Claim Number One

by George W. Ogden

All at once the crowd seemed to resolve into one personality, or to become but the incidental background for one man; a tall man with a slight stoop, whose heavy eyebrows met above his nose like two black caterpillars which had clinched in a combat to contest 185 the passage. Here and there he moved as if seeking somebody, familiarly greeted, familiarly returning the salutations.

That morning she had seen him at the head of the line of men waiting to file on land, close beside Peterson, who believed himself to be Number One. She had wondered then what his interest might be, and it was largely due to a desire to avoid being seen by him that she had hurried away. Now he turned as if her thoughts had burned upon his back like a sunglass, looked directly toward her window, lifted his hat, and smiled.

As if his quest had come to an end at the sight of her, he pushed across the street and came toward the hotel. She left the window, closing it hurriedly, a shadow of fear in her face, her hand pressed to her bosom, as if that meeting of eyes had broken the lethargy of some old pain. She waited, standing in the center of the room, as if for a summons which she dreaded to hear.

The hotel at Meander had not at that day come to such modern contrivances as telephones and baths. If a patron wanted to talk out on the one wire that connected Meander with the world and the railroad, he had to go to the stage-office; if he wanted a bath he must make a trip to the steam laundry, where they maintained tubs for that purpose. But these slight inconveniences were not all on one side of the house. For if a message came to the office for a guest in his room, 186 there was nothing for the clerk to do but trot up with it.

And so it came that when Agnes opened her door to the summons, her bearing had no touch of fear or timidity. In the hall she faced the panting clerk, who had leaped up the stairs and was in a hurry to leap down again.

“Mr. Jerry Boyle asks if he may have the pleasure of seeing you in the parlor, Miss Horton,” said the clerk.

“Tell Mr. Boyle,” she answered with what steadiness she could command, “that I have an appointment in a few minutes. I’m afraid that I shall not be able to see him before–before–tomorrow afternoon.”

That was enough for the clerk, no matter how near or how far it came to satisfying the desires of Jerry Boyle. He gave her a stubby bow and heeled it off downstairs again, kicking up quite a dust in his rapid flight over the carpet in the hall.

As if numbed or dreaming, Agnes walked slowly about her room, touching here or there a familiar article of apparel, and seeking thus to recall herself to a state of conscious reasoning. The events of the morning–the scene before the land-office, her start back to the hotel, the passing of that worn, wounded, and jaded man–seemed to have drawn far into the perspective of the past.

In a little while William Bentley came up for his bag–for in that hotel every man was his own porter–and called her to the door. He was off with Horace 187 on the eleven o’clock stage for Comanche. Next morning he would take a train for the East. Dr. Slavens sent word that he would come to the hotel as soon as he could make himself presentable with a new outfit.