“Now I could ’most be happy if I knew when we would strike another place like this,” he said. “Still, it’s quite plain to me that we can’t stay here. There are too many cazadores prowling up and down this carretera.”
It was equally evident to Appleby, but, crippled as he was he could find no answer to the question how he was to drag himself any farther, and he lay still, considering the chances of their being given a hidden bed in a forage loft, until there was a great clatter on the stones outside. Harper was on his feet in a moment, and sprang to the window grim in face, but once there he laughed.
“Only a carriage with a man and a woman in it,” he said, “You let me do the talking if old yellow-face wants to turn us out of here. Anyway, if I go, what’s left of the wine goes with me.”
To make sure of this he slipped the bottle into his pocket, and turned discreetly when the landlord came in.
“By permission, gentlemen, I will show you another room,” he said.
“This one will serve quite well,” said Harper in Castilian.
The landlord concealed his impatience by a gesture of deprecation. “Comes a rich American and a lady,” he said. “These people are, it seems, fastidious, but they pay me well.”
“An American,” said Harper condescendingly. “Well, we are equal there in my country, and I do not object to his company. You can show him in.”
It was too late for the innkeeper to expostulate, for a man in white duck and a girl in a long white dress came into the room, while Appleby set his lips when he recognized the latter. He was ragged, dirty, and unkempt, while one shoe was horribly crusted, and it was very much against his wishes to encounter Nettie Harding a second time in much the same condition. Harper, however, appeared in no way disconcerted, and stepped forward, a dilapidated scarecrow, with the bottle neck projecting suggestively from his pocket.
“Come right in, Mr. Harding,” he said. “It’s quite pleasant to meet a countryman in this forlorn land.”