“I don’t know who’s a comin’ no more’n you do,” Coffee John replied. “But see ’ere!” and he pointed with a blunt red finger at an insurance calendar upon the wall. “D’yer cop that there numero? It’s the Thirteenth of October to-dye, an’ they’ll be comp’ny all right. They allus is, the Thirteenth of October!” “Well, you rope him and we’ll brand him,” remarked the other at the table, a man of some twenty-two years, with a typically Western cast of countenance, high cheek-bones and an aquiline nose. His eyes were gray-blue behind rusty steel spectacles. “I hope that stranger will come pretty durn pronto,” he added. “There’ll be somethink a-doin’ before nine, I give yer _my_ word. I’ll eat this ’ere bloomin’ pile o’ plytes if they ain’t!” Coffee John asserted. Scarcely had he made the remark when the clock rang out, ending his sentence like a string of exclamation points, and immediately the door burst open and a man sprang into the room as though he were a runaway from Hell. In his long, thin, white face two black eyes, set near together, burned with terror. His mouth was open and quivering, his hands were fiercely clinched. Under a battered Derby hat his stringy black hair and ragged beard played over his paper collar in a fringe. He wore a cutaway suit, green and shiny with age, which, divorced at the waist, showed a ring of red flannel undershirt. He crept up to the counter like a kicked spaniel. “For God’s sake, gimme a drink o’ coffee, will you?” he whined. “Wot’s bitin’ yer?” Coffee John inquired without sentiment. “Don’t yer ask me to chynge a ’undred-dollar bill, fur I reelly can’t do it!” “I lost my nerves, that’s all,” he said, looking over his shoulder apprehensively. Then, turning to the two at the table, he gazed at them over the top of a thick mug of coffee. “Lord! That’s good! I’m better now,” he went on, and wiped off his mustache with a curling tongue, finishing with his sleeve. “If I should narrate to you the experience which has just transpired, gents, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d regard myself as a imposition. But facts is authentic, nevertheless, and cannot be dissented from, however sceptical.” “See here!” cried the lad in the sweater, not too unkindly, “suppose you tell us about it some other time! We’ve been waiting for you many mad-some moons, and the time is ripe for the harvest. If you are as hungry as we are, and want to be among those present at this function, sit down and you’ll get whatever is coming to you. You can ascend the rostrum afterward. We were just looking for one more, and you’re it.” The vagabond looked inquiringly at Coffee John, who, in response, pointed to a chair. “Why cert’nly,” the new-comer said, removing his hat, “I must confess I ain’t yet engaged at dinner this evening, and if you gents are so obliged as to——” “Rope it!” roared the man in spectacles, out of all patience. The voluble stranger seated himself hurriedly.