He would go and see Debbleby--drop in upon the old horse-breeder without
warning, and thus get his first revivified impression of the homeland
unmixed with any of the disappointing changes which were doubtless
awaiting him at the real journey's end.
Now it chanced that the livery-stable was an adjunct to the single hotel
in the small sawmill town, and as Blount was mounting to ride he saw the
thin-faced man, whom the ranchman, Griggs, had named for him, standing
on the porch of the hotel in earnest talk with three others who, from
their appearance, might have figured either as "timber jacks" or
cowboys. Blount was on the point of recognizing his companion of the
Pullman smoking-compartment as he rode past the hotel to take the trail
to the northward, but a curious conviction that the gentleman with the
bird-of-prey eyes was making him the subject of the earnest talk with
the three men of doubtful occupation restrained him. A moment later,
when he looked back from the crossing of the railroad track, he saw that
all four of the men on the porch were watching him. This he saw; and if
the backward glance had been prolonged for a single instant he might
also have seen a big, barrel-bodied man with a red face stumbling out of
the side door of the shack hotel to make vigorous and commanding signals
to stop him.
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