ag'in"--he hesitated delicately.
"I'll drop in, or I reckon Mr. Byers might, he havin' business along the
road," returned Mrs. Byers with a cheerful nod, as the coach rolled away
and the landlord of the Big Flume Hotel reentered his house.
For the next three weeks, however, it did not appear that Mr. Langworthy
was in any hurry to act upon the advice of his former wife. His
relations to Mary Ellen Budd were characterized by his usual tolerance
to his employees' failings,--which in Mary Ellen's case included many
"breakages,"--but were not marked by the invasion of any warmer feeling,
or a desire for confidences. The only perceptible divergence from his
regular habits was a disposition to be on the veranda at the arrival of
the stage-coach, and when his duties permitted this, a cautious survey
of his female guests at the beginning of dinner. This probably led to
his more or less ignoring any peculiarities in his masculine patrons or
their claims to his personal attention. Particularly so, in the case of
a red-bearded man, in a long linen duster, both heavily freighted with
the red dust of the stage road, which seemed to have invaded his very
eyes as he watched the landlord closely. Towards the close of the
dinner, when Abner, accompanied by a negro waiter after his usual
custom, passed down each side of the long table, collecting payment for
the meal, the stranger looked up. "You air the landlord of this hotel, I
reckon?"
"I am," said Abner tolerantly.
"I'd like a word or two with ye."
But Abner had been obliged to have a formula for such occasions. "Ye'll
pay for yer dinner first," he said submissively, but firmly, "and make
yer remarks agin the food arter."
The stranger flushed quickly, and his eye took an additional shade of
red, but meeting Abner's serious gray ones, he contented himself with
ostentatiously taking out a handful of gold and silver and paying his
bill. Abner passed on, but after dinner was over he found the stranger
in the hall.
"Ye pulled me up rather short in thar," said the man gloomily, "but it's
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