“Take off that horrid hat, Ford!” she cried when the parson joined them. “I beg of you, take it off at once.”
“Don’t do it, Willie,” interposed Hurley. “Let it be. No crown of glory you may earn will ever so become you. Continue to wear it, Reverend, and not a soul in Canyon Pass will ever laugh at you, if they do at the hat. It will remind ’em that you’re an honest-to-goodness he-man.”
Hunt smiled deprecatingly. “You make too much of it, Joe. Don’t worry, Betty, about the hat. I might as well keep the joke up a little while.”
“‘Joke!’” she groaned.
Hurley slapped Hunt resoundingly on the shoulder. “You’re all right, Willie!”
This turned Betty against him all the more. It was so uncouth she thought on Hurley’s part and so undignified on her brother’s. With all these people looking on, grinning and gaping, was that the way to gain respect for a clergyman and for his work?
“Well, let’s go into the Wild Rose and get you settled,” Hurley said with that cordiality that did much, after all, to disarm Betty’s criticism. “I told ‘Cholo’ Sam and Maria to clean up some rooms for you and try and make things halfway decent. But I don’t know. This isn’t like the hotel at Crescent City.”
The statement was not conducive to Betty’s peace of mind. The sordidness and squalor of Canyon Pass was being from moment to moment etched more deeply on her brain. They mounted the steps of unplaned boards and crossed the porch that shook even under Betty’s light tread. Unpainted walls, uncarpeted stairs, and not altogether clean floors met her gaze as they entered the hostelry.
If Hunt was appalled by the rudeness of their surroundings he very successfully hid his real feelings. He had spent vacations in the hunting and fishing camps of Maine and Quebec. The lack of even the ordinary conveniences of civilized life could not in any case trouble him as it did his gently nurtured sister.
He did, however, on this first evening arrange to have their supper served in Betty’s room, rather than forcing her to eat in the general dining-room of the hotel. But he explained that they could not thus segregate themselves in the future.