about the farmer of the West, maintaining that he was a
broader-spirited and bigger-minded man than his brother of the East, and
pointing out that the westerner's wife was a queen who if she had little
ease at least had great honor. And I was just thinking that one glorious
thing about this same queen was that she at least escaped from all the
twentieth-century strain and dislocation in the relationship between
city men and women, when the hum of that car brought me back to earth
and reminded me that I might have a tableful of guests to feed. The car
itself drew up, with a flutter of its engine, half-way between the shack
and the corral, and at that sound I imagine we all rather felt like
Robinson Crusoes listening to the rattle of an anchor cable in Juan
Fernandez's quietest bay. And through the open window I could make out a
huge touring-car pretty well powdered with dust and with no less than
six men in it.

Terry, all eyes, dove for the window, and Olie, all mouth, for the door.
Olga leaned half-way across the table to look out, and I did a little
staring myself. The only person who remained quiet was Dinky-Dunk. He
knocked out his pipe, stuck it in his pocket, put on his hat and caught
up a package of papers from his work table. Then he stalked out, with
his gray fighting look about the eyes. He went out just as one of the
bigger men was about to step down from the car, so that the bigger man
changed his mind and climbed back in his seat, like a king reascending
his throne. And they all sat there so sedate and non-committal and
dignified, rather like dusty pallbearers in an undertaker's wagonette,
that I promptly decided they had come to foreclose a mortgage and take
my Dinky-Dunk's land away from him, at one fell swoop!

I could see my lord walk right up to the running-board, with curt little
nods to his visitors, and I knew by the trim of his shoulders that there
was trouble ahead. Yet they started talking quietly enough. But inside
of two minutes my Dinky-Dunk was shaking his fist in the face of one of
the younger and bigger men and calling him a liar and somewhat
tautologically accusing him of knowing that he was a liar and that he
always had been one. This altogether ungentlemanly language naturally
brought forth language quite as ungentlemanly from the accused, who
stood up in the car and took his turn at dancing about and shaking his
own fist. And then the others seemed to take sides, and voices rose to a