Bradley took her arm. "There's a light up there in the cold," he said. "Let's go for that; and if you'll tell me the name of the schoolhouse, I'll see that we get a team, and get out there."
In the cold and darkness she lost something of her imperiousness, and yielded herself to his guidance with a delicious return to woman's weakness in the face of practical material details. To Bradley this seemed vastly significant and his spirits rose. He grew quite facetious and talkative for him.
"It seems to me that's a store up there; must be a town near by. Perhaps this is the town. Two houses on one side and three houses on the other make a town in the West. We must get some supper, too; any provision for that?"
"No, I left the whole matter in Colonel Barker's hands."
The road ran up the huge treeless swell of prairie toward the lighted windows of a grocery store.
Together they climbed the hill, and opposite the store they came upon a gate on which was a battered sign, "Hotel; meals twenty-five cents." Bradley knocked on the door, but there was no reply.
After waiting a decent while, he said, "If it's a hotel, we might as well go right in without knocking."
They entered a bare little room whose only resemblance to a hotel bar-room was in its rusty cannon stove set in the midst of a box of sawdust, and a map of Kansas hanging on the wall. Bradley knocked on the inner door, and it was opened by a faded little woman with a sad face.
"We'd like supper for two," Bradley said.
"All right!" she replied, moving forward to the stove, which she rattled in order to give her time to scrutinize Ida, who sat on the lounge by the window. "Lay off your things, won't ye?"