ed out-of-doors and looked
reflectively up the Sleepy Cat road. One further refinement in his
appeal for Nan's favor suggested itself. She would be hungry, possibly
faint in the heat and dust, when she arrived. He returned to McAlpin:
"Where can I get a good cup of coffee when the stage comes in?"

"Go right down to the inn, sir. It's a new chap running it--a
half-witted man from Texas. My wife is cooking there off and on.
She'll fix you up a sandwich and a cup of good coffee."

It was four o'clock, and the sun beat fiercely on the desert. De Spain
walked down to the inn unmindful of the heat. In summer rig, with his
soft-shirt collar turned under, his forearms bare, and his thoughts
engaged, he made his way rapidly on, looking neither to the right nor
the left.

As he approached the weather-beaten pile it looked no more inviting in
sunshine than it had looked in shadow; and true to its traditions, not
a living being was anywhere to be seen. The door of the office stood
ajar. De Spain, pushing it all the way open, walked in. No one greeted
him as he crossed the threshold, and the unsightly room was still bare
of furnishings except for the great mahogany bar, with its two very
large broken mirrors and the battered pilasters and carvings.

De Spain pounded on the bar. His effort to attract attention met with
no response. He walked to the left end of the bar, lifted the
hand-rail that enclosed the space behind it, and pushed open the door
between the mirrors leading to the back room. This, too, was empty. He
called out--there was no response. He walked through a second door
opening on an arcaded passageway toward the kitchen--not a soul was in
sight. There was a low fire in the kitchen stove, but Mrs. McAlpin had
apparently gone home for a while. Walking back toward the office, he
remembered the covered way leading to a patio, which in turn opened on
the main road. He perceived also that at the end next the office the
covered way faced the window at the end of the long bar.

Irritated at the desertion of the place, due, he afterward learned, to
the heat of the afternoon, and disappointed at the frustration of his
purpose, he walked back through the rear room into the office. As he
lifted the hand-rail and, passing through, lowered it behind him, he
took out his watch to see how soon the stage was due. While he held
the timepiece in his hand he heard a rapid clatter of hoofs
approaching the place. Thinking it might be