But I've stood about as much as a man can be expected to stand.

And he better look out! That's all I got to say--he better look out!" Bill himself, it may be observed incidentally, spent the greater portion of that day in "looking out." He was careful not to sit down with his back to a door, for instance, and was keenly interested when a knob turned beneath unseen fingers, and plainly relieved when another than Ford entered his presence.

Bill's mustache was nearly pulled from its roots, that day--but that is not important to the story, which has to do with Ford Campbell, sometime the possessor of a neat legacy in coin, later a rider of the cattle ranges, last presiding genius over the poker table in Scotty's back room in Sunset, always an important factor--and too often a disturbing element--in any community upon which he chose to bestow his dynamic presence.
Scotty hoped that Ford would show up for business when the lamps were lighted, that night.

There had been some delicacy on the part of Ford's acquaintances that day in the matter of calling upon him at the shack.
They believed--and hoped--that Ford was "sleeping it off," and there was a unanimous reluctance to disturb his slumbers.

Sandy, indulging himself in the matter of undisturbed spinal tremors over "The Haunted Chamber," had not left shelter, save when the more insistent shiverings of chilled flesh recalled him from his pleasurable nerve-crimplings and drove him forth to the woodpile.