A faint sound like the rattling of thin chains diverted Madeline’s attention. At first she imagined it was made by the telegraph wires. Then she heard a step. The door swung wide; a tall man entered, and with him came the clinking rattle. She realized then that the sound came from his spurs. The man was a cowboy, and his entrance recalled vividly to her that of Dustin Farnum in the first act of “The Virginian.” “Will you please direct me to a hotel?” asked Madeline, rising. The cowboy removed his sombrero, and the sweep he made with it and the accompanying bow, despite their exaggeration, had a kind of rude grace. He took two long strides toward her. “Lady, are you married?” In the past Miss Hammond’s sense of humor had often helped her to overlook critical exactions natural to her breeding. She kept silence, and she imagined it was just as well that her veil hid her face at the moment. She had been prepared to find cowboys rather striking, and she had been warned not to laugh at them. This gentleman of the range deliberately reached down and took up her left hand. Before she recovered from her start of amaze he had stripped off her glove. “Fine spark, but no wedding-ring,” he drawled. “Lady, I’m glad to see you’re not married.” He released her hand and returned the glove. “You see, the only ho-tel in this here town is against boarding married women.” “Indeed?” said Madeline, trying to adjust her wits to the situation. “It sure is,” he went on. “Bad business for ho-tels to have married women. Keeps the boys away. You see, this isn’t Reno.” Then he laughed rather boyishly, and from that, and the way he slouched on his sombrero, Madeline realized he was half drunk. As she instinctively recoiled she not only gave him a keener glance, but stepped into a position where a better light shone on his face. It was like red bronze, bold, raw, sharp. He laughed again, as if good-naturedly amused with himself, and the laugh scarcely changed the hard set of his features. Like that of all women whose beauty and charm had brought them much before the world, Miss Hammond’s intuition had been developed until she had a delicate and exquisitely sensitive perception of the nature of men and of her effect upon them. This crude cowboy, under the influence of drink, had affronted her; nevertheless, whatever was in his mind, he meant no insult. “I shall be greatly obliged if you will show me to the hotel,” she said. “Lady, you wait here,” he replied, slowly, as if his thought did not come swiftly. “I’ll go fetch the porter.”