“I’m afraid nothing would tempt me to part with my chance,” Agnes replied. “I hold it just the reverse of Dr. Slavens. The longer I look at it the bigger it gets.”
The doctor was the only one present who understood fully how much she had built around that chance. Their eyes met as he looked across at her; he remembered what she had said of planting trees, and having roses beside her door.
“It’s almost there!” cried June, looking at her stake.
“Twenty minutes yet,” announced Horace, who sat with his watch in his palm.
They were all bonneted and booted, ready for an expedition, although they had none in sight. It was as if they expected Number One to come flying through the town, to be caught and held by the swiftest of foot, the one alert and ready to spring up and dash after it.
“Shall we go over to the newspaper office?” asked the doctor, looking across again and catching Agnes’ eyes.
June jumped up and accepted the proposal for all.
“Oh, let’s do!” she exclaimed. “Let’s be there to get the very first word!”
On the part of the ladies there was a dash into the 85 tent to adjust their headgear before glasses and to renew the powder on their noses. While they were gone Horace Bentley, the lawyer, stood with his watch exposed to his impatient eye.
“In five minutes,” he announced as the ladies rejoined them, “they will draw the first name from the wheel at Meander. I hope that it may be the name of someone in this party.”