with sheets and
counterpane, its chairs were upholstered and in perfect repair and
polish. It was not Arizona, emphatically not, but rather the sweet and
garnished and lavendered respectability of a Connecticut village. My
dirty old _cantinas_ lay stacked against the washstand. At sight of them
I had to grin. Of course I travelled cowboy fashion. They contained a
toothbrush, a comb, and a change of underwear. The latter item was
sheer, rank pride of caste.

It was all most incongruous and strange. But the strangest part, of
course, was the fact that I found myself where I was at that moment. Why
was I thus received? Why was I, an ordinary and rather dirty cowpuncher,
not sent as usual to the men's bunk house? It could not be possible that
Old Man Hooper extended this sort of hospitality to every chance
wayfarer. Arizona is a democratic country, Lord knows: none more so! But
owners are not likely to invite in strange cowboys unless they
themselves mess with their own men. I gave it up, and tried
unsuccessfully to shrug it off my mind, and sought distraction in
looking about me. There was not much to see. The one door and one
window opened into the court. The other side was blank except that near
the ceiling ran a curious, long, narrow opening closed by a transom-like
sash. I had never seen anything quite like it, but concluded that it
must be a sort of loop hole for musketry in the old days. Probably they
had some kind of scaffold to stand on.

I pulled off my shirt and took a good wash: shook the dust out of my
clothes as well as I could; removed my spurs and _chaps_; knotted my
silk handkerchief necktie fashion; slicked down my wet hair, and tried
to imagine myself decently turned out for company. I took off my gun
belt also; but after some hesitation thrust the revolver inside the
waistband of my drawers. Had no reason; simply the border instinct to
stick to one's weapon.

Then I sat down to wait. The friendly little noises of my own movements
left me. I give you my word, never before nor since have I experienced
such stillness. In vain I told myself that with adobe walls two feet
thick, a windless evening, and an hour after sunset, stillness was to be
expected. That did not satisfy. Silence is made up of a thousand little
noises so accustomed that they pass over the consciousness. Somehow
these little noises seemed to lack. I sat in an aural vacuum. This
analysis has come to me since. At that time I only knew tha