NEW ARRIVALS IN HOLBROOK.
The town of Holbrook had been greatly stirred. It had not yet settled
into its accustomed grooves. The proprietor of the best hotel in town
had received a consignment of fine furniture, carpets, draperies,
wallpaper and pictures, and he had set about renovating and decorating
several of the largest rooms in his house, having for that purpose a
number of workmen imported from some Eastern point. It was said that the
rooms had been rearranged to connect with each other in a suite, and
that when they were completed, and furnished, and decorated they were
dazzlingly magnificent, nothing like them ever before having been seen
in the place. The good citizens of Holbrook wondered and were amazed at
all this; but they did not know that not one dollar had been expended by
the proprietor of the hotel. All this work had been done without expense
of his to accommodate some guests who came in due time and took
possession of those rooms.
The California Special had dropped four persons in Holbrook, who
regretfully left the comfort of a palace car and looked about them with
some show of dismay on the cluttered streets and crude buildings of the
Southwestern town. Holbrook was even better in general appearance than
many Western towns, but, contrasted with clean, orderly, handsome
Eastern villages, it was offensive to the eyes of the proud lady who was
aided from the steps of the car and descended to the station platform
with the air of a queen. She turned up her aristocratic nose a little on
glancing around.
This woman was dressed in the height of fashion, although somewhat too
heavily for the country she now found herself in; but there was about
her an air of display that betokened a lack of correct taste, which is
ever pronounced in those who seek to attract attention and produce
astonishment and awe. She had gray hair and a cold, unattractive face.
Still there was about her face something that plainly denoted she had
been in her girlhood very attractive.
She was followed by a girl who was so pretty and so modest in appearance
that the rough men who beheld her gasped with astonishment. Never in the
history of the town had such a pretty girl placed her foot within its
limits. She had a graceful figure, fine complexion, Cupid-bow mouth,
flushed cheeks, large brown eyes and hair in which there was a hint of
red-gold, in spite of its darkness.
A colored maid followed them.
From another car descended a thin, wiry, nervous man, who had a great
blue beak of a nose, and who hastened to join the trio, speaking to
them.
The hotel proprietor had at the station the finest carriage he could
find, and this whisked them away to the hotel as soon as they had
entered it, leaving the loungers about the station wondering, while the
train went diminishing into the distance, flinging its trail of black
smoke against the blue of the Arizona sky.
At the hotel the lady and her daughter occupied two of the finest rooms,
the colored maid another, less expensively furnished, and the man with
the blue nose was given the fourth.
Holbrook wondered what it meant.
The lady ordered a meal to be served in her rooms.
The report went forth at once, and again Holbrook stood agog.
The hotel register was watched. Finally the man with the restless eyes
and blue beak entered the office and wrote nervously in the register.
Barely was he gone when a dozen persons were packed about the desk,
seeking to look over one another's shoulders to see what had been
written.
"Whatever is it, Hank?" asked one. "You sure kin read writin'. Whatever
do you make o' it?"
"'Mrs. D. Roscoe Arlington,' the fust name," said the one called Hank.
"Then comes 'Miss Arlington,' arter which is 'Mr. Eliot Dodge,' an'
lastly I sees 'Hannah Jackson.'"
"Which last must be the nigger woman," said one of the rough men.
"I allows so," nodded Hank. "An' it 'pears to me that name o' Arlington
is some familiar. I somehow thinks I has heard it."
"Why, to be course you has!" said another of the men. "D. Roscoe
Arlington, did you say? Who hasn't heerd that name? He's one o' them big
guns what has so much money he can't count it to save his gizzard.
Ev-rybody has heerd o' D. Roscoe Arlington. If he keeps on gittin' rich
the way he has the past three years or so, old Morgan won't be in the
game. Why, this Arlington may now be the richest man in this country, if
ev'rything were rightly known about him. He owns railroads, an' mines,
an' ships, an' manufacturin' plants, an' nobody knows what all."
"That sartin explains a whole lot the fixin' up that has been a-doin'
around this ranch," said a little man with a thirsty-looking mouth.
"They was a-preparin' fer the wife o' this mighty rich gent."
"But say!" exclaimed a young fellow with a wicked face, "ain't she got a
slick-lookin' gal with her, what?"
Some of them laughed and slapped him on the back.
"Go on, Pete!" cried one chap. "You're a gay one with greaser gals, but
you won't be able to make a wide trail with that yar young lady, so
don't be lookin' that way."
"Wonder whatever could 'a' brought such people here," speculated a man
with tobacco juice on his chin. "They must mean to stay a while, else
they'd never had them rooms fixed up the way they are."
A ruffianly-looking man with a full beard broke into a low laugh.
"Why, ain't none o' you heard about the fight what's bein' made to git
holt o' a certain mine not so very fur from yere?" he asked. "I mean
the mine owned by a young chap what calls himself Frank Merriwell. You
oughter know somethin' about that."
"Why, 'pears to me," observed the fellow with tobacco juice on his
chin--"'pears to me I did hear that thar was trouble over a mine
somewhar down in the Mogollons, an' that Cimarron Bill had been sent to
take it."
"He was sent," said the full-bearded man.
"Then I 'lows he took it, fer Bill's sure to do any job he tackles."
"He ain't took it none. Frank Merriwell is still a-holdin' the mine, an'
Bill has had his troubles, leavin' a good part o' his backers stiff
arter the ruction."
"Say you so? Waal, this Merriwell sure must be a hot fighter. But Bill
will down him in the end, an' you kin bet your last simoleon on that."
To which the man with the full beard said nothing.
"All this don't explain any to me jest why this lady an' her party is
hyer," said the one with the thirsty mouth.
"It ain't noways likely she's lookin' arter Cimarron Bill none," said
another.
"Whoever is a-takin' my name in vain?" demanded a voice that made them
all start and turn toward the door.
"It's Cimarron Bill hisself!" gasped one, in a whisper.
And the entire crowd seemed awe-stricken and afraid.