Later on in the morning the Colonel waked from a few hours of uneasy slumber. He had thrown himself dressed on his bed and dropped into a sleep from which he had been roused by the morning sounds of Foleys. The lethargy and depression of the night of memories clung heavily to him, and as he dressed he decided that he would leave the camp that morning, sending word to Cusack the lawyer that he would let the matter of the squatter rest for a few days.
As he left the dining-room after breakfast, he was accosted by a stable-man, who informed him that Kit Carson was inclined to “go tender” on one of his front feet. The man did not know when the Colonel intended leaving, but if it was that day he would advise him to “wait over a spell” and let Kit “rest up.” Nearly a hundred and forty miles in thirty-six hours—especially with the sun so hot at midday, was a pretty serious proposition even for Kit Carson.
The Colonel stood silent for a moment looking at the man from under frowning brows. It would be possible for him to take one of Forsythe’s horses, ride to Milton, and there get the Stockton stage. Forsythe’s boy could ride Kit back to Sacramento when his front foot ceased to be tender. But after all, what was the use of running from the situation? There it was, to be thought out and dealt with. It was Fate that had lamed the never tired or disabled Kit just at this juncture.
With a word to the man that he would stay over till the horse was in proper condition, he passed through the hall and along the balcony to the side which flanked the dining-room. Its boarded length was deserted, with, before each window, a social gathering of chairs as they had been arranged by on-lookers during last night’s revel. A long line of locust trees, their foliage motionless in the warm air, grew between the hotel fence and the road, throwing the balcony in a scented shade.
Between their trunks the Colonel could survey the main street of Foleys, already wrapped in its morning state of somnolence, its unstirred dust beaten upon by a relentless blaze of sun. Under the covered sidewalk a shirt-sleeved figure now and then passed with loitering step, or a sun-bonneted woman picked her way through the dust. The male population of the camp was, for the most part, gathered in detached groups which marked the doorways of saloons. Each member of a group occupied a wooden arm-chair, had his heels raised high on a hitching bar, his hat well down on his nose, while a spiral of smoke issued from beneath the brim. Now and then some one spoke and the Colonel could see the heads under the tilted hats slowly turning to survey the speaker. At intervals, however, a word was passed of sudden, energizing import. It roused the group which rose as a man and filed into the saloon. When they emerged, they seated themselves, the silence resettled, and all appeared to drowse. The one being who defied the soporific effect of the hour was an unseen player on the French horn who beguiled the morning stillness with variations of the melody, When this Cruel War is Over.
The Colonel, smoking his morning cigar, surveyed the outlook with the unseeing eyes of extreme preoccupation. He did not even notice the presence of the saddled horse which a stable-man had led up to the gate just below where he sat. Some louder admonition of the man’s to the fretting animal finally caught his ear and his fixed eyes fell on it.
It was a stately creature, satin-flanked and slender-legged, stamping and shaking its long mane in its impatience. The neat pack of the traveler was tied behind the saddle.
“Whose horse is that, Tom?” said the Colonel, knowing its type strange to Foleys. “Didn’t the Gracey boys go back last night?”
“Yes. The whole Buckeye Belle outfit rode back at three. This is Jerry Barclay’s horse. He’s goin’ on this morning to Thompson’s Flat. Barclay rid him up from Stockton—won’t take no livery horse. Has this one sent up on the boat.”
As the man spoke the Colonel heard a quick step on the balcony behind him, and the owner of the horse came around the corner, smiling, handsome, debonair in his loose-fitting clothes, long riding boots and wide-brimmed hat.