"Not very," she answered. "You see, I traveled Colonist."
"How dreadful!" Florence exclaimed.
Her husband smiled at Alison.
"It depends," he said. "It's good enough if you can wait until after the steamboat train. I used to travel that way myself once upon a time; I had to do it then."
"Elcot," his wife explained, "is one of the most economically minded men living. He grudges every dollar unless it's for new implements."
Hunter did not contradict her. He and Thorne left the veranda, and soon after they returned from leading the team to the stable, a trim maid appeared to announce that supper was ready. Hunter led Alison into a big and very simply furnished room. A long table ran down one side, and half a dozen men attired much as Hunter was took their places about the uncovered lower half of it. There was a cloth on the upper portion, with a gap of several feet between its margin and the nearest of the teamsters' seats. It occurred to Alison, who had been told that the hired man generally ate with his employer on the prairie, that this compromise was rather pitiful, though she did not know that Hunter had once or twice had words with his wife on the question. As the meal, which was bountiful, proceeded, he now and then spoke to the men; but Florence confined her attention to Alison, until at length she addressed Thorne.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of seeing you?" she inquired.
"In the first place, I came to bring Miss Leigh; she hired me."
Thorne laid a very slight stress upon the hired. It seemed to indicate that he recognized his station in relation to a guest of the house, and Alison felt a little uncomfortable. For one thing, though that did not quite account for her uneasiness, she remembered that she had not paid him.
"Then," he added, "I called in the usual course of business. I have for disposal a few tablets of very excellent English soap, a case of peach-bloom cosmetic, and one or two other requisites of the kind."