By a little management I secured the next room to his, by which
arrangement I succeeded in passing a sleepless night, Mr. Blake
spending most of the wee sma' hours in pacing the floor of his room,
with an unremitting regularity that had anything but a soothing effect
upon my nerves. Early the next morning we took the stage, he sitting
on the back seat, and I in front with the driver. There were other
passengers, but I noticed he never spoke to any of them, nor through
all the long drive did he once look up from the corner where he had
ensconced himself. It was twelve o'clock when we reached the end of
the route, a small town of somewhat less than the usual pretensions
of mountain villages; so insignificant indeed, that I found it more
and more difficult to imagine what the wealthy ex-Congressman could
find in such a spot as this, to make amends for a journey of such
length and discomfort; when to my increasing wonder I heard him give
orders for a horse to be saddled and brought round to the inn door
directly after dinner. This was a move I had not expected and it
threw me a little aback, for although I had thus far managed to hold
myself so aloof from Mr. Blake, even while keeping him under my eye,
that no suspicion of my interest in his movements had as yet been
awakened, how could I thus for the third time follow his order with
one precisely similar, without attracting an attention that would be
fatal to my plans.
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