It was not until dinner was called that any one displayed the least interest in the register, and then the proprietor, a tall, cowboy-like man, with drooping mustaches and a weather-browned face, came in with his trousers tucked into his top boots. "Hello, Joe! Hello, Billy!" he said, nodding to the two traveling men. "How's business?" "Rotten!" returned the grocery drummer. "Fine!" asserted the dry-goods salesman. "Our house hasn't done so much business in five years." _Sotto voce_, he turned to the young drummer. "Never give it away that business is on the bum," he said out of his years of experience. The tall proprietor examined the impressively groomed Wallingford and his impressive luggage with some curiosity, and went behind the little counter to inspect the register. "I'd like two rooms and a bath," said Wallingford, as the other looked up thoughtfully. "Two! Two?" repeated Jim Ranger, looking about the room. "Some ladies with you? Mother or sister, maybe?" "No," answered Wallingford, smiling. "A bedroom and sitting-room and a bath for myself." "Sitting-room?" repeated the proprietor. "You know, you can sit in this office till the 'leven-ten's in every night, and then the parlor's--" He hesitated, and, seeing the unresponsive look upon his guest's face, he added hastily: "Oh, well, I reckon I can fix it. We can move a bed out of number five, and I'll have the bath-tub and the water sent up as soon as you need it. This is wash-day, you know, and they've got the rinse water in it. I reckon you won't want it before to-night, though." "No," said J. Rufus quietly, and sighed. Immediately after lunch, J. Rufus, inquiring again for the proprietor, was told by Molly that he was in the barn, indicating its direction with a vague wave of her thumb. Wallingford went out to the enormous red barn, its timbers as firm as those of the hotel were flimsy, its lines as rigidly perpendicular as those of the hotel were out of plumb, its doors and windows as square-angled as those of the hotel were askew. Across its wide front doors, opening upon the same wide, cracked old stone sidewalk as the hotel, was a big sign kept fresh and bright: "J. H. Ranger, Livery and Sales Stable." Here Wallingford found the proprietor and the brawny boy in the middle of the wide barn floor, in earnest consultation over the bruised hock of a fine, big, draft horse. "I'd like to get a good team and a driver for this afternoon," observed Wallingford.