Mrs. Toomey was kneading bread on the kitchen table. Toomey had sold a pair of silver sugar tongs to a cowpuncher who opined that they were the very thing he had been looking for with which to eat oysters. The slipperiness of a raw oyster annoyed and embarrassed him, so he purchased the tongs gladly, and the sack of flour which resulted gave Mrs. Toomey a feeling of comparative security while it lasted. She called through the doorway: "You go, Jap. I'm busy." He arose mechanically, opened the door, started back, then stepped out and closed it after him. At the kitchen table Mrs. Toomey saw the pantomime and was curious. The sound of voices raised in altercation followed. She recognized that of Teeters. "I tell you it is, Toomey! I'll swear to it! I'd know it anywhere because of that peculiarity!" She could not catch the words of a second speaker, but the tone was equally aggressive and unfriendly. "Then prove it!" Toomey's voice was shrill with excitement and defiant. They all lowered their voices abruptly as though they had been admonished, but the tones reached her, alternately threatening, argumentative, even pleading. What in the world was it all about, she wondered as she kneaded. For twenty minutes or more it lasted, and then Teeters' voice came clearly, vibrating with contempt as well as purpose: "You got a yellow streak a yard wide and if it takes the rest of our natural life Lingle and me between us are goin' to prove it!" Toomey's answer was a jeering laugh of defiance, but when he came in and slammed the door behind him, she saw that his face was a sickly yellow and his shaking hand spilled the tobacco which he tried to pour upon a cigarette paper. She waited a moment for an explanation but, since it was not forthcoming, asked anxiously: "What's the matter, Jap?" He did not hear her. She persisted: "Who was it?" "Teeters and Lingle." "The deputy sheriff?" He nodded. She came a little further into the room with her flour-covered hands. "What did they want, Jap, that's so upset you?" "I'm not upset!" He glared at her. His trembling hand could not touch the match to the cigarette paper. "It's only right that you should tell me," she said firmly. His eyes wavered. "It's about the cook stove; Teeters wants to foreclose the mortgage." She regarded him fixedly, turned, and started for the kitchen. She knew that he was lying. CHAPTER XI KATE KEEPS HER PROMISE