Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/25

 eral days?" the traveler inquired, his voice deep and gentle, but with that judicial note in it exactly as Jim had expected to hear.

Jim was resentful. This thing was working out too unpleasantly all around. He could afford to be ugly and bullying with his guests, having no competition.

"What do you suppose I'm runnin' this ranch for?" he asked, whirling the register around, scowling as if the answer to his question were in his look, and that answer was robbery and murder of impertinent upstarts.

"To make money, I'd say," the stranger answered, unmoved by the landlord's sneering interrogation.

The reply mollified Jim a little. It had been given in such even, unmoved, unconcerned tone; the stranger had taken the pen so casually. He must not be as much of a rustic as at first supposed. Traveled around some; agent for something. Maybe some kind of a detective, dang his nickel-plated eyes!

"I might be runnin' it for profit anywheres else but this dern-blasted country," said Jim. "There ain't no show for no man to make money out of no hotel this fur west of Dodge. I'd sell to-morrow if I could run acrost a bigger fool than I am."

The stranger was so little interested in this complaint against the country that he did not glance up from the page where he was entering his name. Out of long practice in upside-down reading, Jim followed the pen as the stranger wrote:

"I used to know a Hall that run a sawmill in Spickardsville, Missouri," said Jim, coming a little nearer now in