“I must speak with you three men!  Listen!  I know this place.  The rooms are unspeakable—­not a bedroom that isn’t a megaphone, magnifying every whisper!  There is only one suitable place—­the main dining-room.  The proprietor leaves the oil-lamp burning in there all night.  People go to bed early; they prefer to drink in their bedrooms because it costs less than treating a crowd!  I shall provide a light supper, and my maid shall lay the table after everybody else is gone up-stairs.  Then come down and talk with me.  Its important!  Be sure and come!”

She did not wait for an answer but led the way into the hotel.  There was no hall.  The door led straight into the dining-room, and the noisy crowd within, dragging chairs and choosing places at the two long tables, made further word with her impossible, even if she had not hurried up-stairs to her room.  “What do you make of it—­of her?  Isn’t she the limit?”

The words were scarcely out of Will’s mouth when a roar that made the dishes rattle broke and echoed and rumbled in the street outside.  The instant it died down another followed it—­then three or four—­then a dozen all at once.  There came the pattering of heavy feet, like the sound of cattle coming homeward.  Yet no cattle—­no buffaloes ever roared that way.

“Now you know why I ordered you all inside,” grinned the ex-missionary owner of the place.  I divined on the instant that this was his habit, to stand by the door before supper and say just those words to the last arrivals.  I had a vision of him standing by his mission door aforetime, repeating one jest, or more likely one stale euphuism night after night.

“Lions?” I asked, hating to take the bait, yet curious beyond power to resist.

“Certainly they’re lions!  Did you think you were dreaming?  Are you glad you came in when I called you?  Would you rather go out again now?  Make a noise like a herd of cattle, don’t they!  That’s because they’re bold.  They don’t care who hears them!  The day is ours.  It used to be theirs, but the white man has come and broken up their empire.  The night is still theirs.  They’re reveling in it!  They’re boasting of it!  Every single night they come swaggering through like this just after sunset.  They’ll come again just before dawn, roaring the same way.  You’ll hear them.  They’ll wake you all right.  No trouble in this hotel about getting guests down-stairs for early breakfast!”

“I’ll get my rifle and settle the hash of one or two of them before I eat supper!” announced Will, turning away to make good his words.  But the proprietor seized him by the arm.