"Gee!" he observed, standing in his doorway one noon with a fine air of proprietorship, and watching the dusty stage roll in from the south. "Here's another stranger comin' to town. And the doc ain't back yet with Sandy! Well, I guess I'd better eat an' then begin to get out the first issue of the paper. We'll see who this stranger is, huh?"
He walked across to the hotel, where already most of Two Palms was assembling with avid curiosity to watch the debarkation of the new arrival. Bill Hobbs took one square look at the stranger, then he suddenly became inconspicuous.
The arrival was a tall man, well dressed, his luggage expensive and heavy. His features were very remarkable; they were features, once seen, never to be forgotten. He seemed fairly young, virile and energetic. When he removed his straw hat to wipe the dust from his face, he displayed a high, narrow brow that was white with the pallor of the city.
Beneath this brow were straight black eyebrows like a bar across his face. The eyes, too, were black—an intense and glittering black, luminous as black crystal. A finely trimmed black vandyke shaded his mouth, but accentuated the high, thin lines of his countenance. The whole face was undeniably aristocratic, very handsome in a mesmeric way, yet it held an indefinable hint of vulpine. The stranger's hands were long, white, powerful.
"I have a friend, a Mr. Lee," said the stranger to Piute Tomkins. His voice was smooth and very self-assured, pregnant with authority. "He has, I believe, engaged a room in advance of my coming?"
"He ain't," returned Piute, surveying the stranger. "But come in and eat, 'less ye want to miss dinner. I guess we can rustle a room somehow. We're havin' a treemenjous boom right now and all the bellhops is off to the gold rush, but I s'pose we can put ye up."
The spectators grinned at this elaborate irony. The stranger, however, fastened his black eyes upon Piute, and after a few seconds Piute began to look uncomfortable.
"Ah, you are a very facetious gentleman!" said the stranger coolly. "May I inquire if Mr. Lee is stopping here?"
"Yep," said Piute, reddening a trifle. "He's up in his room with a busted leg—but ye'd better pile in to dinner 'fore seein' him. Dinner don't last long here."
"I hope not," said the stranger, going toward the hotel doorway, while the crowd guffawed at the confusion of Piute Tomkins.