“Well, no, not exactly. I shall be glad to meet him, of course. Is he somewhere around?”
“No. He went East two days sence.”
Now, the movements of local financial magnates are duly chronicled in the Colorado press, and MacGonigal was sure that Willard had not only read the announcement of Power’s departure, but had timed this visit accordingly. Still, that was no affair of his. Willard was here, and might stay a month if he liked, because he would have to pay for bed and board in the Bison Hotel, which MacGonigal owned.
“Ah, that’s too bad,” said Willard, feigning an indifference he was far from feeling. “Still, I have no real business on hand. I happened to be at a loose end in Denver, and didn’t seem to know anybody in the Brown Palace Hotel; so I came out here, to take a peep at the old shanty, so to speak.”
“You’ll hev’ located an alteration or two already?” chuckled the other.
“Every yard of the way was a surprise.”
“Guess that’s so; but what you’ve seen is small pertaters with the circus on the other side of the hill.”
“On the ranch! Things can’t have changed so greatly there?”
“You come this-a way, an’ survey the park.”
MacGonigal led the visitor through a check office, and along a corridor. Throwing open a door, he ushered him into a well furnished room, with two French windows opening on to a spacious veranda.