other end of the table, where the men sat with necks craned forward in an
attitude uncomfortably suggestive of hounds straining at the leash.
Simpson felt rather than saw that something was afoot among the sombreros.
There was a crowding together in whispered colloquy, and in a flash some
half-dozen of them were on their feet as a man. Descending upon Simpson,
they lifted him, chair and all, to the other end of the table, as far
removed as possible from Miss Carmichael.

The man who thought Simpson’s system lacked science rubbed his hands in
delight. "She took the trick all right; swept his hand clean off the
board!"





II


The Encounter


Simpson, from the seat to which he had been so rapidly transplanted,
looked about him with blinking anxiety. It was more than probable that the
boys intended "to have fun with him," though his talking, or rather trying
to talk, to a girl that sat opposite him at an eating-house table was,
according to his ethics, plainly none of their business. He knew he wasn’t
popular since he had done for Jim Rodney’s sheep, though the crime had
never been laid at his door, officially. He had his way to make, the same
as the next one; and, all said and done, the cattle-men were glad to get