The room was small, but it was papered, it was rugged, its floor was
painted and waxed, its window--opening into the court, by the way--was
hung with chintz and net curtains, its bed was garnished with sheets and
counterpane, its chairs were upholstered and in perfect repair and
polish. It was not Arizona, emphatically not, but rather the sweet and
garnished and lavendered respectability of a Connecticut village. My
dirty old _cantinas_ lay stacked against the washstand. At sight of them
I had to grin. Of course I travelled cowboy fashion. They contained a
toothbrush, a comb, and a change of underwear. The latter item was
sheer, rank pride of caste.
It was all most incongruous and strange. But the strangest part, of
course, was the fact that I found myself where I was at that moment. Why
was I thus received? Why was I, an ordinary and rather dirty cowpuncher,
not sent as usual to the men's bunk house? It could not be possible that
Old Man Hooper extended this sort of hospitality to every chance
wayfarer. Arizona is a democratic country, Lord knows: none more so! But
owners are not likely to invite in strange cowboys unless they
themselves mess with their own men. I gave it up, and tried
unsuccessfully to shrug it off my mind, and sought distraction in
looking about me. There was not much to see. The one door and one
window opened into the court. The other side was blank except that near
the ceiling ran a curious, long, narrow opening closed by a transom-like
sash. I had never seen anything quite like it, but concluded that it
must be a sort of loop hole for musketry in the old days. Probably they
had some kind of scaffold to stand on.
I pulled off my shirt and took a good wash: shook the dust out of my
clothes as well as I could; removed my spurs and _chaps_; knotted my
silk handkerchief necktie fashion; slicked down my wet hair, and tried
to imagine myself decently turned out for company. I took off my gun
belt also; but after some hesitation thrust the revolver inside the
waistband of my drawers. Had no reason; simply the border instinct to
stick to one's weapon.
Then I sat down to wait. The friendly little noises of my own movements
left me. I give you my word, never before nor since have I experienced
such stillness. In vain I told myself that with adobe walls two feet
thick, a windless evening, and an hour after sunset, stillness was to be
expected. That did not satisfy. Silence is made up of a thousand little
noises so accustomed that they pass over the consciousness. Somehow
these little noises seemed to lack. I sat in an aural vacuum. This
analysis has come to me since. At that time I only knew that most
uneasily I missed something, and that my ears ached from vain listening.
At the end of the half hour I returned to the parlour. Old Man Hooper
was there waiting. A hanging lamp had been lighted. Out of the shadows
cast from it a slender figure rose and came forward.
"My daughter, Mr.----" he paused.
"Sanborn," I supplied.
"My dear, Mr. Sanborn has most kindly dropped in to relieve the tedium
of our evening with his company--his distinguished company." He
pronounced the words suavely, without a trace of sarcastic emphasis, yet
somehow I felt my face flush. And all the time he was staring at me
blankly with his wide, unblinking, wildcat eyes.
The girl was very pale, with black hair and wide eyes under a fair, wide
brow. She was simply dressed in some sort of white stuff. I thought she
drooped a little. She did not look at me, nor speak to me; only bowed
slightly.
We went at once into a dining room at the end of the little dark hall.
It was lighted by a suspended lamp that threw the illumination straight
down on a table perfect in its appointments of napery, silver, and
glass. I felt very awkward and dusty in my cowboy rig; and rather too
large. The same Mexican served us, deftly. We had delightful food, well
cooked. I do not remember what it was. My attention was divided between
the old man and his daughter. He talked, urbanely, of a wide range of
topics, displaying a cosmopolitan taste, employing a choice of words and
phrases that was astonishing. The girl, who turned out to be very pretty
in a dark, pale, sad way, never raised her eyes from her plate.
It was the cool of the evening, and a light breeze from the open window
swung the curtains. From the blackness outside a single frog began to
chirp. My host's flow of words eddied, ceased. He raised his head
uneasily; then, without apology, slipped from his chair and glided from
the room. The Mexican remained, standing bolt upright in the dimness.
For the first time the girl spoke. Her voice was low and sweet, but
either I or my aroused imagination detected a strained under quality.
"Ramon," she said in Spanish, "I am chilly. Close the window."
