Elizabeth left the ordering of the guests at the table to Vance, and she consulted him about it as they went into the dining room. It was a long, low-ceilinged room, with more windows than wall space. It opened onto a small porch, and below the porch was the garden which had been the pride of Henry Cornish. Beside the tall glass doors which led out onto the porch she reviewed the seating plans of Vance. "You at this end and I at the other," he said. "I've put the sheriff beside you, and right across from the sheriff is Nelly. She ought to keep him busy. The old idiot has a weakness for pretty girls, and the younger the better, it seems. Next to the sheriff is Mr. Gainor. He's a political power, and what time the sheriff doesn't spend on you and on Nelly he certainly will give to Gainor. The arrangement of the rest doesn't matter. I simply worked to get the sheriff well-pocketed and keep him under your eye."  
"But why not under yours, Vance? You're a thousand times more diplomatic than I am."
 
"I wouldn't take the responsibility, for, after all, this may turn out to be a rather solemn occasion, Elizabeth."
 
"You don't think so, Vance?"
 
"I pray not."
 
"And where have you put Terence?"
 
"Next to Nelly, at your left."
 
"Good heavens, Vance, that's almost directly opposite the sheriff. You'll have them practically facing each other."
 
It was the main thing he was striving to attain¹. He placated² her carefully.
 
"I had to. There's a danger. But the advantage is huge. You'll be there between them, you might say. You can keep the table talk in hand at that end. Flash me a signal if you're in trouble, and I'll fire a question down the table at the sheriff or Terry, and get their attention. In the meantime you can draw Terry into talk with you if he begins to ask the sheriff what you consider leading questions. In that way, you'll keep the talk a thousand leagues away from the death of Black Jack³."
 
He gained his point without much more trouble. Half an hour later the table was surrounded by the guests. It was a table of baronial proportions, but twenty couples occupied every inch of the space easily. Vance found himself a greater distance than he could have wished from the scene of danger, and of electrical contact.
 
At least four zones of cross-fire talk intervened, and the talk at the farther end of the table was completely lost to him, except when some new and amazing dish, a triumph of Wu Chi's fabrication, was brought on, and an appreciative⁴ wave of silence attended it.
 
Or again, the mighty⁵ voice of the sheriff was heard to bellow⁶ forth⁷ in laughter of heroic proportions.
 
Aside from that, there was no information he could gather except by his eyes. And chiefly, the face of Elizabeth. He knew her like a book in which he had often read. Twice he read the danger signals. When the great roast was being removed, he saw her eyes widen and her lips contract a trifle, and he knew that someone had come very close to the danger line indeed. Again when dessert was coming in bright shoals on the trays of the Chinese servants, the glance of his sister fixed⁸ on him down the length of the table with a grim appeal. He made a gesture of helplessness. Between them four distinct groups into which the table talk had divided were now going at full blast. He could hardly have made himself heard at the other end of the table without shouting.
 
Yet that crisis also passed away. Elizabeth was working hard, but as the meal progressed toward a close, he began to worry. It had seemed impossible that the sheriff could actually sit this length of time in such an assemblage without launching into the stories for which he was famous. Above all, he would be sure to tell how he had started on his career as a manhunter by relating how he slew⁹ Black Jack.
 
Once the appalling¹⁰ thought came to Vance that the story must have been told during one of those moments when his sister had shown alarm. The crisis might be over, and Terry had indeed showed a restraint which was a credit to Elizabeth's training. But by the hunted look in her eyes, he knew that the climax¹¹ had not yet been reached, and that she was continually fighting it away.
 
He writhed¹² with impatience¹³. If he had not been a fool, he would have taken that place himself, and then he could have seen to it that the sheriff, with dexterous¹⁴ guiding, should approach the fatal story. As it was, how could he tell that Elizabeth might not undo¹⁵ all his plans and cleverly keep the sheriff away from his favorite topic for an untold¹⁶ length of time? But as he told his sister, he wished to place all the seeming responsibility on her own shoulders. Perhaps he had played too safe.
 
The first ray of hope came to him as coffee was brought in. The prodigious¹⁷ eating of the cattlemen and miners at the table had brought them to a stupor¹⁸. They no longer talked, but puffed¹⁹ with unfamiliar²⁰ awkwardness at the fine Havanas which Vance had provided. Even the women talked less, having worn off the edge of the novelty of actually dining at the table of Elizabeth Cornish. And since the hostess was occupied solely²¹ with the little group nearest her, and there was no guiding mind to pick up the threads of talk in each group and maintain it, this duty fell more and more into the hands of Vance. He took up his task with pleasure.
 
Farther and farther down the table extended the sphere of his mild influence. He asked Mr. Wainwright to tell the story of how he treed the bear so that the tenderfoot author could come and shoot it. Mr. Wainwright responded with gusto. The story was a success. He varied²² it by requesting young Dobel to describe the snowslide which had wiped out the Vorheimer shack²³ the winter before.
 
Young Dobel did well enough to make the men grunt²⁴ at the end, and he brought several little squeals²⁵ of horror from the ladies.
 
All of this was for a purpose. Vance was setting the precedent²⁶, and they were becoming used to hearing stories. At the end of each tale the silence of expectation was longer and wider. Finally, it reached the other end of the table, and suddenly the sheriff discovered that tales were going the rounds, and that he had not yet............