an appreciative wave of silence attended it.

Or again, the mighty voice of the sheriff was heard to bellow forth in
laughter of heroic proportions.

Aside from that, there was no information he could gather except by his
eyes. And chiefly, the face of Elizabeth. He knew her like a book in
which he had often read. Twice he read the danger signals. When the great
roast was being removed, he saw her eyes widen and her lips contract a
trifle, and he knew that someone had come very close to the danger line
indeed. Again when dessert was coming in bright shoals on the trays of
the Chinese servants, the glance of his sister fixed on him down the
length of the table with a grim appeal. He made a gesture of
helplessness. Between them four distinct groups into which the table talk
had divided were now going at full blast. He could hardly have made
himself heard at the other end of the table without shouting.

Yet that crisis also passed away. Elizabeth was working hard, but as the
meal progressed toward a close, he began to worry. It had seemed
impossible that the sheriff could actually sit this length of time in
such an assemblage without launching into the stories for which he was
famous. Above all, he would be sure to tell how he had started on his
career as a manhunter by relating how he slew Black Jack.

Once the appalling thought came to Vance that the story must have been
told during one of those moments when his sister had shown alarm. The
crisis might be over, and Terry had indeed showed a restraint which was a
credit to Elizabeth's training. But by the hunted look in her eyes, he
knew that the climax had not yet been reached, and that she was
continually fighting it away.