Glancing to the left, he saw the line of saloons. "There, Charles," he said. "I shall drive there and ask for shelter."
He turned the white horse into the cut. As they approached the shanties, a woman's voice was heard, raised in ribald song.
"God sends David Bond whither he is most needed," the old man murmured fervently.
A shingle sign was nailed over the door of the first building. On it, in bold, uneven letters, were the words: The Trooper's Delight. David Bond climbed down and knocked.
There was a moment of dead silence within; then, sounds as if several persons were moving about on tiptoe; again, silence. The old man knocked louder. After a short wait, the door was thrown wide. A thick-set man, whose eyes squinted at cross purposes over his flat, turned-up nose, filled the entrance.
"What in the devil do you want?" he demanded roughly, when he saw David Bond. But his seeming anger illy concealed his relief that it was not an officered guard, searching for recreant soldiers.
"I wish for nothing in the name of the devil," was the simple answer. "But in the name of God, I ask for a roof."
"That buck with you?" The squint-eyed man shut the door behind him as he pointed at Squaw Charley.
"No; he lives in the stockade yonder."
"Oh! He's the one that goes prowlin' 'round here day an' night, sneakin' an' stealin'!"