ast was eaten in a dangerous electrical silence. No man dared to
speak of what was in every man's mind, and to make trivial
conversation was impossible under that atmospheric pressure.

Afterward, when Bela announced her intention of going away for a
while, every man, much as he desired her company, felt relieved, and
no word was spoken to stay her departure.

They let her go without so much as looking out to see which way she
went. As a matter of fact, nobody was willing to let anybody else
look; therefore, he could not look himself.

Thereafter they breathed more freely. At least, they were all in the
same boat. They were not under the intolerable strain of watching
every look of her eyes and interpreting every word she spoke for a
sign.

The worst they had to look forward to was one more day of unutterable
boredom. Each man was buoyed up by the hope that it might be the last
of such days for him.

Sam went about his work with a wooden face and a sore and angry heart.
He was not much of a self-analyst. He called Bela all manner of hard
names to himself, without stopping to ask why, if she were such a
worthless creature, he should feel so concerned about her.

A woman who took her pleasure in provoking four men to the point of
murder was not worth bothering about, he told himself a hundred times;
but he continued to be very much bothered.

"I'll never let her get me on her hook!" he cried inwardly--meanwhile
the hook was in his gills!

After he had given the men their dinner he, too, went away from camp,
bent upon his own devices. No one paid any attention to him.

A couple of hundred yards east of the shack a good-sized creek emptied
into the lake. The stones of the shore offered a barrier to its path,
over which it tumbled musically. Farther inland it pursued a slower,
deeper course.

Ascending its bank, in about a quarter of a mile one found it issuing
out of a lovely little meadow, through which it meandered crookedly,
its course marked out by willow bushes.

The meadow was Sam's objective. He had often been there before. It was
about a quarter of a mile long, and no more than a good stone's throw
across from pines to pines. Though the level of the ground was several
feet above the creek, the ground, like the creek bottoms generally,
was spongy and damp, with dry islands here and there.

The grass was amazingly luxuriant. Drenched in the strong sunlight,
and hemmed all around by the secretive pines,