William Stanley Winthrop woke next morning with a vague impression of having lost something. He gazed indolently at the sunlight filtering through the curtains of his sleeping-room. Beyond the archway to the adjoining room of his suite, a ray of sunshine lay like living gold upon the soft, rich-hued fabric of the carpet.
"Gold!" he murmured. "Mojave Desert! Overland Red! Lost gold! No, it isn't the two hundred dollars I invested in the rascal's story, for it was worth the money. I never spent four happier hours in my life, at fifty dollars an hour. The best of it is he actually made me believe him. I think he believed himself."
Winthrop sat up in bed, yawning. "I think black coffee will be about all, this morning," he murmured, as he dressed leisurely.
He was tying a fastidiously correct bow on his tan oxford when he happened to glance out of the window. It was early, altogether too early, he reflected, to appear in the breakfast-room of the hotel. Winthrop's indefinite soliloquy melted into the rapt silence of imagination. Below on the smooth black pavement pattered two laden burros. On their packs hung dusty, weatherworn canteens, a pick and shovel, and a rifle in its soiled and frayed scabbard. The sturdy, shaggy burros followed a little, lean old man, whose flop-brimmed hat, faded shirt, and battered boots told a tale of the outlands, whispered of sun-swept immensities, of sage and cacti, sand and silence. Winthrop drew a long breath. Such an adventurer was the Overland Red he had talked with the evening previous. The tramp had mentioned a town far out on the desert. Winthrop sauntered down to the deserted office and secured a timetable.
When the east-bound express left Los Angeles the following morning, Winthrop was aboard, uncomfortably installed in the private drawing-room of a sleeper. He had cheerfully paid the double fare that he might have the entire space to himself, and he needed it. Around him, on the floor, in the seats, in the racks, and on the hooks were innumerable packages, bags, and bundles.
"Very eccentric. He must be rich," whispered the wife of a dry-goods merchant from Keokuk, as her husband pushed her ahead of him past the door of the drawing-room.
"Just plain hog!" said the dry-goods merchant. "A man that'll pay double fare to have the whole earth to himself when other folks has to be packed into a berth and suffocate! The conductor said he paid double to Chicago to get that compartment, and he's only goin' out in the desert a little ways. I'd 'a' took it myself."
"Well, we could hardly afford it, anyway," said the woman pleasantly. "We've had such a good time I don't mind sleeping in a berth, Hiram."
They crowded on and finally found their seats.
Winthrop smiled to himself. He liked the woman's voice.