ment
that Behind-time Barnes deserves."

A few minutes later the cashier was jumped out of another incipient
nap by the clamor of bells. The two horses that whisked past, pulling
a double-seated sleigh, were belted with bells. A big man with a
lambrequin mustache was filling the rear seat measurably well. Folks
recognized the team as a "let-hitch" from Levant.

"Mr. Barnes comes late, but he comes in style and with all his bells,"
Vona suggested.

The equipage swung up beside the tavern porch and the big man threw off
the robes and stamped in, leaving the driver to take the horses to the
stable.

Landlord Files had furnished an accompaniment for the clangor of the
bells; he was pounding his dinner gong.

The new arrival had a foghorn voice and used it in hearty volume in
telling Mr. Files that his music was all right and mighty timely! "And
that alligator seems to be calling for his grub, too," he remarked, on
his way to hang up his coat. "But he doesn't look any hungrier than I
feel."

"Room?" inquired the landlord, hopefully, swinging the register book and
pulling a pen out of a withered potato.

"No room! Just dinner. I expect to be out of here by night."

Mr. Files stabbed the potato with a vicious pen thrust. He knew food
capacity when he viewed it; there would be some profit from a lodging,
but none from a two-shilling meal served to a man who had compared
himself with that open-mouthed saurian.

But the guest grabbed the penstock while it was still vibrating. He
wrote across the book, with great flourishes: "Fremont Starr. State Bank
Examiner. February 21st."

"A matter of record, landlord! Show's I'm here. Tells the world I was
here on date noted. Never can tell when the law will call for records.
Hotel registers are fine evidence. Always keep your registers."

"I've had that one eleven years, and it 'ain't been filled up yet,"
averred Mr. Files, inspecting the potentate's signature as sourly as
if he were estimating by how much the lavish use of ink had reduced the
possible dinner profit. "You're the new appointment, hey? I heard you
speak, one time, over at the political rally in the shire town."

"Both my enemies and my friends would have advised you to stay right
here on your porch--saying that you could hear me just as well, if you
didn't care to make the trip to the shire," said Mr. Starr, lifting the
mat of his mustache in a wide smile. "But when they call me 'Foghorn
Fremont' I'm never on