Mechanically the girl took her seat and Ann, wondering what this strange bearing might mean, resumed her own chair. They sat so, facing one another in the last sunset glow, the one staring stolidly, Ann covering her embarrassment, her wonder with a forced smile. Gradually, that smile faded, an uncertainty appeared in Ann's eyes and she broke out: "Why, what is the matter with you, Nora?" At that question the girl averted her face and let her hands drop down over the chair arms with careless laxity. "Don't you know what it is?" she asked, in her deep, throaty voice, meeting Ann's inquiring gaze, shifting her eyes quickly, moving her shoulders with a slight suggestion of defiance. "Why, no, Nora! You're so queer. Is something troubling you? Can't you tell me?" Ann leaned forward solicitously. The waitress laughed sharply, and lifted a hand to her brow, and shook her head. "Don't you know what it is?" she asked again, voice hardening. "Can't you see? Are you blind? Or are you afraid? "What'd you come out here for anyhow?" she cried, abruptly accusing, one hand out in a gesture of challenge, and Ann could see an angry flush come into her face and her lower lids puff with the emotion. "Why, Nora...." "Don't tell me! I know what you come for! You come to look after your worthless whelp of a man; that's why; an' you stayed to try to take mine!"--voice weakening as she again turned her face toward the window. "Why, Nora Brewster ..." The sharp shake of the girl's arm threw off Ann's hand that had gone out to grasp it and the rasp in Nora's voice checked the eastern woman's protest. "Don't try to tell me anything different! I know! Can't I see? Am I as blind as you try to make me think you are?"--with another swagger of the shoulders as she moved in her chair. "Can't I see what's goin' on? Can't I see you makin' up to him an' eyein' him an' leadin' him on?--You, a married woman!" "Nora, stop it!" With set mouth Ann straightened, her breathing audible. "I _won't_ stop. You're goin' to hear me through, understand? You're goin' to know all about it; you're goin' to know what I am an' what he is an' what's been between us ... what you've been breakin' up. Then, I guess you won't come in here with your swell eastern ways an' try to take him.... I guess not!" She laughed bitterly and Ann could see the baleful glow in her eyes. "I told you that he brung me here an' put me to work, I guess. Well, that was so; he did. I'll tell you where he got me." She hitched forward. "He brung me from th' Fork. You come through there; all you know 'bout it is that there's a swell hotel there an' it's a junction point. Well, the's a lot more to know about th' Fork ... or was." She paused a moment and rubbed her palms together triumphantly, as if she had long anticipated this moment.