ventured: "Then what is
wrong?"

Her woe, apparently, was greater than her wrath.

She said sadly: "I dunno, Bert. I ain't the man I used to be--I mean,
the woman."

He waited, his small eyes gentle. What woman can altogether resist
sympathy, even from a fat man and a cook? Not even the redoubtable soul
of a Sally.

She confessed: "I feel sort of hollow and gone--around the stomach,
Fatty."

"Eat," suggested the cook. "I just took out a pie that would--"

"But it ain't the stomach. It's like bein' hungry and wantin' no food.
Fatty, d'you think I'm sick?"

"You look kind of whitish."

"Fatty, I feel--"

She hesitated, as though too great a confession were at her lips, but
she stumbled on: "I feel as if I was afraid of somethin', or someone."

"That," said Bert confidently, "ain't possible. It's the stomach, Sally.
Something ain't agreed with you."

She turned from him with a vague gesture of despair.

"If this here feelin' is goin' to keep up--why, I wisht I was dead--I
wisht I was dead!"

She went on to the swinging door, paused there to dab her eyes swiftly,
started to whistle a tune, and in this fashion marched back to the
eating-room. Fatty, turning back to the stove, shook his head; he was
more than ever convinced in his secret theory that all women are crazy.

Sally found that a new man had entered, one whom she could not remember
having seen before. She went to him at once, for it seemed to her that
she would die, indeed, if she had to look much longer on the familiar,
unshaven faces of the other men in the room.

"Anything you got," said the stranger, who was broad of hands and thick
of neck and he cast an anxious eye on her. "I hear you seen something of
a thinnish, dark feller named Bard."

"What d'_you_ want with him?" asked Sally with dangerous calm.

"I was aimin' to meet up with him. That's all."

"Partner, if you want to stand in solid around here, don't let out that
you're a friend of his. He ain't none too popular; that's straight and
puttin' it nice and easy."

"Which who said I was his friend?" said the other with heat.

She turned away to the kitchen and reappeared shortly, bearing his meal.
The frown with which she departed had disappeared, and she was smiling
as brightly as ever while she arranged the dishes in front of him. He
paid no attention to the food.

"Now," she said, resting both hands on the table and leaning so that she
could look him directly in the eye: "What