It was also on an occasion when I was out after lost horses.

Below the hotel had merely a bar-room, a dining-room, and a lean-to kitchen; above was a loft with fifteen or twenty beds in it.

It was late in the evening when I reached the place.
I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked going in.

But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night.
Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like what they don't like.

A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident profanity.