Mrs. Adams turned and gestured toward the stairway. She followed him and showed him to a room. So he hadn't come in on the Overland, but had ridden up from Sonora. Why had he undertaken such a long, weary ride?

Surely he could have taken the train! She had never known him to be without money. But he had always been unaccountable, coming and going when he pleased, saying little, always serene. And now he had not said why he had ridden up from Sonora. "Why not?" was all that he had said in explanation.

He swung out of his coat and washed vigorously, thrusting his fingers through his short, curly hair and shaking his head in boyish enjoyment that was refreshing to watch. She noticed that he had not aged much. He seemed too cool, too self-possessed always, to show even the ordinary trace of years. She could not understand him; yet she was surprised by a glow of affection for him now that he had returned. As he dried his head she saw that his hair was tinged with gray, although his face was lined but little and his gray eyes were as keen and quick as ever. If he had only shared even that part of his life with her--down there!

"Jim!" she whispered.

He turned as he took up his coat. "Yes, Annie?"

"If you would only promise--"

He shook his head. "I won't do that. I didn't come to ask anything of you except to see the boy But if you need money--"

"No. Not that kind of money."

"All right, girl." And his voice was cheery. "I didn't come here to make you feel bad. And I won't be here long. Can't we be friends while I'm here? Of course the boy will know. But no one else need know. And--you better see to the folks downstairs. Some one just came in."

She turned and walked down the hall, wondering if he had ever cared for her, and wondering if her boy, Lorry, would ever come to possess that almost unhuman quality of intense alertness, that incomprehensible coolness that never allowed him to forget what he was for an instant.

When Waring came down she did not introduce him to the boarders, a fact that sheriff Buck Hardy, who dined at the hotel, noted with some interest. The men ate hastily, rose, and departed, leaving Hardy and Waring, who called for a second cup of coffee and rolled a cigarette while waiting.

Hardy had seen the stranger ride into town on the big buckskin. The horse bore a Mexican brand. The hotel register told Hardy who the stranger was. And the sheriff of Stacey County was curious to know just what the Sonora gunman was doing in town.

Waring sat with his unlighted cigarette between his fingers. The sheriff proffered a match. Their eyes met. Waring nodded his thanks and blew a smoke-ring.

"How are things down in Sonora?" queried Hardy.

"Quiet."

Mrs. Adams questioned Waring with her eyes. He nodded. "This is Mr.

Waring," she said, rising. "This is Mr. Hardy, our sheriff."

The men shook hands. "Mrs. Adams is a good cook," said Waring.

A clatter of hoofs and the sound of a cheery voice broke the silence.

A young cowboy jingled into the room. "h.e.l.lo, Buck! h.e.l.lo, mother!" And Lorry Adams strode up and kissed his mother heartily. "Got a runnin'

chance to come to town and I came--runnin'. How's everything?"

Mrs. Adams murmured a reply. Buck Hardy was watching Waring as he glanced up at the boy. The sheriff pulled a cigar from his vest and lighted it. In the street he paused in his stride, gazing at the end of his cigar. Lorry Adams looked mighty like Jim Waring, of Sonora. Hardy had heard that Waring had been killed down in the southern country. Some one had made a mistake.

Waring had risen. He stood with one hand touching the table, the tips of his fingers drumming the rhythm of a song he hummed to himself. The boy's back was toward him. Waring's gaze traveled from his son's head to his boot-heel.

Lorry noticed that his mother seemed perturbed. He turned to Waring with a questioning challenge in his gray eyes.

Mrs. Adams touched the boy's arm. "This is your father, Lorry."

Lorry glanced from one to the other.

Waring made no movement, offered no greeting, but stood politely impa.s.sive.

Mrs. Adams spoke gently: "Lorry!"

"Why, h.e.l.lo, dad!" And the boy shook hands with his father.

Waring gestured toward a chair. Lorry sat down. His eyes were warm with mild astonishment.

"Smoke?" said Waring, proffering tobacco and papers.

Lorry's gaze never left his father's face as he rolled a cigarette and lighted it. Mrs. Adams realized that Waring's att.i.tude of cool indifference appealed to the boy.

Lorry remembered his father dimly. He was curious to know just what kind of man he was. He didn't talk much; that was certain. The boy remembered that his mother had not said much about her husband, answering Lorry's childish questionings with a promise to tell him some day. He recalled a long journey on the train, their arrival at Stacey, and the taking over of the run-down hotel that his mother had refurnished and made a place of neatness and comfort. And his mother had told him that she would be known "Mrs. Adams." Lorry had been so filled with the newness of things that the changing of their name was accepted without question. Slowly his recollection of Sonora and the details of their life there came back to him. These things he had all but forgotten, as he had grown to love Arizona, its men, its horses, its wide ranges and magic hills.

Mrs. Adams remembered that her husband had once told her he could find out more about a man by watching his hands than by asking questions. She noticed that Waring was watching his son's hands with that old, deliberate coldness of att.i.tude. He was trying to find out just what sort of a man his boy had grown to be.

Lorry suddenly straightened in his chair. Mrs. Adams, antic.i.p.ating his question, nodded to Waring.

"Yes," said Waring; "I am the Waring of Sonora that you are thinking about."

Lorry flushed. "I--I guess you are," he stammered. "Mother, you never told me _that_."

"You were too young to understand, Lorry."

"And is that why you left him?"

"Yes."

"Well, maybe you were right. But dad sure looks like a pretty decent hombre to me."

They laughed in a kind of relief. The occasion had seemed rather strained.

"Ask your mother, Lorry. I am out of it." And, rising Waring strode to the doorway.

Lorry rose.

"I'll see you again," said Waring. And he stepped to the street, humming his song of "Sonora and the Silver Strings."

Mrs. Adams put her arm about her son's shoulders. "Your father is a hard man," she told him.

"Was he mean to you, mother?"

"No--never that."

"Well, I don't understand it. He looks like a real man to me. Why did he come back?"

"He said he came back to see you."

"Well, he's my father, anyway," said Lorry.