fers
more, which isn't impossible."

"But maybe he's just bluffing." Dunmore seemed to be following Gwinnett's
line of thought. "After he's bluffed Gresham's crowd out, maybe he'll go
back to his original ten thousand offer."

"Fred, please stop talking about that ten thousand dollars!" Geraldine
interrupted. "How much did Rivers actually tell you he'd pay? Twenty-five
thousand, like he did Colonel Rand?"

Dunmore turned in his chair angrily. "Now, look here!" he shouted.
"There's a limit to what I've got to take from you...."

He stopped short, as Nelda, beside him, moved slightly, and his words
ended in something that sounded like a smothered moan. Rand suspected
that she had kicked her husband painfully under the table. Then Walters
came in with the meat course, and firing ceased until the butler had
retired.

"By the way," Rand tossed into the conversational vacuum that followed
his exit, "does anybody know anything about a record Mr. Fleming kept of
his collection?"

"Why, no; can't say I do," Dunmore replied promptly, evidently grateful
for the change of subject. "You mean, like an inventory?"

"Oh, Fred, you do!" Nelda told him impatiently. "You know that big gray
book Father kept all his pistols entered in."

"It was a gray ledger, with a black leather back," Gladys said. "He kept
it in the little bookcase over the workbench in the gunroom."

"I'll look for it," Rand said. "Sure it's still there? It would be a big
help to me."

The rest of the dinner passed in relative tranquillity. The conversation
proceeded in fairly safe channels. Dunmore was anxious to avoid any
further reference to the sum of ten thousand dollars; when Gladys induced
Rand to talk about his military experiences, he lapsed into preoccupied
silence. Several times, Geraldine and Nelda aimed halfhearted feline
swipes at one another, more out of custom than present and active
rancor. The women seemed to have erected a temporary tri-partite
_Entente_-more-or-less-_Cordiale_.

Finally, the meal ended, and the diners drifted away from the table. Rand
went to his room for a few moments, then went to the gunroom to get the
notes he had made. Fred Dunmore was using the private phone as he
entered.

"Well, never mind about that, now," he was saying. "We'll talk about
it when I see you.... Yes, of course; so am I.... Well, say about
eleven.... Be seeing you."

He hung up and turned to Rand. "More God-damned union trouble," he said.
"It'