side of the
room, bowed back in equal gravity. Then Caleb Hunter grasped Steve's
elbow and spun him around toward the light and peered at him
accusingly. Barbara had not noticed until then how tired Steve looked.

"Before the others get to talking," said Caleb, "before the tide grows
too strong for my weak voice, young man, I want to deliver a message.
Miss Sarah wants it explicitly understood that unless you stop in to
say hello on your next trip down, she herself will take the trail up
here. And lest that ultimatum sound too little threatening, I might
add that when Miss Sarah takes the trail she never travels with less
than six trunks."

Caleb clung so tightly to his arm that it brought a tinge of color to
Steve's cheeks. It was minutes before he could get away to change his
wet clothes, and in that minute or two he could not help but contrast,
grimly, his own mud-spattered attire with that of Archie Wickersham.
The tired blue circles beneath his eyes wore even more noticeable when
he returned, to be ushered with much ceremony by Fat Joe to the head of
the table.

It was an utterly irresponsible gathering that leaned over the red
tablecloth that night--an oddly assorted group which, from the very
first, Joe realized was not at all to Wickersham's liking. Dexter
Allison himself, fairly radiating good-will, sat at the foot of the
table, with his son-in-law-to-be on one side and Barbara's little maid,
Cecile, on the other. And between Cecile and Barbara, who sat opposite
Garry and Miriam, Fat Joe leaned both elbows upon the table edge and
monopolized the conversation. The seating arrangement was Joe's; it
was his party. And the absolute inattention to detail, the large
indifference to veracity which his discourse disclosed before that
noisy supper was over, grew to be an astonishing thing. His nights of
fancy left Steve aghast in more than one instance; they even forced a
stiff smile to Wickersham's lips, and that is saying much for Joe's
success as an entertainer, for in the bearing of those two men toward
each other there had been evident from the first a chill antipathy
which amounted, actually, to armed truce. And the color in Miriam's
cheeks, whenever his gaze strayed to that side of the table, helped
Steve to forget, temporarily, much that he found not pleasant to recall
at all.

For Miriam's tongue was no less irresponsible than was Joe's. Her mood
was so mercurial that she drew, time and again, t