"He's coming!"
The head disappeared; the door slammed. Lawlor stretched both arms wide, shifted his belt, loosened his gun in the holster for the fiftieth time, and exhaled a long breath. Once more the door jerked open, and this time it was the head and sullen face of Nash, enlivened now by a peculiarly unpleasant smile.
"He's here!"
As the door closed the grim realization came to Lawlor that he could not face the tenderfoot—his staring eyes and his pallor would betray him even if the jerking of his hands did not. He swung about in the comfortable chair, seized a book and whisking it open bowed his head to read. All that he saw was a dance of irregular black lines: voices sounded through the hall outside.
"Sure, he'll see you," Calamity Ben was saying. "And if you want to put up for the night there ain't nobody more hospital than the Chief. Right in here, son."
The door yawned. He could not see, for his back was resolutely toward it and he was gripping the cover of the book hard to steady his hands; but he felt a breath of colder air from the outer hall; he felt above all a new presence peering in upon him, like a winter-starved lynx that might flatten its round face against the window and peer in at the lazy warmth and comfort of the humans around the hearth inside. Some such feeling sent a chill through Lawlor's blood.
"Hello!" called Calamity Ben.
"Humph!" grunted Lawlor.
"Got a visitor, Mr. Drew."
"Bring him in."