Before Mr. Cone could get around the desk and at the door to greet him, Mr. Penrose was striding across the office with the porter behind him, round-shouldered under the weight of two portmanteaux and a bag of golf clubs.
Mr. Penrose was the same, yet different in an elusive way that Mr. Cone could not define exactly. There was an air about him which on the spur of the moment he might have called "brigandish"--the way he wore his hat, a slight swagger, a something lawless that surely he never had acquired in his peach orchard in Delaware. When Mr. Penrose extended his hand across the counter Mr. Cone noticed that he was wearing a leather bracelet.
As they greeted each other like reunited brothers there was nothing in the manner of either to indicate that they had parted on any but the happiest terms, though Mr. Penrose's gaze wavered for an instant when he asked: "Is my room ready?"
"Since the day before yesterday," replied Mr. Cone, turning to the key-rack. Then generously: "What kind of a summer did you have? I trust, a pleasant one."
Mr. Penrose's faded eyes grew luminous. His voice quavered with eager enthusiasm as he ignored the efforts of the bell-boy to draw his attention to the fact that he was waiting to open his room for him.
"Superb! Magnificent! A wonderful experience! The Land of Adventure! Cone," Mr. Penrose peered at him solemnly from under his bushy eyebrows, "I know what it is to look into the jaws of Death, literally!" Mr. Penrose could look into Mr. Cone's jaws also, for he was so impressive that the lower one dropped automatically. He added: "I am thankful to be alive to tell the story."
"You don't mean it!"
"Yes. Alone, unarmed, I defended myself against an attack from one of the savage grizzlies of the Rocky Mountains."
Mr. Cone's eyes were as round as a child's awaiting a fairy tale. If Mr. Penrose had needed encouragement they would have furnished it. He continued: "We were camped near the Cañon Hotel where the bears swarm--swarm like flies over the garbage. A remarkable sight. It was a very dark night--so dark, in fact, that I hesitated to go to my teepee, which was placed apart that I might not be disturbed by the others. I must have my rest, as you will remember.
"I had been asleep only a few minutes when I was awakened by the feeling that something was happening. It was. My tent was moving--actually bounding over rocks and hummocks.
"Believing myself the victim of a practical joke, I sprang out and brought my fish-pole down on what I supposed to be the head of a fellow disguised in a big overcoat. There was a roar that was plainly heard for miles, and a monster grizzly struck at me.