They reached the hotel and Westy invited him up to his room. He accepted. He seemed to want to hear all about the adventures Rip and he had had with the members of Educational Films.
Westy related to him about the hold-up and how he and Rip had kept it so quiet. In the middle of his recital he jumped up out of the chair in which he was sitting and whipped out his watch.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Martin. ’S almost dinner time and Dad’s a terrible fusser when we’re late. Come up to the house to-morrow afternoon and let’s hear the rest.” He shook hands with Westy and was gone.
The next afternoon Westy was on the job and admitted into the Mitchell home by a Mexican butler with an expressionless face.
Young Mitchell came forward to meet him and greeted him cordially, leading Westy out into a spacious plazita and introduced him to his father and mother. They actually seemed to unbend from their assumed mental stiffness as he smiled in his naive way.
Westy was the kind of a boy that made people act natural. He had that genuineness of spirit and character that forced them to drop the artificialities and smile at the realities.
Indeed, the Mitchells were so taken with Westy’s boyish charm and ruggedness that they insisted on his staying to dinner.
After the dinner hour was over and they sat out in the plazita again, Westy watched the setting sun throwing its rose-colored shadows through the trees and hollyhocks along the yonder wall.
It was a quaint, charming place, this Santa Fe, with its Spanish atmosphere and alluring traditions. It all made him think of two lonely people in a little mountain shack who had put their entire trust in a boy.
He was wondering if they, too, were thinking and watching the sunset shadows against the mountain walls while they stood amongst the charred embers that had been their home. He was startled out of his reveries by Mr. Mitchell’s voice.