"When you take us back to town, you take us to that hotel we saw last night," he ordered. "We're not going back to your lady friend."
Old Daggett laughed. Lady friend! How she would scold! He would tell her that the gentlemen thought she was his lady friend.
"And we'll have to have a better horse and driver after dinner, if we're going to see this field."
"All right," said Daggett.
His morning's work would buy him drink for a week, and beyond the week he had no interest.
He drove the ancient horse to the hotel, and his passengers got out. He waited, expecting to be sent for their baggage. The porch and pavement were as crowded as they had been the night before. The soldiers embraced each other, hawkers cried their picture postcards and their manufactured souvenirs, at the edge of the pavement a band was playing.
Brant pushed his way to the clerk's desk. The clerk remembered him at once as the triumphantly vindicated defendant in a Congressional scandal, and welcomed him obsequiously. Brant's picture had been in all the papers, and his face was not easily forgotten.
"Well, sir, did you just get in?" the clerk asked politely.
"No, I've been here all night," answered Brant. "I was told you had no rooms."
Meanwhile old Daggett had become tired of waiting. He wanted his money; the Keystone people might send for the baggage. He tied his old horse, unheeding the grins of his former companions in the army post and of the colored porters and the smiles of the fine ladies. He followed Brant into the hotel.