“That’s fine.”
They were halfway back to the hotel, when Baggs said:
“Do you know, I wasn’t looking for your type. Not a bit. But I like you better. You look innocent. I don’t mean any disrespect to either party, but you’re not the kind of a girl that I’d expect Jack Pollock to take up with. That’s a fact. I’ll introduce you to Harry Cole as soon as convenient. Just for your own sake, I’d advise you to keep away from the cowboys around here. They’re a wild lot.”
Nan’s face was rather red, but it might have been from the heat. She disliked Baggs, and she couldn’t see why he should promise to introduce her to Harry Cole. But she realised that, as Madge Allan, she must understand what it was all about, and she wondered how it would turn out.
Baggs registered for her, and went away while the bearded proprietor showed her to a room in the front of the two-story half-adobe hotel, which, by comparison, made her last room in San Francisco look like a palace.
“This ain’t no bridal sweet,” he told her, “but it gives yuh a view of the street. Ain’t no ice water, ’cause there ain’t no ice, but we filter it pretty good. You goin’ to be here long?”
“Not very.”
“Uh-huh. Well, nobody stays long at a hotel. You ain’t a drummer, are yuh?”
“Drummer?”
“Yeah—sellin’ things.”