o dishes of ice cream from the Wyker
eating house, as per Rosie's promise.

The boy hastened from the grinning Hans and did his errand, and afterward
held his peace, so far as Rosie was concerned. But he stupidly unloaded
his message and Hans' interference and threats to John Jacobs as an
outsider whom the Wyker family rows could not touch, and had another dish
of ice cream at Jacobs' expense.

This messenger was able, for he brought the word to Rosie that John Jacobs
would come to his Little Wolf ranch the next day, and late in the evening
drop into Wykerton unexpectedly, where he knew Rosie would give him easy
access to the "blind tiger" of the Wyker House. The boy carried a message
also to Darley Champers to meet Jacobs at the top of the hill above Little
Wolf where the trail with the scary little twist wound down by the opening
to the creek, beyond which the Gimpke home was hidden. Then Hans Wyker,
with threats of withholding the circus ticket and the ice cream, was told
both messages just as they had been given to him for Rosie and Champers.
Hans, for reasons of his own, hurried out of Wykerton and took the first
train to Kansas City.

All this happened on the day that Darley Champers had made his trip to the
Cloverdale Ranch. The fine spring weather of the morning leaped to summer
heat in the afternoon, as often happens in the plains country. On the next
day the heat continued, till late in the afternoon a vicious black storm
cloud swirled suddenly up over the edge of the horizon, defying the
restraining call of the three headlands to sheer off to the south, as
storms usually sheered, and burst in fury on the Grass River Valley,
extending east and north until the whole basin drained by Big Wolf was
threshed with a cyclone's anger.

Darley Champers sat half asleep in his office on the afternoon of this
day. His coat and vest were flung on a chair, his collar was on the floor
under the desk, his sleeves were rolled above his elbows. The heat
affected his big bulky frame grievously. The front door was closed to keep
out the afternoon glare, but the rear door, showing the roomy back yard,
was wide open, letting in whatever cool air might wander that way.

Darley was half conscious of somebody's presence as he dozed. He dreamed a
minute or two, then suddenly his eyes snapped open just in time to see
Thomas Smith entering through the rear doorway.

"How do you do?" The voice was between a whine and a snarl.

Cham