Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/23

 row of chairs drawn back against the wall increased. It seemed as if these uninviting chairs had discharged the last of their guests from their crude, curved arms; that the business of the house was concluded and sealed. A little stock of tobacco in sacks and caddies filled the shelf behind the counter. There was a smell of lye; the boards of the floor were leached by it, with dark strips, where the joints had gathered greasy sweepings, running like column rules of a newspaper between.

Justice came in presently, placing himself behind the counter with something the manner of a high judge disposing himself to hear the plea of inferior counsel in a despised cause.

Judging him by his baggage, Jim did not rate the guest as first class. This single piece of luggage the traveler had put down in the middle of the floor, where its battered and kicked condition was apparent to the hotel man's critical eye. No man of consequence stuffed all his belongings into one suitcase, Jim Justice believed. He adjusted his small mental machinery to give the fellow a reception fitting the outward appearance of his bag.

The guest appeared to be either indifferent to the presence of the landlord, or too rustic to know what such appearance behind the counter implied. He stood near his bag, hands in his breeches pockets, looking at the pictures on the wall as if absorbed in a comparative study of brewers' art. Justice sized him up as a timber cruiser estimates a tree, scanning him for all that could be cut out of him in a sharp and frowning sweep of his bristle-shaded eyes.

Not much to him; just an ordinary gangle-shanked farmer who had been working in town through the winter.