The first ray of hope came to him as coffee was brought in. The prodigious eating of the cattlemen and miners at the table had brought them to a stupor. They no longer talked, but puffed with unfamiliar awkwardness at the fine Havanas which Vance had provided. Even the women talked less, having worn off the edge of the novelty of actually dining at the table of Elizabeth Cornish. And since the hostess was occupied solely with the little group nearest her, and there was no guiding mind to pick up the threads of talk in each group and maintain it, this duty fell more and more into the hands of Vance. He took up his task with pleasure. Farther and farther down the table extended the sphere of his mild influence. He asked Mr. Wainwright to tell the story of how he treed the bear so that the tenderfoot author could come and shoot it. Mr. Wainwright responded with gusto. The story was a success. He varied it by requesting young Dobel to describe the snowslide which had wiped out the Vorheimer shack the winter before. Young Dobel did well enough to make the men grunt at the end, and he brought several little squeals of horror from the ladies. All of this was for a purpose. Vance was setting the precedent, and they were becoming used to hearing stories. At the end of each tale the silence of expectation was longer and wider. Finally, it reached the other end of the table, and suddenly the sheriff discovered that tales were going the rounds, and that he had not yet been heard. He rolled his eye with an inward look, and Vance knew that he was searching for some smooth means of introducing one of his yarns. Victory! But here Elizabeth cut trenchantly into the heart of the conversation. She had seen and understood. She shot home half a dozen questions with the accuracy of a marksman, and beat up a drumfire of responses from the ladies which, for a time, rattled up and down the length of the table. The sheriff was biting his mustache thoughtfully. It was only a momentary check, however. Just at the point where Vance began to despair of ever effecting his goal, the silence began again as lady after lady ran out of material for the nonce. And as the silence spread, the sheriff was visibly gathering steam. Again Elizabeth cut in. But this time there was only a sporadic chattering in response. Coffee was steaming before them, Wu Chi's powerful, thick, aromatic coffee, which only he knew how to make. They were in a mood, now, to hear stories, that tableful of people. An expected ally came to the aid of Vance. It was Terence, who had been eating his heart out during the silly table talk of the past few minutes. Now he seized upon the first clear opening. "Sheriff Minter, I've heard a lot about the time you ran down Johnny Garden. But I've never had the straight of it. Won't you tell us how it happened?" "Oh," protested the sheriff, "it don't amount to much."