WITH HIS SHADOW BEFORE HIM
The following morning was a quiet one in Gunsight and a stranger entering the town would have thought an epidemic of sleeping sickness had raided it, for yawns would have met him wherever he turned, and quite some headaches, the owners of which were short of temper and ugly in words. Dave dozed in his chair and his countenance was not a smiling one. He opened his eyes from time to time and fell asleep again with a scowl. Ben Dailey petulantly cursed everything his clumsy fingers bungled, and it can be said that clumsiness was not the normal condition of those digits. Art Fanning, whose hired man could run the routine affairs of the hotel as well without him, turned and tossed on his bed, finally getting up and poking his head out into the hall. Thinking he heard a noise in Nelson's room, he went to the door and hammered on it.
"House afire?" demanded Johnny, sleepily.
"No; but my head is," growled Fanning. "What you say about a bucket of roarin' strong coffee for us sinners?"
"I say yo're shoutin'. Comin' in?"
"Naw; I got to put on some clothes—an' find some socks; these here are roundin' my heels an' climbin' up my laigs. I'm shore hard on socks," he growled. Leaning over the stairs he let out a bellow, "Hey, George!"
"I'll swear he heard you," said Johnny. "Mebby th' Bar H did, too. I never saw nobody go under so quick from liquor as Big Tom an' Squint."
"Hey, George!" yelled Fanning. "Oh, they was well ribbed before they hit town. Where th'——"
"What you want?" asked a voice from below.