The servant turned his back to obey. With a movement rapid as a snake's
dart the girl's hand came from beneath the table, reached across, and
thrust into mine a small, folded paper. The next instant she was back in
her place, staring down as before in apparent apathy. So amazed was I
that I recovered barely soon enough to conceal the paper before Ramon
turned back from his errand.
The next five minutes were to me hours of strained and bewildered
waiting. I addressed one or two remarks to my companion, but received
always monosyllabic answers. Twice I caught the flash of lanterns beyond
the darkened window; and a subdued, confused murmur as though several
people were walking about stealthily. Except for this the night had
again fallen deathly still. Even the cheerful frog had hushed.
At the end of a period my host returned, and without apology or
explanation resumed his seat and took up his remarks where he had left
them.
The girl disappeared somewhere between the table and the sitting room.
Old Man Hooper offered me a cigar, and sat down deliberately to
entertain me. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was also amusing
himself, as though I were being played with and covertly sneered at.
Hooper's politeness and suavity concealed, and well concealed, a bitter
irony. His manner was detached and a little precise. Every few moments
he burst into a flurry of activity with the fly whacker, darting here
and there as his eyes fell upon one of the insects; but returning always
calmly to his discourse with an air of never having moved from his
chair. He talked to me of Praxiteles, among other things. What should an
Arizona cowboy know of Praxiteles? and why should any one talk to him of
that worthy Greek save as a subtle and hidden expression of contempt?
That was my feeling. My senses and mental apperceptions were by now a
little on the raw.
That, possibly, is why I noticed the very first chirp of another frog
outside. It continued, and I found myself watching my host covertly.
Sure enough, after a few repetitions I saw subtle signs of uneasiness,
of divided attention; and soon, again without apology or explanation, he
glided from the room. And at the same instant the old Mexican servitor
came and pretended to fuss with the lamps.
My curiosity was now thoroughly aroused, but I could guess no means of
satisfying it. Like the bedroom, this parlour gave out only on the
interior court. The flash of lanterns against the ceiling above reached
me. All I could do was to wander about looking at the objects in the
cabinet and the pictures on the walls. There was, I remember, a set of
carved ivory chessmen and an engraving of the legal trial of some
English worthy of the seventeenth century. But my hearing was alert, and
I thought to hear footsteps outside. At any rate, the chirp of the frog
came to an abrupt end.
Shortly my host returned and took up his monologue. It amounted to
that. He seemed to delight in choosing unusual subjects and then backing
me into a corner with an array of well-considered phrases that allowed
me no opening for reply nor even comment. In one of my desperate
attempts to gain even a momentary initiative I asked him, apropos of the
piano, whether his daughter played.
"Do you like music?" he added, and without waiting for a reply seated
himself at the instrument.
He played to me for half an hour. I do not know much about music; but I
know he played well and that he played good things. Also that, for the
first time, he came out of himself, abandoned himself to feeling. His
close-cropped head swayed from side to side; his staring, wildcat eyes
half closed----
He slammed shut the piano and arose, more drily precise than ever.
"I imagine all that is rather beyond your apperceptions," he remarked,
"and that you are ready for your bed. Here is a short document I would
have you take to your room for perusal. Good-night."
He tendered me a small, folded paper which I thrust into the breast
pocket of my shirt along with the note handed me earlier in the evening
by the girl. Thus dismissed I was only too delighted to repair to my
bedroom.
There I first carefully drew together the curtains; then examined the
first of the papers I drew from my pocket. It proved to be the one from
the girl, and read as follows:
I am here against my will. I am not this man's daughter. For God's
sake if you can help me, do so. But be careful for he is a
dangerous man. My room is the last one on the left wing of the
court. I am constantly guarded. I do not know what you can do. The
case is hopeless. I cannot write more. I am watched.
I unfolded the paper Hooper himself had given me. It was similar in
appearance to the other, and read:
I am held a prisoner. This man Hooper is not my father but he is
vindictive and cruel and dangerous. Beware for yourself. I live in
the last room in the left wing. I am watched, so cannot write more.
The handwriting of the two documents was the same. I stared at one paper
and then at the other, and for a half hour I thought all the thoughts
appropriate to the occasion. They led me nowhere, and would not interest
you.