Sally, however, drove right through the settlement and back outside it before she could check the horses, and she had just pulled them up in front of the wooden hotel when Hawtrey reached it. He stood beside the waggon holding up his hand to her, and Sally, who laughed, dropped bodily into his arms, which was, as he recognised, a thing that Agatha certainly would not have done. He set her down upon the sidewalk, and when a man came out to take the team they went into the hotel together.
"It was the locomotive that did it," she explained. "They were most too scared for anything, but I hate to be beaten by a team. Ours know too much to try, but I got Haslem to drive me in. I dropped him at Norton's, who'll bring him on."
"He oughtn't to have left you with them," said Hawtrey severely.
Sally laughed. "Well," she said, "I'd quit driving if I couldn't handle any team you or Haslem could put the harness on."
In a general way, the hotels in the smaller prairie settlements offer one very little comfort or privacy. As a rule they contain two general rooms, in one of which the three daily meals are served with a punctuality which is as unvarying as the menu. The traveller who arrives a few minutes too late for one must wait until the next is ready. The second room usually contains a rusty stove, and a few uncomfortable benches; and there are not infrequently a couple of rows of very small match-boarded cubicles on the floor overhead. The Occident was, however, a notable exception. For one thing, the building was unusually large, and its proprietor had condescended to study the requirements of his guests, who came for the most part from the outlying settlements. There were two rooms above the general lounge, one of which was reserved for the wives or daughters of the farmers who drove in long distances to purchase stores or clothing. In the other, dry-goods travellers were permitted to display their wares, and, though this was very unusual in that country, any privileged customer who wished to leave by a train, the departure of which did not synchronize with the hotel arrangements, was occasionally supplied with a meal.
It was getting dusk when Hawtrey and Sally entered the first of the two rooms, where the proprietor's wife was just lighting the big lamp. She smiled at the man, who was, as it happened, a favourite of hers.
