"That reminds me that I was wondering this morning how deep the snow would be at that point where Mr. Stott slid down the glacier in the gold-pan. By the way, Mr. Cone, have you heard that story? It's a good one." Edging toward the doorway, Mr. Cone fairly chattered in his vehemence: "Oh, yes--yes--yes!" Mr. Penrose interrupted eagerly: "The drifts must be about forty feet high on that stretch south of The Lolabama. There's a gap in the mountain where the wind comes through a-whoopin'. I mean the place where the steer chased Aunt Lizzie--did any one ever tell you that yarn, Cone?" Mr. Cone, with one foot over the door-sill and clinging to the jamb, as if he half expected they would wrench him loose and make him go back and listen, answered with unmistakable irony: "I think I recall having heard someone mention it." It required more than irony to discourage Mr. Penrose, however, and he insisted petulantly: "Come on back here, Cone! I'll explain just how Wallie jumped that steer and went to the ground with him. It's worth listening to twice." Twice! Mr. Cone had heard it more times than he had fingers and toes. "The telephone's ringing," he pleaded. "Go answer it, then; looks like you'd want to learn something!" Miss Macpherson had heard the story an even greater number of times than Mr. Cone, but now she urged Mr. Penrose to repeat it, and he did so with such spirit and so vividly that she shuddered almost continuously through the telling. He concluded by asserting emphatically that if it had not been for his foresight in providing himself with field-glasses, the steer would have been running over the flat with Aunt Lizzie empaled on its horns like a naturalist's butterfly, before any one could have prevented it. Mr. Appel opined, when Mr. Penrose had finished, that "Canby made a poor showing." "I could have done as well myself if I had been able to get there." He added speculatively: "I suppose Canby and Miss Spenceley are engaged by now--or married. Wallie hasn't mentioned it in his letters, has he?" Miss Macpherson replied in the negative. "He might not, anyway," remarked Mrs. Appel. "Helene was a nice girl, and attractive, but I could see that she did not interest him." Mrs. Budlong, who had one eye closed trying to thread a needle without her glasses, observed succinctly: "Men are funny." She intended to qualify her statement by saying that some are funnier than others, only, before she had time to do so, an exclamation from Miss Macpherson attracted her attention. Following Miss Macpherson's unbelieving stare she saw Helene and Wallie getting out of the motor-bus with a certain air which her experienced eye recognized as "married."