"Yes, ma'am. I wasn't reflecting on you especially. I was thinkin' about your lawyer. But you won't be so very mad, if I ain't crazy to take a chance, will you? If anybody wants to know whether I can hold a job or not, I'd sooner have 'em ask about me or try me; when it comes to drawing lots I'll have to be counted out."
His eyes had been squarely on hers throughout and when he ceased speaking they still clung. Beyond a doubt, she reasoned, that flicker in them was amusement and yet she felt no resentment towards him; was not even annoyed as she had been at his first refusal. It was interesting; it impressed her with a difference between him and the three who had drawn. For a moment she was impelled to argue; she wanted that man to help her more than she wanted to retain her poise ... just an instant.
Abruptly she turned to the others.
"Very well, we will see who did win."
The four drew close together and measured.
"Mr. Hepburn's is the shortest!" she cried; then looked at the fourth straw she still held. It was shorter by half an inch.
"You would have drawn well," she said to Beck, holding it up.
"So it seems, ma'am," he answered, but she noticed that he did not look at her. His eyes were on the new foreman's face, which was flushed with the depressions beneath the eyes puffed a bit. He was nervously breaking to shreds the straw which had won the place but about him was a bearing of unmistakable elation and something in his eyes, which were small, and about his chin suggested greed....
The four started away and Jane stood watching them. Four! And one of them was to be her deputy in life's first—and perhaps life's saving—adventure. But she did not watch him, in fact, had no thought for him. Her eyes followed Tom Beck until he was out of sight and as she turned to enter the house she said:
"But he looks as though he might take a ... long chance...."