Pulling off his boots, the moment he was alone, he took them under one arm and passed noiselessly to the door of the room. With a soft hand he turned the knob and drew the door slightly ajar.
No one in the front part of the El Rio was paying any attention to the rear of the establishment. As the old trapper waited and listened, he heard a mumble of low voices coming from the room across the corridor.
Closing the door from the outside as noiselessly as he had opened it, Nomad crossed the aisle. His stockinged feet made scarcely a sound.
Laying a quick, deft hand on the knob of the door next that through which Jacobs and his companion had passed, he pushed it ajar and stepped in. He drew a quick breath when he found the room was already occupied.
A man, far gone in liquor, was lying across a table, breathing heavily.
Nomad wanted to be in that particular room, because only a thin board partition separated him from Jacobs and the man with whom Jacobs was talking. The drunken man, Nomad decided after a second’s observation, was too much under the “influence” to prove anything of an obstacle; so the trapper made up his mind to occupy the room with him.
Closing the door as noiselessly as he had opened it, Nomad ran his eye over the board partition.
The partition was of flooring boards and painted white. The boards had warped considerably, but not enough to make any cracks.
The old man was disappointed. He wanted to “star” himself, in this queer case of McGowan’s, and felt that if he could hear something of what was being said, in the next room, the result would amply repay him for his time and trouble. Jacobs had been ordered by his employer to return to the Three-ply. He had not returned. The very fact that he had not was suspicious in itself.
Nomad had reasoned this all out; and he knew when Buffalo Bill told him and Cayuse to shadow Bernritter and Jacobs that the scout thought the actions of the two men open to question.