"But listen, please," he protested, scrambling out upon the steps, painter in hand, and groping for a ring-bolt. "You cannot possibly stay the night at the Plume of Feathers——"
He heard her laugh, as he stooped, having found the ring, to make fast the rope.
"Commandant, have you ever travelled across Wyoming—in winter, in a waggon? Very well, then; I have."
"Surely not in the clothes you are wearing?" The Commandant, as any one in the Council of Twelve could tell you, was no debater; yet sometimes he had been known to triumph even in debate, by sheer simplicity. "The only course that I can see," he continued, "is to seek some private house, and throw ourselves upon the—er—"
"Front door?" she suggested, mischievously.
"—hospitality—upon the hospitality of the inmates. To them, of course, I can explain the situation——"
"Can you?"
The Commandant stood for a moment peering at her, and rubbing the back of his head—a trick of his in perplexity. "Upon my word, now you come to mention it," he confessed, "I don't know that I can."
"Whom shall we try first? Miss Gabriel?" ("Now, how in the world," wondered the Commandant, "does she know anything of Miss Gabriel?") "Very well; we go together to Alma Cottage—she still lives at Alma Cottage?—and knock. The hour is two in the morning, or thereabouts. Miss Gabriel, overcoming her first fear of robbery or murder, will parley with us from her bedroom window. To her you introduce me, by the light of your lantern; a strange female in an evening frock; a female grossly overladen with jewels (that, I think, would be Miss Gabriel's way of putting it), but without a portmanteau."
"We might try the Popes, next door," suggested the Commandant flinching. "Mr. Pope is a man of the world."