CHAPTER XVI
IN ROOM SEVENTEEN
IT was just after the hot hour of the afternoon. The shadows from the hills to the west were beginning to drop across the village; people who had kept to their houses during the early afternoon now appeared on their porches. Small boys and girls, returning from school, were beginning to play. Their mothers were at the open doors exchanging shouted pieces of news and greetings, and Andrew picked his way with care along the street. It was a town flung down in the throat of a ravine without care or pattern. Houses appeared absurdly on sharp hilltops, and again in gullies, where the winter rains must threaten the foundations, at least, once a year. There was not even one street, but rather a collection of straggling paths which met about a sort of open square, on the sides of which were the stores and the inevitable saloons and hotel.
But the narrow path along which Andrew rode was a gantlet to him. Before he came among the houses he had rolled a cigarette, and now he smoked it with enforced carelessness; and, though his heart was thudding at his ribs painfully, he made the gelding move slowly. He was intent on appearing at all costs the casual traveler. And he could not know how completely he failed in his part. For the shop pallor, which years of work had given Andrew, was not yet gone. His was one of those white skins which never satisfactorily takes on a tan; and, to contrast with that skin, he had intense black
