“I didn’t say,” replied Young Dan, with a disarming smile. “Thank you very much for the information; and now if you’ll tell me where I can find Mr. Wallace I’ll step along and stop troubling you.”
The hotel-keeper reached for his coat, which hung on a hook behind him.
“No trouble at all,” he said. “Glad to oblige. I’ll step along an’ show you his very door. I always aim to help strangers all I know how.”
“Ye hadn’t ought to leave yer seegar-stand in the rush hour, Dave,” said one of the patrons, getting quickly out of his chair. “I’ll take the young man to Archie Wallace. It’s fair on my way home.”
The hotel-keeper paid no attention to this offer but donned coat and cap and issued from behind the counter and dusty cigar-stand.
“Follow me, stranger,” he invited, leading the way out. “Me and the depity-sheriff are old friends. I’ll make you known to him.”
So Young Dan followed the hotel-keeper, and three of the four patrons followed close upon the heels of Young Dan. The deputy-sheriff’s house was not more than fifty yards from the hotel; and the young trapper smiled politely and said nothing all the way to it. The hotel-keeper rang the bell and took up a position on the top step in front of Young Dan.
The door was opened by a tall, lean man who looked like a woodsman and wore a Cardigan jacket and grey homespun trousers tucked into high-legged larrigans of oil-tanned leather.
“Here’s a young feller lookin’ for you on important business, Archie,” said the hotel-keeper. “It is so all-fired important that I brought him right along to you myself, so there wouldn’t be no possible mistake.”
The deputy-sheriff looked at Young Dan Evans with calm inquiry.