Then they tramped to their horses and rode away.  The spokesman had hit the vital point unerringly; for cow-punchers are shrewdly alive to frankness, and it often draws out the best that is in them; but its opposite affects them unfavorably; and I, needing sleep, sighed to think of their late sitting up over that joke.  I walked to the board box painted “Hotel Brunswick”—­“hotel” in small italics and “Brunswick” in enormous capitals, the N and the S wrong side up.

Here sat a girl outside the door, alone.  Her face was broad, wholesome, and strong, and her eyes alert and sweet.  As I came she met me with a challenging glance of good-will.  Those women who journeyed along the line in the wake of payday to traffic with the men employed a stare well known; but this straight look seemed like the greeting of some pleasant young cowboy.  In surprise I forgot to be civil, and stepped foolishly by her to see about supper and lodging.

At the threshold I perceived all lodging bespoken.  On each of the four beds lay a coat or pistol or other article of dress, and I must lodge myself.  There were my saddle-blankets—­rather wet; or Lin McLean might ride in to-night on his way to Riverside; or perhaps down at the corrals I could find some other acquaintance whose habit of washing I trusted and whose bed I might share.  Failing these expedients, several empties stood idle upon a siding, and the box-like darkness of these freight-cars was timely.  Nights were short now.  Camping out, the dawn by three o’clock would flow like silver through the universe, and, sinking through my blankets, remorselessly pervade my buried hair and brain.  But with clean straw in the bottom of an empty, I could sleep my fill until five or six.  I decided for the empty, and opened the supper-room door, where the table was set for more than enough to include me; but the smell of the butter that awaited us drove me out of the Hotel Brunswick to spend the remaining minutes in the air.

“I was expecting you,” said the girl.  “Well, if I haven’t frightened him!” She laughed so delightfully that I recovered and laughed too.  “Why,” she explained, “I just knew you’d not stay in there.  Which side are you going to butter your bread this evening?”

“You had smelt it?” said I, still cloudy with surprise.  “Yes.  Unquestionably.  Very rancid.”  She glanced oddly at me, and, with less fellowship in her tone, said, “I was going to warn you—­” when suddenly, down at the corrals, the boys began to shoot at large.  “Oh, dear!” she cried, starting up.  “There’s trouble.”

“Not trouble,” I assured her.  “Too many are firing at once to be in earnest.  And you would be safe here.”

“Me?  A lady without escort?  Well, I should reckon so!  Leastways, we are respected where I was raised.  I was anxious for the gentlemen ovah yondah.  Shawhan, K. C. branch of the Louavull an’ Nashvull, is my home.”  The words “Louisville and Nashville” spoke creamily of Blue-grass.