It was not Milt's placid and slightly twangy voice but one smoother, more decisive, perplexingly familiar, that finally vibrated, "Hello! Hello! Miss Boltwood! Operator, I can't hear. Get me a better connection. Miss Boltwood?" "Yes! Yes! This is Miss Boltwood!" she kept beseeching, during a long and not unheated controversy between the unknown and the crisp operator, who knew nothing of the English language beyond, "Here's your party. Why don't you talk? Speak louder!" Then came clearly, "Hear me now?" "Yes! Yes!" "Miss Boltwood?" "Yes?" "Oh. Oh, hello, Claire. This is Jeff." "Jess who?" "Not Jess. Jeff! Geoffrey! J-e-f-f! Jeff Saxton!" "Oh!" It was like a sob. "Why--why--but you're in New York." "Not exactly, dear. I'm in Kalispell, Montana." "But that's right near here." "So am I!" "B-but----" "Out West to see copper interests. Traced you from Yellowstone Park but missed you at Butte. Thought I'd catch you on road. You talking from Barmberry's?" The woman who had hailed her was not missing a word of a telephone conversation which might be relative to death, fire, elopement, or any other dramatic event. Claire begged of her, "Where in the world am I talking from, anyway?" "This is Barmberry's Inn." "Yes," Claire answered on the telephone, "I seem to be. Shall I start on and----" "No. Got ripping plan. Stay right where you are. Got a fast car waiting. Be right down. We'll have dinner. By!" A click. No answer to Claire's urgent hellos. She hung up the receiver very, very carefully. She hated to turn and face her audience of Mr. Henry B. Boltwood, Mr. James Barmberry, Mrs. James Barmberry, and four Barmberry buds averaging five and a quarter in age. She tried to ignore the Barmberrys, but their silence was noisy and interested while she informed her father, "It's Jeff Saxton! Out here to see copper mines. Telephoned along road to catch us. Says we're to wait dinner till he comes." "Yessum," Mrs. Barmberry contributed, "he told me if I did catch you, I was to have some new-killed chickens ready to fry, and some whipped cream---- Jim Barmberry, you go right out and finish whipping that cream, and don't stand there gawping and gooping, and you children, you scat!" Claire seized the moment of Mr. Boltwood's lordly though bewildered bow to their hostess, and escaped outdoors. Round the original settler's log-cabin were nests of shacks and tents, for bedrooms, and on a screened porch, looking on Flathead Lake, was the dining-room. The few other guests had finished supper and gone to their tents.