Keith sat silent, fully convinced now that the doctor was telling the truth, yet more puzzled than ever over the peculiar situation in which he found himself involved.
“What brought the General up here?” he questioned, finally.
“I haven't much idea,” was the reply. “I don't think I asked him directly. I wasn't much interested. There was a hint dropped, however, now you speak about it. He's keen after those papers, and doesn't feel satisfied regarding the report of the posse. It's my opinion he's trailing after Black Bart.”
The dining-room was thinning out, and they were about the only ones left at the tables. Keith stretched himself, looking around.
“Well, Doctor, I am very glad to have met you again, and to learn Waite is actually alive. This is a rather queer affair, but will have to work itself out. Anyway, I am too dead tired to-night to hunt after clues in midst of this babel. I've been in the saddle most of the time for a week, and have got to find a bed.”
“I reckon you won't discover such a thing here,” dryly. “Got seven in a room upstairs, and others corded along the hall. Better share my cell--only thing to do.”
“That would be asking too much--I can turn in at the corral with Neb; I've slept in worse places.”
“Couldn't think of it, Keith,” and the doctor got up. “Besides, you sleep at night, don't you?”
“Then you won't bother me any--no doctor sleeps at night in Sheridan; that's our harvest time. Come on, and I'll show you the way. When morning comes I'll rout you out and take my turn.”
Keith had enjoyed considerable experience in frontier hotels, but nothing before had ever quite equalled this, the pride of Sheridan. The product of a mushroom town, which merely existed by grace of the temporary railway terminus, it had been hastily and flimsily constructed, so it could be transported elsewhere at a moment's notice. Every creak of a bed echoed from wall to wall. The thin partitions often failed to reach the ceiling by a foot or two, and the slightest noise aroused the entire floor. And there was noise of every conceivable kind, in plenty, from the blare of a band at the Pioneer Dance Hall opposite, to the energetic cursing of the cook in the rear. A discordant din of voices surged up from the street below--laughter, shouts, the shrieks of women, a rattle of dice, an occasional pistol shot, and the continuous yelling of industrious “barkers.” There was no safety anywhere. An exploding revolver in No. 47 was quite likely to disturb the peaceful slumbers of the innocent occupant of No. 15, and every sound of quarrel in the thronged bar-room below caused the lodger to curl up in momentary expectation of a stray bullet coursing toward him through the floor. With this to trouble him, he could lie there and hear everything that occurred within and without. Every creak, stamp, and snore was faithfully reported; every curse, blow, snarl reechoed to his ears. Inside was hell; outside was Sheridan.