Beth Norvell

"There goes a good friend," she said slowly, under her breath, "and a

bad enemy." Then she turned away, aroused to her own insistent mission

of warning, and entered the silent hotel.

The night clerk, a mere boy with pallid cheeks and heavy eyes

bespeaking dissipation, reclined on a couch behind the rough counter,

reading a Denver paper. He was alone in the room, excepting a drunken

man noisily slumbering in an arm-chair behind the stove. Miss Norvell,

clasping her skirts tightly, picked her way forward across the littered

floor, the necessity for immediate action rendering her supremely

callous to all ordinary questions of propriety.

"Can you inform me if Mr. Winston is in his room?" she questioned,

leaning across the counter until she could see the clerk's surprised

face.

The young fellow smiled knowingly, rising instantly to his feet.

"Not here at all," he returned pleasantly. "He left just before noon

on horseback. Heard him say something 'bout an engineering job he had

up Echo Canyon. Reckon that 's where he 's gone. Anything important,

Miss Norvell?"