They led us to our tents, where the beds were still unmade. The clerk left, promising to get John to send a chambermaid. We felt less hopeful than he, for as we were banished from his presence we observed him feeling his way, a cautious mile or so at a time, to the far reaches of the kitchen. We made one or two trips to the hotel to induce somebody to make up our beds, keeping Miss Susan well in the background, for the sight of her seemed more than John could bear. But he pounced on her. “Have you any idea of the troubles of a hotel keeper?” His forbearance by now had become sublime. “_Any_ idea? No, lady, I can see you haven’t. If you had you’d be a little patient.” Our beds were made, but an hour later we were still without towels and water, while one tent had no lights. The rest of us were thoroughly cowed by this time, but opposition had stiffened little Miss Susan to the point where she would risk being hurled over the dam before she would be brow-beaten. We timidly followed, giving her our physical if not our moral support, while she stated our case, which she did quite simply. “We’ve been here some hours, and we still have no towels or electric lights.” “_Be_ reasonable. I ask you, lady, one thing, if possible.” Heavy sarcasm. “_Be_ reasonable. I’ve got my troubles, same as you have. All the world has its troubles. Now why can’t you stand yours with a little patience?” “I’m sorry for your troubles,” said Miss Susan, sympathetically. “But we are paying for towels and electric lights. Why shouldn’t you give them to us?” At this John became violent. “Lady! Go!” He pointed dramatically to the dam, and the road out into the wilderness beyond. “Go! I don’t want you! And never come back again. Lady, if everyone was like you, I’d go crazy. You’ve been asking for something ever since you struck the place. Why, since you’ve come here, the help has all come to me and give notice. Now, get out!” For fear he might carry out the eviction on the spot, and send us on sixteen miles of precipitous darkness, we again retreated. After supper, facing the terrifying prospect of feeling her way to bed, lightless, and with no lock on the door to keep out inebriated landlords or mountain lions, Miss Susan resolved on action. She tiptoed to the dining room, and was in the act of unscrewing a bulb from its socket when John appeared from the vicinity of the kitchen. At sight of his arch enemy thus outraging his hospitality, anger and grief swelled within him. Probably the only thing that kept Miss Susan, dauntless but scared, from being completely annihilated was that he could not decide which one of her to begin on first. “Lady!” he exclaimed, sorrowfully, as if he could not believe his eyes,--and possibly he could not--“Lady! Off my own dining-room table!” He reached wobbly but sublime heights of forbearance, his voice filled with reproachful irony.