"Well," he said, "I'm not going to worry you. This is evidently a temperance meeting."
He passed into the empty bar alone, and a man who leaned upon the counter in his shirt sleeves shook his head as he glanced towards the verandah.
"They're not in a good humor to-night. It looks very much as if someone has been talking to them?" he said.
Slocum smiled a little, though he had already noticed this, and taken precautions the bar-keeper never suspected.
"I guess they'll simmer down. Who has been talking to them?" he said.
"The two ranchers you sold the Hemlock Range to. There was another man who'd bought a piece of natural prairie, and it cost him most of five dollars before he got through telling them what he thought of you. Now, I don't know what their notion is, but I'd light out for a little if I was you."
Slocum appeared to reflect. "Well," he said, "I may go to-morrow."
"I'd go to-night," said the bar-keeper, significantly. "I guess it would be wiser."
Slocum, who did not consider it necessary to tell him that he quite agreed with this, went out, and a few minutes later stopped outside his house, which was the last one in the town. A big, rudely-painted sign, nailed across the front of it, recommended any one who desired to buy or sell land and mineral properties or had mortgages to arrange, to come in and confer with the agent of Grant Devine. He glanced back up the street, and was relieved to notice that there was nobody loitering about that part of it. Then he looked at the forest the trail led into, which was shadowy and still, and, slipping round the building, went in through the back of it. A woman stood waiting him in a dimly-lighted room, which was littered with feminine clothing besides two big valises and an array of bulky packages. She was expensively dressed, but her face was anxious, and he noticed that her fingers were quivering.
"You're quite ready, Sue?" he said.