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34 bed, and Edna Miller, standing on a chair in front of the bureau, was gazing at the reflection of a plaid-skirted little figure wearing a bright green coat, known as a sport-coat in the department store where she bought it—very jaunty, with enormous white enamel buttons; and on her head there was a gay little cap to match, with a tassel at the end of a long worsted cord. A fluffy halo of brown hair framed her face.

"I guess I'll do now," she reflected with satisfaction and, hopping down from the chair, she added, "I'll show that big fellow in the gray flannel shirt that he can't wink at me again."

That was funny, of course. The fellow in the gray flannel shirt was Bord Mathewson, and everyone knew how intolerant he was of anything weak, frail or effeminate. He wasn't intentionally scornful. He was a man of generous qualities—"the salt of the earth" his friends called him. He was a big, massive fellow, who never got tired or cold or hungry, when other human creatures did.

He had done a good deal of serious climbing in Switzerland at one time, and a dozen years ago he was one of a party of explorers in arctic regions. The women in the Bartlett party considered his condescension in joining them every year a marked compliment to their prowess.