"There goes a good friend," she said slowly, under her breath, "and a
bad enemy." Then she turned away, aroused to her own insistent mission
of warning, and entered the silent hotel.
The night clerk, a mere boy with pallid cheeks and heavy eyes
bespeaking dissipation, reclined on a couch behind the rough counter,
reading a Denver paper. He was alone in the room, excepting a drunken
man noisily slumbering in an arm-chair behind the stove. Miss Norvell,
clasping her skirts tightly, picked her way forward across the littered
floor, the necessity for immediate action rendering her supremely
callous to all ordinary questions of propriety.
"Can you inform me if Mr. Winston is in his room?" she questioned,
leaning across the counter until she could see the clerk's surprised
face.
The young fellow smiled knowingly, rising instantly to his feet.
"Not here at all," he returned pleasantly. "He left just before noon
on horseback. Heard him say something 'bout an engineering job he had
up Echo Canyon. Reckon that 's where he 's gone. Anything important,
Miss Norvell?"