can
give us a quarter of an hour."

"Five minutes," Sadie answered. "You can cut the game you're playing
when you like. I'm tired, but I'll wait."

Wilkinson looked at Charnock, but stopped arranging his cards. "Well,
I'm ready to quit. Bob's made a scoop the last few deals, and I reckon
I've not much chance of getting my money back."

"Go 'way, Sadie; go 'way right now!" Charnock interrupted. "You gotta
put up a fair game, and I can't stop when I've all the boys' dollars in
my pocket."

Sadie was sometimes tactful, but her anger was quick, and she disliked
to hear her husband use Western idioms. Moreover she expected him to be
polite.

"Well," she said, "I guess that's a change; your dollars are generally
in their wallets. But this game has to stop."

Mossup, the man she did not like, turned in his chair. He was not sober
and his manners were not polished at the best of times. He sold small
tools and hardware for a Winnipeg wholesale firm.

"Say, you might call a bell-boy. That whisky's rank; I want a different
drink."

Charnock got up with an awkward movement, but Sadie did not want his
help.

"Drinks are served in the bar and the bar is shut," she said.

"I'm stopping here; I hired this room, and as long as I pay it's mine.
We're not in Manitoba, and I guess the law--"

Sadie silenced him imperiously. She understood his reference to
Manitoba, where regulations dealing with liquor are strictly enforced.

"I make the law at Keller's, and this hotel is not a gambling saloon.
Mr. Wilkinson, cork that bottle and put it on the shelf."

As Wilkinson obeyed, Mossup put his hand on his arm to hold him back,
but Charnock interfered:

"You sit down right now. Understand, everybody, what Mrs. Charnock says
goes."

"Certainly," Wilkinson agreed. "Get off to bed Mossup; you'll have a
swelled head all right to-morrow, as it is. I'll put out the light, Mrs.
Charnock; guess I'll do it better than Bob."

"Think I can't put out a common old lamp?" Charnock inquired. "Destroy
the blamed thing 'fore I let it beat me."

"You're not going to try," said Wilkinson, who hustled him and Mossup
out of the room and then held the door open for Sadie.

She thanked him, but felt that if she had ground to fear resentment, it
was not Mossup's but his. Wilkinson had manners, but she knew he did not
like to be robbed of an easy victim, and it was possible that he had
let Bob win until he was drunk enough to be fleeced. She wait