colonel keeps pretty much out of the
way. He came here the afternoon of the wedding day, before we had heard of
the fuss at the church, and, though we wondered much to see the bridegroom
here alone, we couldn't ask any questions. He engaged a room, and then
hired a horse and buggy and went off. He hadn't been gone an hour before
people began to come in and talk of the broken-up wedding. We took in a
great deal of money all the afternoon on account of people gathering here
to talk and to hear about the affair. And toward night comes a cart from
Mondreer, loaded with all the colonel's trunks, pistol cases, hat boxes,
fowling pieces and what not. They were all taken up to his room, but the
colonel did not come in until near midnight, and he went away again this
morning before sunrise, leaving word that he might not be back to-night."

"Well, it is half-past ten, and he has not returned. I am waiting to see
him on very important business, so I think I must take a bed here, and see
my gentleman in the morning," Roland decided.

"All right," the barkeeper replied, and he rang a bell that brought a
negro waiter to the counter.

"Show this gentleman into the front room over the parlor, and make him
comfortable. Would you like a fire, sir?"

"Fire? No, of course not; thank you, all the same," laughed Roland, as he
followed the negro man upstairs to the room assigned him.

Roland was wholesomely tired, for he had been traveling on horseback or on
foot for nearly forty-eight hours; nevertheless, he waited up until he
heard the house closed for the night. Then, when all the calling up and
down stairs, the walking back and forth along the passages, the banging of
doors and the clattering down of windows had ceased, and the lights were
out and the premises were dark and quiet, Roland went to bed and went to
sleep. He slept the sound, deep, dreamless sleep of youth, health and
fatigue.

It was quite late in the morning when he awoke. The sun was gleaming in
golden needles through the interstices of his window shutters.

For a moment he did not know where he was, or how he had come into the
strange room. In another instant he recollected himself and his errand. He
jumped out of bed and threw open the window shutters. It was very cold,
and there was no fire, and the water on the washstand had a thin layer of
ice over it.

But Roland did not ring for a waiter to bring either fuel or hot water,
for he was inured to hardships and