Part 46

"Would you like to register, Mr. Grayson?" asked Harley, wishing to relieve the tension.

The candidate laughed mirthlessly.

"Not to-night, Harley," he said; "but, gloomy as the place is, we ought to be thankful that we have found it. See how the storm is rising."

He glanced at Sylvia, and deep gratitude swelled up in his breast. Grewsome as it might look, Queen City was now, indeed, a place of refuge. But he had no word of reproach for her, because she had insisted upon coming. He knew that a snow-storm had not entered into her calculations, as it had not entered into his, and, moreover, no one in the party had shown more courage or better spirits.

The snow drove in at the unsheltered windows, and a long whine arose as the wind whirled around the old house. The guide came in with cheerful bustle and stamp of feet.

"Don't linger here, gentlemen and ladies," he said. "The house is yours. Come into the parlor. We've had a piece of luck. Now and then a lone tramp or a miner seeks shelter in this town, just as we have done; they come mostly to the hotel, and some feller who gathered up wood failed to burn it all. I'll have a fire in the parlor in five minutes, and then we can ring for hot drinks for the men, a lemonade for the lady, and a warm dinner for all. I'll take straight whiskey, an' after that I ain't partic'ler whether I get patty-de-foy-graw or hummin'-bird tongues."

His good-humor was infectious, and they were thankful, too, for the shelter, desolate though the place was. All the wood had been stripped away except the floors, and the brick walls were bare. In the great parlor they had nothing to sit on save their saddles, but it was a noble apartment, many feet square, built for a time when there was life in Queen City.

"I've heard the Governor of Montana speak to more than two hundred people in this very room," said Jim, reminiscently. "He was to have spoke in the public square, but snow come up, an' Bill Fosdick, who run the hotel, and run her wide open, invited 'em all right in here, an' they come."

Harley could well believe it, knowing, as he did, the miners and the mountains, and, by report, early Montana.

At one end of the room was an immense grate, and in this Jim heaped the wood so generously left by the unknown tramp or miner, igniting it with a ready match. The ruddy blaze leaped upward and threw generous shadows on the floor. The travellers, sitting close to it, felt the grateful warmth and were content.

All the saddle blankets also had been brought in and piled on one of the saddles. On these Sylvia sat and spread out her hands to the ruddy blaze. To Harley, with the flame of the firelight on her face and the glow of the coals throwing patches of red and gold on her hair, she seemed some brilliant spirit come to light up the gloomy place. Here all was warmth and brightness; outside, the storm moaned through the mountains and the darkness.

"Do you know, I enjoy this," she said, as she looked into the crackling fire.

"So Queen City ain't so bad, ma'am?" said the guide, with dry satisfaction.

"Not bad at all, but very good," she replied, gayly. "Don't you think so, Mr. Harley?"

"I certainly agree with you," replied Harley, devoutly, "but I'm glad that Queen City is just where it is."

She laughed.

"Daddy has been many a time in the mountains without his Queen City--haven't you, daddy?"

"Often," said "King" Plummer, looking at her with a pleased smile. But he wished that she would not call him "daddy," at least before Harley; it seemed that she could never remember his request; but she had warned him.

"An old hand travellin' in the mountains always purvides for a snowy day," said the guide, and he took from his saddle-bags much food and a large bottle.

They drank a little, all except Sylvia, and ate heartily. The last touch of cold departed, and the fire still sparkled with good cheer, casting its comforting shadows across the stained floor.

"I've brought in the horse-blankets," said the guide, "an' with them under us, our overcoats over us, an' the fire afore us, we ought to sleep here as snug an' warm as a beaver in its house."

Sylvia was accustomed to camping in the mountains, and made no fuss, but quietly leaned back against the saddle and the wall, and drew her heavy cloak around her. She was soon half asleep, and the flames, moving off into the distance, seemed to be dancing about in a queer, light-minded fashion.

Harley walked to the window and looked out. The night was black, save for the driving snow, and when he glanced back at the room it seemed a very haven of delight. But the strangeness of their situation, the weird effect of the dead city, with the ghost-like shapes of its houses showing through the snow, was upon his nerves, and he did not feel sleepy.

Muttering some excuse to the others, he went into the hall. It was dark, and a gust of cold air from the open window at the end struck him in the face. At the same moment Harley saw what he took to be a light farther down the hall, but when he looked again it was gone.

It might be a delusion, but the matter troubled him; if a lone tramp or miner were in the building, he wished to know. Any stranger would have a right in the hotel, but there was comradeship and welcome in Jimmy Grayson's party.

Harley's instinct said that all was not right, and, taking off his boots, he crept down the hall and among the cross-halls with noiseless feet. He did not see the light again, but he heard in another room the hum of voices, softened so that they might not reach any one save those for whom they were intended. But they reached Harley, crouching just behind the edge of the door, and, hearing, he shuddered. A great danger threatened the nominee for the Presidency of the United States. Such a thing as the present had never before happened in the history of the country.

And that same danger, but in a worse form, perhaps, threatened Sylvia. It was not Harley's fault that a girl had then a greater place than a Presidential nominee in his mind. He shuddered, and then closed his lips firmly in resolve.

The door was still on its hinges, and it was still slightly ajar. Harley, peeping through the crack, saw the eight occupants of the room by the faint light from the window, and because the man who did the talking, and who showed himself so evidently the leader, had red hair, he knew him instinctively. It was Red Perkins and the remnant of his gang, not scattered to the winds of the West, as Jim and everybody else thought, but here in Montana, in their old haunts. And Harley, listening to their talk, measured the extent of their knowledge, which was far too much; they knew who Jimmy Grayson was, they had known of his departure from Blue Earth, and they had followed him here; presently they would take him away, and the whole world would be thrilled. No such prize had ever fallen into the hands of robbers in America, and it would be worth a million to them.