Six Feet Four | Page 2

comfortable enough. And,
at the other end of the barn like chamber was the long dining table.
Beyond it a door leading to the kitchen at the back of the house. Next to
the kitchen the family bed room where Poke Drury and his dreary
looking spouse slept. Adjoining this was the one spare bed room, with a
couple of broken legged cots and a wash-stand without any bowl or
pitcher. If one wished to lave his hands and face or comb his hair let
him step out on the back porch under the shoulder of the mountain and
utilize the road house toilet facilities there: they were a tin basin, a
water pipe leading from a spring and a broken comb stuck after the
fashion of the country in the long hairs of the ox's tail nailed to the
porch post.
"You gents is sure right welcome," the one-legged proprietor went on,
having paused a moment to listen to the wind howling through the
narrow pass and battling at his door and windows. "I got plenty to eat
an' more'n plenty to drink, same as usual. But when it comes to sleepin',
well, you got to make floors an' chairs an' tables do. You see this here
little shower has filled me all up. The Lew Yates place up the river got
itself pretty well washed out; Lew's young wife an' ol' mother-in-law,"
and Poke's voice was properly modified, "got scared clean to pieces.
Not bein' used to our ways out here," he added brightly. "Any way
they've got the spare bed room. An' my room an' Ma's ... well, Ma's got
a real bad cold an' she's camped there for the night. But, shucks, boys,
what's the odds, when there's fire in the fire place an' grub in the grub
box an' as fine a line of licker as you can find any place I know of. An'
a deck or two of cards an' the bones to rattle for them that's anxious to
make or break quick ... Hap Smith ought to been here before now. You
wouldn't suppose...."
He broke off and looked at those of the faces which had been turned his
way. His thought was plain to read, at least for those who understood
recent local conditions. Hap Smith had been driving the stage over the
mountains for only something less than three weeks; which is to say

since the violent taking off of his predecessor, Bill Varney.
Before any one spoke the dozen men in the room had had ample time to
consider this suggestion. One or two of them glanced up at the clock
swinging its pendulum over the chimney piece. Then they went on with
what they were doing, glancing through old newspapers, dealing at
cards, smoking or just sitting and staring at nothing in particular.
"The last week has put lots of water in all the cricks," offered old man
Adams from his place by the fire. "Then with this cloud-bust an'
downpour today, it ain't real nice travellin'. That would be about all
that's holdin' Hap up. An' I'm tellin' you why: Did you ever hear a man
tell of a stick-up party on a night like this? No, sir! These here stick-up
gents got more sense than that; they'd be settin' nice an' snug an' dry
like us fellers, right now."
As usual, old man Adams had stated a theory with emphasis and utterly
without any previous reflection, being a positive soul, but never a
brilliant. And, again quite as usual, a theory stated was naturally to be
combated with more or less violence. Out of the innocent enough
statement there grew a long, devious argument. An argument which
was at its height and evincing no signs of ever getting anywhere at all,
when from the night without came the rattle of wheels, the jingle of
harness chains and Hap Smith's voice shouting out the tidings of his
tardy arrival.
The front door was flung open, lamps and candles and log fire all
danced in the sudden draft and some of the flickering flames went out,
and the first one of Hap Smith's belated passengers, a young girl, was
fairly blown into the room. She, like the rest, was drenched and as she
hastened across the floor to the welcome fire trailed rain water from her
cape and dress. But her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks rosy with the
rude wooing of the outside night. After her, stamping noisily, glad of
the light and warmth and a prospect of food and drink, came Hap
Smith's other passengers, four booted men from the mines and the
cattle country.
To the last man of them in the road house they gave her their

immediate and exclusive attention. Briefly suspended were all such