A colored maid followed them.
From another car descended a thin, wiry, nervous man, who had a great blue beak of a nose, and who hastened to join the trio, speaking to them.
The hotel proprietor had at the station the finest carriage he could find, and this whisked them away to the hotel as soon as they had entered it, leaving[Pg 181] the loungers about the station wondering, while the train went diminishing into the distance, flinging its trail of black smoke against the blue of the Arizona sky.
At the hotel the lady and her daughter occupied two of the finest rooms, the colored maid another, less expensively furnished, and the man with the blue nose was given the fourth.
Holbrook wondered what it meant.
The lady ordered a meal to be served in her rooms.
The report went forth at once, and again Holbrook stood agog.
The hotel register was watched. Finally the man with the restless eyes and blue beak entered the office and wrote nervously in the register.
Barely was he gone when a dozen persons were packed about the desk, seeking to look over one another's shoulders to see what had been written.
"Whatever is it, Hank?" asked one. "You sure kin read writin'. Whatever do you make o' it?"