n
years."

Miss Adams made a useless movement toward escape. The Ross chin stuck
firm. "I don't want to annoy you, Miss Adams, but, by heck, if it
comes to that you'll have to be annoyed. And I'll have to have my say.
This palm-ticklin' slob of a Frenchman ought to be kicked off the place
and if you'll say the word, off he goes. But I don't want to do the
wrong thing. You've got to show a preference. I'm gettin' around to
the point, Miss--Miss Willie, in my own brick fashion. I've stood
about all I can stand these last two days and somethin's got to happen.
The suspense hereabouts is enough to hang a sheepherder. Miss
Willie"--he lassooed her hand by main force--"just say the word. You
need somebody to take your part all your life long. Will you mar--"

"Supper," remarked George, tersely, from the kitchen door.

Miss Adams hurried away.

Ross turned angrily. "You--"

"I have been revolving it in my head," said George.

He brought the coffee pot forward heavily. Then bravely the big platter
of pork and beans. Then somberly the potatoes. Then profoundly the
biscuits. "I have been revolving it in my mind. There ain't no use
waitin' any longer for Swengalley. Might as well eat now."

From my excellent vantage-point on the couch I watched the progress of
that meal. Ross, muddled, glowering, disappointed; Etienne, eternally
blandishing, attentive, ogling; Miss Adams, nervous, picking at her
food, hesitant about answering questions, almost hysterical; now and
then the solid, flitting shadow of the cook, passing behind their backs
like a Dreadnaught in a fog.

I used to own a clock which gurgled in its throat three minutes before
it struck the hour. I know, therefore, the slow freight of
Anticipation. For I have awakened at three in the morning, heard the
clock gurgle, and waited those three minutes for the three strokes I
knew were to come. _Alors_. In Ross's ranch house that night the slow
freight of Climax whistled in the distance.

Etienne began it after supper. Miss Adams had suddenly displayed a
lively interest in the kitchen layout and I could see her in there,
chatting brightly at George--not with him--the while he ducked his head
and rattled his pans.

"My fren'," said Etienne, exhaling a large cloud from his cigarette and
patting Ross lightly on the shoulder with a bediamonded hand which,
hung limp from a yard or more of bony arm, "I see I mus' be frank with
you. Firs', because we are