was rubbing his hands at the end
of the table covered with blue china and mounds of home-made cake.
"Stop quarrelling and sit down. Anywhere. No ceremony here."

Some of the guests were in their seats. The others fairly swooped into
theirs, entirely regardless of anything so uneatable as neighbors.
Mrs. Larsing, a tall, red-haired, raw-boned New England woman, had
entered, bearing an enormous platter of fried trout, fresh from the
lake. Larsing, burnt almost as dark as an Indian, followed with a
plate of potatoes boiled in their jackets balanced on one hand, and a
small mountain of johnny cake on the other. He returned in a moment
with two large platters of sliced ham and cold boiled beef, and the
guests were left to wait on themselves.

The dinner was the gayest Mary had ever attended, for even the
Sophisticates, however lively, preserved a certain formality in town;
when she was present, at all events. Rollo Todd, broke into periodical
war whoops, to Mr. Dinwiddie's manifest delight. The others burst into
song, while waiting for the travelling platters. Eva Darling got up
twice and danced by herself, her pale bobbed head and little white face
eerily suspended in the dark shadows of the great room. Other feet
moved irresistibly under the table. Good stories multiplied, and they
laughed uncontrollably at the worst of the jokes.

They drank little, for the supply was limited, but the altitude was
four thousand feet and the thin light air went to their heads. They
were New Yorkers suddenly snatched from the most feverish pitch of
modern civilization, but no less primitive in soul than woodsmen who
had never seen a city, and the men would have liked to put on war paint
and run through the forest with tomahawks.

Todd, when the dinner was over, did seize a tomahawk from the wall,
drape himself in an Indian blanket, and march up and down the room
roaring out terrific battle-cries. Three minutes later, Minor and
Bolton had followed his example, and marched solemnly behind him,
brandishing their weapons and making unearthly noises. Mary, from her
chair by the hearth, watched them curiously. At first it was merely
the exuberant spirits of their release and the unaccustomed altitude
that inspired them, but their countenances grew more and more sombre,
their eyes wilder, their voices more war-like. They were no longer
doing a stunt, they were atavistic. Their voices reverberated across
the lake.

One by one