“Yes; and I reckon that is why the colonel keeps pretty much out of the way. He came here the afternoon of the wedding day, before we had heard of the fuss at the church, and, though we wondered much to see the bridegroom here alone, we couldn’t ask any questions. He engaged a room, and then hired a horse and buggy and went off. He hadn’t been gone an hour before people began to come in and talk of the broken-up wedding. We took in a great deal of money all the afternoon on account of people gathering here to talk and to hear about the affair. And toward night comes a cart from Mondreer, loaded with all the colonel’s trunks, pistol cases, hat boxes, fowling pieces and what not. They were all taken up to his room, but the colonel did not come in until near midnight, and he went away again this morning before sunrise, leaving word that he might not be back to-night.”
“Well, it is half-past ten, and he has not returned. I am waiting to see him on very important business, so I think I must take a bed here, and see my gentleman in the morning,” Roland decided.
“All right,” the barkeeper replied, and he rang a bell that brought a negro waiter to the counter.
“Show this gentleman into the front room over the parlor, and make him comfortable. Would you like a fire, sir?”
“Fire? No, of course not; thank you, all the same,” laughed Roland, as he followed the negro man upstairs to the room assigned him.
Roland was wholesomely tired, for he had been traveling on horseback or on foot for nearly forty-eight hours; nevertheless, he waited up until he heard the house closed for the night. Then, when all the calling up and down stairs, the walking back and forth along the passages, the banging of doors and the clattering down of windows had ceased, and the lights were out and the premises were dark and quiet, Roland went to bed and went to sleep. He slept the sound, deep, dreamless sleep of youth, health and fatigue.
It was quite late in the morning when he awoke. The sun was gleaming in golden needles through the interstices of his window shutters.
For a moment he did not know where he was, or how he had come into the strange room. In another instant he recollected himself and his errand. He jumped out of bed and threw open the window shutters. It was very cold, and there was no fire, and the water on the washstand had a thin layer of ice over it.
But Roland did not ring for a waiter to bring either fuel or hot water, for he was inured to hardships and accustomed to waiting on himself.
He broke the ice in his ewer, washed his face and hands, wiped and rubbed them with a coarse, crash towel until they shone and glowed, then put on his clothes, and hurried downstairs and into the bar.