And as 'Tana stitched, and gathered, and fashioned the dress, according to Mrs. Huzzard's orders, she fashioned at the same time a little plan of her own in which the personality of Captain Leek was to figure. If Mrs. Huzzard fancied that her silent smiles were in anticipation of the dancing festivities, she was much mistaken. CHAPTER VII. A GAME OF POKER. Mr. Max Lyster, in his hasty plans for an innocent village dance, had neglected to make allowance for a certain portion of the inhabitants whose innocence was not of the quality that allowed them to miss anything, no matter who was host. They would shoot the glass out of every window in a house, if the owner of the house should be in their bad books for any trifling slight, and would proceed to "clean out" any establishment where their own peculiar set was ignored. There were, perhaps, seven or eight women in the place who were shown all respect by men in general. They were the wives and daughters of the city fathers--the first of the "family folks" to give the stamp of permanency to the little camp by the river. These ladies and their husbands, together with the better class of the "boys," were the people whom Mr. Lyster expected to meet and to partake of his hospitality in the cheery abode of Mrs. Huzzard. But Overton knew there were one or two other people to consider, and felt impatient with Lyster for his impulsive arrangements. Of course, 'Tana could not know and Mrs. Huzzard did not, but Lyster had at least been very thoughtless. The fact was that the well-ordered establishment of Mrs. Huzzard was a grievance and a thorn in the side of certain womankind, who dwelt along the main street and kept open drinking saloons seven days in the week. They would have bought ribbons and feathers from her, and as a milliner thought no more about her, or even if she had opened a hotel, with a bar attached, they would have been willing to greet her as a fellow worker, and all would have had even chances. But her effrontery in opening an eating house, where only water--pure or adulterated with tea or coffee--was drunk--Well, her immaculate pretensions, to use the vernacular of one of the disgusted, "made them sick." It may have been their dislike was made more pronounced because of the fact that the more sober-minded men turned gladly to the irreproachable abode of Mrs. Huzzard, and the "bosses" of several "gangs" of workmen had arranged with her for their meals. Besides, the river men directed any strangers to her house; whereas, before, the saloons had been the first point of view from which travelers or miners had seen Sinna Ferry. All these grievances had accumulated through the weeks, until the climax was capped when the report went abroad that a dance was to take place at the sickeningly correct restaurant, and that only the _elite_ of the settlement were expected to attend.