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The women moved on; and George and Grant managed to enter the hotel behind them before the throng closed in. The big general-room was hot and its atmosphere almost intolerably foul; the bar, which opened off it, was shadowy, and the crowded figures of lounging men showed dimly through thick cigar smoke. The hum of their voices died away and there was a curious silence as the women came in.

"I suppose I ought to warn you that doing things of the kind may get you into trouble some day; but cold-blooded prudence never did appeal to me." He took one of the chairs in front of the building and filled his pipe before he continued: "We'll sit here a while, and then we might as well stroll across the plain. The general-room doesn't strike me as an attractive place to spend the evening in."

As it happened, Colston's suspicion that his host wished to consult somebody was correct, for Prescott was then driving in to the settlement to lay his visitor's message before the man it most concerned. He found him lounging in the hotel bar, and, drawing him into the general-room, he sat down opposite him in a hard wooden chair.

There was a fire burning in the general-room of the hostelry, and Garnache went to warm him at its cheerful blaze. Moodily he stood there, one hand on the high mantel shelf, one foot upon an andiron, his eyes upon the flames.

A week later, he and West drove over to the Grant homestead and found only its owner in the general-room. Grant listened with a rather curious expression when George told him that he was starting for England the following day; and then they quietly talked over the arrangements that had been made for carrying on the farm until Edgar's return, for George's future movements were uncertain.