man that's got to pay the bill," said Dan, turning from the door, where he had stood a little while looking after the illustrious pair.

Barrett left his friend leaning over the cigar case, Cattle Kate with elbows on it across from him, their heads rather close together. It seemed to be Dan's night, there being no immediate competition. Barrett wondered if there could be a man for every horse, to say nothing of every saddle on Cattle Kate's porch, in town. He concluded presently that there was, basing the conclusion entirely on the burst of noise that issued from the little dance hall at the farther end of the one-sided street.

In this a band of three Italians supplied the music that was only incidental to the beating of, and loud calling of the figures of the quadrille. Barrett looked a moment through the open door upon a scene such as he had witnessed with variations, and no elaborate ones at that, in many quarters of the globe.

Long ago this sort of diversion had lost its novelty for him, seasoned veteran in spite of his years. He turned back toward the peace and quiet of the white-painted plank hotel, thinking of the two men who had walked from its door a little while before.