out and the train could start.

Hill said the Hen give Santa Fe a queer sort of look at that, as much
as to ask him if he was dead sure he had the cards for that lead.
Santa Fe give her a look back again, as much as to say he knew what
was and what wasn't on the table; and then he went on to the old gent,
speaking pleasant, telling him likely it might be a little bit noisy
over at the hotel--doing her best, he said, Mrs. Major Rogers couldn't
help having noise sometimes, things being so rough and tumble out
there on the frontier; but he had a private room for his study, where
he wrote his sermons, he said, and got into it by a side door--and so
he guessed things wouldn't be too bad.

That seemed to make the Hen easy, Hill said; and away the three of 'em
went together to the Forest Queen. Hill knowed it was straight enough
about the private room and the side door--Santa Fe had it to do
business in for himself, on the quiet, when he didn't have to deal;
and Hill'd known of a good many folks who'd gone in that private room
by that side door and hadn't come out again till Santa Fe'd scooped
their pile. But it wasn't no business of his, he said; and he said he
was glad to get shut of 'em so he might have a chance to let out the
laughing that fairly was hurting his insides.

As they was going away from the deepo, Hill said, he heard Santa Fe
telling the old gent he was sorry it was getting so dark--as he'd like
to take him round so he could see the parsonage, and the new church
they'd just finished building and was going to put an organ in as soon
as they'd raised more funds; but it wasn't worth while going out of
their way, he said, because they wouldn't show to no sort of advantage
with the light so bad. As the only church in Palomitas was the Mexican
mud one about two hundred years old, and as the nearest thing to a
parsonage was the Padre's house that Denver Jones had rented and had
his faro-bank in, Hill said he guessed Charley acted sensible in not
trying to show the old gent around that part of the town.

* * * * *

Hill said after he'd got his supper he thought he'd come down to the
deepo and sort of wait around there; on the chance he'd ketch on--when
the old gent come over to the train--to what Santa Fe and the Hen'd
been putting up on him. Sure enough, he did.

Along about ten o'clock a starting-order come down--the track-gang by
that time having the wash-out so near