he seemed to know Mr. Keatcham and was with him in his drawing-room most of the time. Had the great man a secretary with him? Yes, he seemed to have, a little fellow who had not much to say for himself, and jumped[59] whenever his boss spoke to him. There was also a valet, an Englishman, who did not respond properly to conversational overtures. They were all going to get off at Denver.

[59]

Haley was not misinformed, as the colonel perceived with his own eyes—and he saw Cary Mercer bow in parting to the great man, who requited the low salute with a gruff nod. Here was an opportunity for a nearer glimpse of Mercer, possibly for that explanation in which Winter still had a lurking hope. He caught Mercer just in the car doorway, and politely greeted him: “Mr. Mercer, I think? You may not remember me, Colonel Winter. I met you in Cambridge, three years ago—”

It seemed a brutal thing to do, to recall a meeting under such circumstances; but if Mercer could give the explanation he would excuse him; it was better than suspecting an innocent man. But there was no opportunity for explanation. Mercer turned a blank and coldly suspicious face toward him. “I beg pahdon,” he said in his Southern way, “I think you have made a mistake in the person.”

“And are you not Mr. Cary Mercer?” The colonel felt the disagreeable resemblance of his[60] own speeches to those made in newspaper stories by the gentleman who wishes his old friend to change a fifty-dollar bill or to engage in an amusing game with a thimble. Mercer saw it as well as he. “Try some one from the country,” he remarked with an unpleasant smile, brushing past, while the color mounted to the colonel’s tanned cheek. “The next time you meet me,” Rupert Winter vowed, “you’ll know me.”

[60]

A new porter had come on at Denver; a light brown, chubby, bald man with a face that radiated friendliness. He was filled with the desire for conversation, and he had worked on the road for eight years, hence could supplement Over the Range and the other guide-books with personal gossip. He showed marked deference to the colonel, which that unassuming and direct man could not quite fathom, until Archie enlightened him. Archie smiled, a queer, chewed-up smile which the colonel hailed with:

“Why are you making fun of me, young man?”

“It’s Lewis, the porter; he follows you round and listens to you in such an awestruck way.”

“But why?”

 Prev. P 31/186 next