“Who has run off?” And Westcott’s hand crushed down on the man’s shoulder with a force that half-sobered him.  “What are you talking about?”

“Me!  Let up, will yer?  Yer was here hopin’ ter see that New York girl, wasn’t yer?”

“Miss Donovan?  Yes.”

“I’d forgot her name.  Well, she ain’t yere—­she’s left.”

“Left—­gone from town?”

“Sure; skipped out sudden in the night; took the late train East, I reckon.  Never sed no word to nobody—­just naturally packed up her duds an’ hiked.”

Westcott drew a deep breath.

“Surely you do not mean she left without any explanation?  She must have paid her bill.”

“Oh, she was square enough—­sure.  She left money an’ a note pinned to her pillow; sed she’d just got a message callin’ her back home—­want ter see whut she wrote?”

“You bet I do, Timmons!  Have you got the note here?”

Timmons waddled around behind the desk and ran his hand into a drawer.  Evidently he considered the matter a huge joke, but Westcott snatched the paper from his fingers impatiently and eagerly read the few hastily pencilled lines: 

Have received a message calling me East at once.  Shall take the night train, and enclose sufficient money to pay for my entertainment.

S. D.

He stared at the words, a deep crease between his eyes.  It was a woman’s handwriting, and at first glance there was nothing impossible in such an action on her part.  Yet it was strange, if she had departed so suddenly, without leaving any message for him.  After that meeting at the bridge, and the understanding between them, it didn’t seem to Westcott at all probable that she would thus desert without some plausible explanation.  His eyes narrowed with aroused suspicion as he looked up from the slip of paper and confronted the amused Timmons across the desk.

“I’ll keep this,” he said soberly, folding it and thrusting it into his pocket.

“All right”—­and Timmons smiled blandly—­“I got the money.”

“And that was all, was it—­just this note and the cash?  There was nothing addressed to me?”

The hotel-keeper shook his head.

“When did you see her last?”

“’Bout nine o’clock, I reckon; she come down inter the dinin’-room fer a drink o’ water.”

“She said nothing then about going away?”

“She didn’t speak to nobody—­just got a swig an’ went up-stairs agin.”

“How much longer were you up?”

“Oh, maybe an hour; there was some boys playing poker here an’ I waited round till they quit.”

“No message for Miss Donovan up to that time?”

“No.”

“You left the door unlocked?”

“Sure; them New York fellers was both out.  I oughter waited till they come in, maybe, but I was plum’ tired out.”

“When did they come back?”

“Oh, ‘bout midnight, I reckon.  Bill Lacy an’ Matt Moore was along with ‘em.  They didn’t disturb me none; just went inter the sample-room, an’ slept on the floor.  I found ’em thar in the mornin’, and Bill told me how they come to be thar—­leastwise ’bout himself, fer Moore had got up an’ gone afore I got down.”