h sifted unrebuked a mixture of
sounds not thoroughly agreeable.

The Colonel had seated himself upon a bed; the bulge underneath his skirts
jutted more pronouncedly, and had the outlines of a revolver butt.

"But surely I can get a room to myself," I stammered. "The clerk mistakes
me. This won't do at all."

"You are having the best in the house, suh," asserted the Colonel, with
expansive wave of his thick hand. He spat accurately into the convenient
spittoon. "It is a front room, suh. Number Six is known as very choice,
and I congratulate you, suh. I myself will see to it that you shall have
your bed to yourself, if you entertain objections to doubling up. We are,
suh, a trifle crowded in Benton City, just at present, owing to the
unprecedented influx of new citizens. You must remember, suh, that we are
less than one month old, and we are accommodating from three to five
thousand people."

"Is this the best hotel?" I demanded.

"It is so reckoned, suh. There are other hostelries, and I do not desire,
suh, to draw invidious comparisons, their proprietors being friends of
mine. But I will go so far as to say that the Queen caters only to the
elite, suh, and its patronage is gilt edge."

I stepped to the window, the lower sash of which was up, and gazed
out--down into that dust-fogged, noisy, turbulent main street, of floury
human beings and grime-smeared beasts almost within touch, boiling about
through the narrow lane between the placarded makeshift structures. I
lifted my smarting eyes, and across the hot sheet-iron roofs I saw the
country south--a white-blotched reddish desert stretching on, desolate,
lifeless under the sunset, to a range of stark hills black against the
glow.

"There are no private rooms, then?" I asked, choking with a gulp of
despair.

"You are perfectly private right here, suh," assured the Colonel. "You may
strip to the hide or you may sleep with your boots on, and no questions
asked. Gener'ly speaking, gentlemen prefer to retain a layer of artificial
covering--but you ain't troubled much with the bugs, are you, Bill?"

He leveled this query at the frowsy, whiskered man, who had awakened and
was blinking contentedly.

"I'm too alkalied, I reckon," Bill responded. "Varmints will leave me any
time when there's fresh bait handy. That's why I likes to double up. That
there Saint Louee drummer carried off most of 'em from this gent's bed, so
he's safe."

"You are again to be congratulate