"Well, I reckon I don't," he answered, picking up his hat as if to end the conversation. "I knew a man called Stuart once, but I don't know this one. Now, have you any pressing reason for loafing down here any longer? If not, I'll take my blanket and that lounge and get some sleep. I've been thirty-six hours in the saddle."
In vain she tried to prevail on him to go upstairs and go to bed "right."
"This is right enough for me," he answered, laying his hat and gloves on a table and unfastening his spurs. "No, I won't go up to the men's room. Good-night."
"But, Jack—look here—"
"I can't—too sleepy to look anywhere, or see if I did look;" and his revolvers and belt were laid beside the growing collection on the table.
"But Hen will scold me for not giving you better lodging."
"Then he and another man will have a shooting-match before breakfast to-morrow. Are you going?"
He was beginning to deliberately unfasten his neck-gear of scarlet and bronze. She hesitated, as if to make a final protest, but failed and fled; and as the door closed behind her, she heard another half-laughing "Klahowya!"
Early in the morning she was down-stairs, to find Aunty Luce half wild with terror at the presence of a stranger who had taken possession of the sitting-room during the night.
"Cain't see his face for the blanket, honey," she whispered shrilly, "but he's powerful big; an'—an' just peep through the door at the guns and things—it's wah times right ovah again, shueh as I'm tellen' yo', chile."