the offshore fish, happy for a half-hour
when they surprised one with his prey in his teeth.

One day, some three weeks before the end of the year, toward two in the
afternoon, Condy sat in his usual corner of the club, behind the
screen, writing rapidly. His coat was off and the stump of a cigar was
between his teeth. At his elbow was the rectangular block of his
manuscript. During the last week the story had run from him with a
facility that had surprised and delighted him; words came to him
without effort, ranging themselves into line with the promptitude of
well-drilled soldiery; sentences and paragraphs marched down the
clean-swept spaces of his paper, like companies and platoons defiling
upon review; his chapters were brigades that he marshaled at will,
falling them in one behind the other, each preceded by its
chapter-head, like an officer in the space between two divisions. In
the guise of a commander-in-chief sitting his horse upon an eminence
that overlooked the field of operations, Condy at last took in the
entire situation at a glance, and, with the force and precision of a
machine, marched his forces straight to the goal he had set for himself
so long a time before.

Then at length he took a fresh penful of ink, squared his elbows, drew
closer to the desk, and with a single swift spurt of the pen wrote the
last line of his novel, dropping the pen upon the instant and pressing
the blotter over the words as though setting a seal of approval upon
the completed task.

"There!" he muttered, between his teeth; "I've done for YOU!"

That same afternoon he read the last chapter to Blix, and she helped
him to prepare the manuscript for expressage. She insisted that it
should go off that very day, and herself wrote the directions upon the
outside wrapper. Then the two went down together to the Wells Fargo
office, and "In Defiance of Authority" was sent on its journey across
the continent.

"Now," she said, as they came out of the express office and stood for a
moment upon the steps, "now there's nothing to do but wait for the
Centennial Company. I do so hope we'll get their answer before I go
away. They OUGHT to take it. It's just what they asked for. Don't
you think they'll take it, Condy?"

"Oh, bother that!" answered Condy. "I don't care whether they take it
or not. How long now is it before you go, Blix?"

Chapter XIII

A week passed; then another. The year was coming to a close. In