"Beg your pardon. There will be one service here this afternoon. You will serve me." His emphasis was slight, but unmistakable. She was so fussed she turned to the door and grasped the knob the second time. Her persecutor raised his left hand firmly. "You can't get out there," he said. "Why can't I?" demanded Kate indignantly. "Because you can't open the door." She stood mute at his assurance. "Come," he continued, "give me some coffee, like a good girl." What should she do? She did not speak the question, but weighed it pretty rapidly in her mind. What manner of man had she to deal with? If not actually threatening he was extremely domineering. While she hesitated he regarded her calmly. But there was one way to do as he demanded and to punish him as well. Of the two coffee urns kept filled in readiness for the rush in serving a trainload of passengers, only one was now heated. Kate stepped to the urns, murmuring as if to herself: "I know nothing about these." "I don't either," he said. From the nearer urn Kate drew a cup of coffee; it was very cold--but she pushed it with a jug of cream and a bowl of sugar, toward him. "A teaspoon, please?" Kate's excitement had already heightened her color. She looked very much alive as she added, impatiently, a spoon to the equipment--expecting then to be able to get out of the room. It seemed as if this ought to big easy; it was not. Her tormentor professed to have had no dinner and wanted a sandwich. The sandwiches were rebelliously hunted up--a plateful was supplied. If he was surprised at the prodigality he made no comment, but at intervals some tantalizing word from him entangled her in another exchange; and at each encounter of wits, just enough fear tempered her resentment to make her irresolute. She was malicious enough to observe in silence the unobtrusive pantomime by which the enemy tried to coax a semblance of warmth into his cold coffee. He had begun by pouring cream into it, but the cream refused to assimilate and only made the mixture look less inviting. "I'm glad I met you today," he said, while she was getting her breath. "Looks lonesome around here. Not much doing at the mines, is there?" "Not a great deal," she answered coldly. "How about Barb Doubleday--is he up at the mines, or here?" He was indifferently lifting matches from the stand at his hand, striking them and burning them patiently against the side of his cup of coffee. Like a flash came to Kate with his question, the thought that this disagreeable person must be the court officer. He looked up at her now as if waiting for an answer: "Why do you ask?" she countered. "Mostly because I'd like to hear you say something." "Anything, I suppose," she suggested ironically. "That's not far from it," was the reply. "Also, I want to see Barb." "What about?" she asked, borrowing his own assurance. It was time, she thought, for defensive strategy.