The long train ride and the excitement were over and the outfit,
homeward bound, loped along the trail, noisily discussing their exciting
and humorous experiences and laughingly commented upon Hopalong's
decision to follow them later. They could not understand why he should
be interested in a town like Sandy Creek after a week spent in the city.
Back in the little cow-town their friend was standing in the office of
the hotel, gazing abstractedly out of the window. His eyes caught and
focused on a woman who was walking slowly along the other side of the
square and finally paused before McCall's "Palace," a combination
saloon, dance and gambling hall. He smiled cynically as his memory ran
back over those other women he had seen in cow-towns and wondered how it
was that the men of the ranges could rise to a chivalry that was famed.
At that distance she was strikingly pretty. Her complexion was an
alluring blend of color that the gold of her hair crowned like a burst
of sunshine. He noticed that her eyebrows were too prominent, too black
and heavy to be Nature's contribution. And there was about her a certain
forwardness, a dash that bespoke no bashful Miss; and her clothes,
though well-fitting, somehow did not please his untrained eye. A sudden
impulse seized him and he strode to the door and crossed the dusty
square, avoiding the piles of rusted cans, broken bottles and other
rubbish that littered it.
She had become interested in a dingy window but turned to greet him with
a resplendent smile as he stepped to the wooden walk. He noted with
displeasure that the white teeth displayed two shining panels of gold
that drew his eyes irresistibly; and then and there he hated gold teeth.
"Hello," she laughed. "I 'm glad to see somebody that's alive in this
town. Ain't it awful?"
He instinctively removed his sombrero and was conscious that his
habitual bashfulness in the presence of members of her sex was somehow
lacking. "Why, I don't see nothin' extra dead about it," he replied.
"Most of these towns are this way in daylight. Th' moths ain't out yet.
You should 'a' been here last night!"
"Yes? But you 're out; an' you look like you might be able to fly," she
replied.
"Yes; I suppose so," he laughed.
"I see you wear _two_ of 'em," she said, glancing at his guns. "Ain't
one of them things enough?"
"One usually is, mostly," he assented. "But I 'm pig-headed, so I wears
two."
"Ain't it awrful hard to use two of 'em at once?" she asked, her tone
flattering. "Then you 're one of them two-gun men I 've heard about,
ain't you?"
"An' seen?" he smiled.
"Yes, I 've seen a couple. Where you goin' so early?"
"Just lookin' th' town over," he answered, glancing over her shoulder at
a cub of a cowpuncher who had opened the door of the "Retreat," but
stopped in his tracks when he saw the couple in front of McCall's.
There was a look of surprised interest on the cub's face, and it swiftly
changed to one of envious interest. Hopalong's glance did not linger,
but swept carelessly along the row of shacks and back to his companion's
face without betraying his discovery.
"Well; you can look it over in about ten seconds, from th' outside," she
rejoined. "An' it's so dusty out here. My throat is awful dry
already."