I was doin' of it I
couldn't help heerin' what they said, beca'se Toot wus as mad as a wet
hen, an' didn't keer a dern who heerd 'im."

"Mad--at her?" ejaculated Westerfelt.

"Yes; it seemed that he had bantered her to say what she thought about
you, an' she'd up an' told him you wus about the best-lookin' man she'd
ever seed, an' that you looked like a born gentleman, an' one thing
anuther. I couldn't heer all that passed betwixt 'em, but he wus as
nigh a' explosion as I ever seed 'im git without goin' off. You'd
better look out. He won't do to meddle with. He's a bad egg--an'
tricky."

When Bradley had gone, leaving his guest in the dark, Westerfelt found
himself unable to sleep for thinking of what Luke had said.

"I wonder, really," he mused, "why I didn't talk to her as I did to the
others, for I certainly wanted to bad enough."

Chapter VI

Westerfelt's room at the stable was at the head of a flight of steps
leading up from the office. It had only a single window, but it
commanded a partial view of several roads leading into the village, and
a sparse row of houses on the opposite side of the street. In front of
the stable stood a blacksmith shop, and next to it, on the right, the
only store in the village. The store building had two rooms, the front
being used for dry-goods, groceries, and country produce, the one in
the rear as the residence of the storekeeper. Next to the store, in a
sort of lean-to, whitewashed shed with green shutters, was a bar-room.
Farther on in this row, opposite the jail of the place, and partially
hidden by the thinning foliage of sycamore, chestnut, and mulberry
trees, was the hotel. It was the only two-storied building in the
village. It had dormer windows in the roof and a long veranda in front.

Somehow this building interested Westerfelt more than any of the
others. He told himself it was because he intended to get his meals
there. Finally he decided, as he was not to dine that day with the
Bradleys, that he ought to go over at once and speak to the landlady
about his board. As he arranged his cravat before the little
walnut-framed mirror, which the stable-boys in placing his furniture
had hung on the wall, together with a hairbrush and a comb tied to
strings, he wondered, with no little pleasurable excitement, if Harriet
Floyd had anything to do with the management of the house, and if he
would be apt to meet her that morning.

Descending to the office