Chapter VI
"You are sure you won't be gone more than an hour?" Gloria asked.
Never, it seemed to her, had she seen a lonelier-looking place than old Coloma drowsing on the fringe of the wilderness. The street into which they had ridden was deserted save for a couple of dogs making each other's acquaintance suspiciously. Why was it more lonesome here than it had been back there in the mountains? she wondered.
"Less than an hour," he assured her. "What business I have can be done in fifteen minutes if it can be done at all. But, in the meantime, what will you do?"
"Oh," said Gloria, "I'll just poke around. It will be fun to see what kind of people live here."
He put the horses in the stable, watered and fed them himself, and came back to her outside the front double doors. She had dropped down on a box in the sun; he thought that there was a little droop to her shoulders. And small wonder, he admitted, with a tardy sense of guilt. All these hours in the saddle——
"Tired much?" he asked solicitously.
The shoulders straightened like a soldier's; she jumped up and whirled smilingly.
"Not a bit tired," she told him brightly.
"That's good. But I could get a room for you at the hotel; you could lie down and rest a couple of hours——"