The last of the miners passed out. She stood, stout and menacing, holding the door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat opened, smoking.
“We’re closed now, sir,” came the perilous, narrowed voice of the landlady.
The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the stranger.
“Closing time,” he said.
The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick-moving, dark, jewel-like eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady.
“I’m stopping here tonight,” he said, in his laconic Cornish-Yankee accent.
The landlady seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening.
“Oh! indeed!” she cried.” Oh, indeed! And whose orders are those, may I ask?”
He looked at her again.
“My orders,” he said.