"How d' do, Miss Mary?" he cried, flushing to the roots of his smoothly matted hair, which lay over his eyebrows like the bang of a mountain school-girl. "Mrs. Quinby is out the back way, buying a load of frying-chickens from a farmer. She will be in in a minute. Will you wait here, or will you go up to the parlor?"
Mary decided to go to the parlor, dreading the entrance of some acquaintance and not being in the mood for greetings or conversation. Sam accompanied her, gallantly opening the parlor door and going in to raise the blinds of the shaded windows.
"Oh, by the way, Miss Mary," he said, as he was about to leave, "how did you come out with that circus man I told you about that wanted to do farm work?"
"Very well," the girl replied.
"And he is satisfactory?"
"Yes, quite," Mary answered.
"I was wondering how he would suit," Lee pursued, thoughtfully, "for he seemed a sort of a misfit to me. You see, I meet all sorts of characters from everywhere, almost, and I'd never have put him down as a good farm-hand."
"He does very well," Mary said, evasively. "We are entirely satisfied."
"Well, he is odd in many ways," Lee continued, observantly. "He never comes in town in the daytime, but always at night, and late at that. He was here last night about midnight. There was a queer chap here that refused to register. I say refused, but I can't say he did that, either, for he simply paid for a whole day in advance at the transient rate and was assigned a room. We always require a guest to register, but he was so busy asking questions about the people and the town that I overlooked it. Well, if that looks odd, it seems a little more so that your man should come in last night, wake me up after twelve, and want to see the fellow. The funny part of it was that when I asked him who he wanted to see he didn't know, or pretended that he didn't, anyway. He set in to describe him—said he had on a dark-gray sack-suit and wore a green necktie, and the like. It was No. 37 that he was after, all right, and I showed him up to the room. They must have had an appointment, for Thirty-seven was up, reading a paper, when I knocked. Then I remembered that he had questioned me about the circus and the men that dropped out here. I remembered then that I told him about getting Brown a job on your farm. It was all odd, but I run across so many strange things here in this joint that I have quit keeping track of 'em. However—now I hope you will take this as coming from a friend, Miss Mary?—I believe, if I was you, and in as much trouble as you are already, why, I'd be on my guard with that fellow Brown. I heard the sheriff talking one day to his brother about the outlaws that was with that circus, and I must say, while I am not a detective of the first water, I think for a common hired hand your Mr. Brown is a mystery. I noticed that the two did not shake hands, and that looked as though they had met that day before. They just waited till I left, and then the man in the gray suit closed the door. They must have stayed there an hour or more, and then—now comes the strange part—they come down, passed through the office, and went out on the square. They may have been gone an hour when the fellow came back alone and slipped up to his room."
"A dark-gray suit!" Mary said to herself, recalling Mrs. Keith's description of the mysterious visitor at her house, "and a friend of Mr. Brown!" Her heart was beating rapidly now. She was afraid that the clerk would note the excitement which was fast mastering her, and she abruptly changed the subject. Going to the window, she looked out, and then said: