He meant to say it to himself, but the words burst from him.
“Air ye sorry ye come?” exclaimed a voice near by.
Perhaps a half hundred persons were grouped about the station. Leather belts and plainsmen’s hats distinguished nearly all. Leaning against the platform rail were three Indians. Roy looked for the speaker. He proved to be a man just past middle age, wearing tan shoes, a rusty blue suit much in need of cleaning and pressing, a dust-covered, soft black hat, a soiled white shirt with a celluloid collar showing a glassy looking shirt stud and a thin black string necktie. His face, widened with a smile, was gaunt, red and newly shaven.
Roy glanced at him and smiled.
“I’ve got to get acquainted in Dolores,” he said with boyish familiarity, “and if you don’t mind, I’ll begin with you. My name’s Osborne, Roy Osborne, of Newark, New Jersey.”
“Do-lores, not Dol-ores,” replied the stranger with a still wider smile. “But that’s neither hyar nor thar, as the feller says alludin’ to the muskeeter. Glad to meet ye, Mr. Osborne. My name is Weston, A. B. Weston—some o’ the time Colonel Weston. Permit me,” and before Roy could stop him, Mr. Weston had taken charge of the suit case.
“You don’t run a hotel, do you?” asked Roy, amused at his new friend’s assurance.
The man took no offense, but pointed across the open ground beyond the station to a block of frame buildings.
“My office is just over thar—real estate is my line. Don’t git skeered. As a member o’ the Dolores Commercial Club, ye air welcome to step over and git yer bearin’s.”
“I don’t know that I have time—” began Roy, thinking of all he wanted to do at once—“although it’s very good of you.”