The abrupt disappearance of Jack Hamlin and the strange lady and gentleman visitor was scarcely noticed by the other guests of the Divide House, and beyond the circle of Steptoe and his friends, who were a distinct party and strangers to the town, there was no excitement.  Indeed, the hotel proprietor might have confounded them together, and, perhaps, Van Loo was not far wrong in his belief that their identity had not been suspected.  Nor were Steptoe’s followers very much concerned in an episode in which they had taken part only at the suggestion of their leader, and which had terminated so tamely.  That they would have liked a “row,” in which Jack Hamlin would have been incidentally forced to disgorge his winnings, there was no doubt, but that their interference was asked solely to gratify some personal spite of Steptoe’s against Van Loo was equally plain to them.  There was some grumbling and outspoken criticism of his methods.

This was later made more obvious by the arrival of another guest for whom Steptoe and his party were evidently waiting.  He was a short, stout man, whose heavy red beard was trimmed a little more carefully than when he was first known to Steptoe as Alky Hall, the drunkard of Heavy Tree Hill.  His dress, too, exhibited a marked improvement in quality and style, although still characterized in the waist and chest by the unbuttoned freedom of portly and slovenly middle age.  Civilization had restricted his potations or limited them to certain festivals known as “sprees,” and his face was less puffy and sodden.  But with the accession of sobriety he had lost his good humor, and had the irritability and intolerance of virtuous restraint.

“Ye needn’t ladle out any of your forty-rod whiskey to me,” he said querulously to Steptoe, as he filed out with the rest of the party through the bar-room into the adjacent apartment.  “I want to keep my head level till our business is over, and I reckon it wouldn’t hurt you and your gang to do the same.  They’re less likely to blab; and there are few doors that whiskey won’t unlock,” he added, as Steptoe turned the key in the door after the party had entered.

The room had evidently been used for meetings of directors or political caucuses, and was roughly furnished with notched and whittled armchairs and a single long deal table, on which were ink and pens.  The men sat down around it with a half-embarrassed, half-contemptuous attitude of formality, their bent brows and isolated looks showing little community of sentiment and scarcely an attempt to veil that individual selfishness that was prominent.  Still less was there any essay of companionship or sympathy in the manner of Steptoe as he suddenly rapped on the table with his knuckles.