Scott Burton in the Blue Ridge

by Edward G. Cheyney

Left to himself, he began to examine the room more closely. It was clean all right, but the general effect of it was most grotesque. The high, carved head-board of the old walnut bed might have had a place in a medieval museum, but here in this room it looked out of place like everything else in it. When Scott’s eyes fell on the wall paper, he stood aghast. He counted thirty-seven different patterns, each a small square evidently taken from a country storekeeper’s sample book, and only a third of the wall was covered. The east window was heavily curtained with portières, lace curtains and a shade. Scott peeped out. It opened almost into the mountainside and no human habitation was in sight. The glass door opening on to the back porch—which was by far the most frequented part of the house—was not curtained at all. It was a queer place, but Scott had been in worse, and he decided that it would have to do.

He had been so interested in finding a place to stay that he had forgotten all about the man from the Washington office who was to meet him here. He went out to inquire for him. The dining room opened on to the porch next to his room and the kitchen was next to that.

The man was nowhere to be seen, but there were three women in the kitchen and they were feverishly discussing Scott’s probable business. Complete silence fell on them all when he appeared in the doorway.

“Pardon me,” he said. “Do you know whether Mr. Reynolds of the Forest Service has been here?”

The women looked at each other as though an important problem had been solved before any one answered.

Then one of the women answered with a question: “Are you Mr. Burton?”

“Yes,” Scott said.

“Mr. Reynolds left here this morning. He said that if Mr. Burton, the new supervisor, came to tell him he would be back to-night or to-morrow morning. I was looking for a much older man,” she added looking at him curiously.

“Well,” Scott laughed, “time will correct that.”

Scott noticed that these women were all sizing him up just as the station agent had done a little while before. He went back to his room, and looked in the glass to see what could be wrong. He could see nothing to attract attention. He tried to forget the occurrence and went out to see the town and surrounding country.