I gathered from this fellow’s exclamation that he was divided between amaze and mirth.  Then he got up from the steps and went into the restaurant and was followed by the man called Jim.  Before the door was closed he made another remark, but it was unintelligible to me.

As I passed on I decided I would scrape acquaintance with this restaurant keeper.

The thing of most moment was that I had gotten track of Steele.  I hurried ahead.  While I had been listening back there moments had elapsed and evidently he had walked swiftly.

I came to the plaza, crossed it, and then did not know which direction to take.  Concluding that it did not matter I hurried on in an endeavor to reach the ranch before Steele.  Although I was not sure, I believed I had succeeded.

The moon shone brightly.  I heard a banjo in the distance and a cowboy sing.  There was not a person in sight in the wide courts or on the porch.  I did not have a well-defined idea about the inside of the house.

Peeping in at the first lighted window I saw a large room.  Miss Sampson and Sally were there alone.  Evidently this was a parlor or a sitting room, and it had clean white walls, a blanketed floor, an open fireplace with a cheery blazing log, and a large table upon which were lamp, books, papers.  Backing away I saw that this corner room had a door opening on the porch and two other windows.

I listened, hoping to hear Steele’s footsteps coming up the road.  But I heard only Sally’s laugh and her cousin’s mellow voice.

Then I saw lighted windows down at the other end of the front part of the house.  I walked down.  A door stood open and through it I saw a room identical with that at the other corner; and here were Colonel Sampson, Wright, and several other men, all smoking and talking.

It might have been interesting to tarry there within ear-shot, but I wanted to get back to the road to intercept Steele.  Scarcely had I retraced my steps and seated myself on the porch steps when a very tall dark figure loomed up in the moonlit road.

Steele!  I wanted to yell like a boy.  He came on slowly, looking all around, halted some twenty paces distant, surveyed the house, then evidently espying me, came on again.

My first feeling was, What a giant!  But his face was hidden in the shadow of a sombrero.

I had intended, of course, upon first sight to blurt out my identity.  Yet I did not.  He affected me strangely, or perhaps it was my emotion at the thought that we Rangers, with so much in common and at stake, had come together.

“Is Sampson at home?” he asked abruptly.

I said, “Yes.”

“Ask him if he’ll see Vaughn Steele, Ranger.”

“Wait here,” I replied.  I did not want to take up any time then explaining my presence there.

Deliberately and noisily I strode down the porch and entered the room with the smoking men.