One bright afternoon Keller stood on the sidewalk in front of the store.  He was not old, but his hair was gray and his face was pinched.  It was rather a hard face, for Keller’s glance was keen and his lips were generally firmly set.  Yet he was liked by his customers.  Now he was breathing hard because he had helped a farmer to put a heavy bag of flour in his wagon.  The farmer drove away and a cloud of dust the team stirred up blew down the street.  The fronts of the wooden houses were cracking in the hot sun; there was not a tree to relieve the bare ugliness of the place, and the glare was dazzling.  Keller at first imagined this was why he could not see the wagon well, but after a few moments he knew better.

He went into the store with a staggering step, and the rank smell of cheese and salt-pork nauseated him.  The room felt very hot and was full of flies that buzzed in a tormenting cloud round his head.  He wanted quietness and made his way to the dark back office, where he dropped into a chair.

“Go to the hotel,” he ordered the clerk who entered after him.  “Tell Jake to give you a big glass of the special whisky.  Be quick, but don’t run and spill the stuff.”

The clerk came back in a few minutes, and Keller pulled himself together when he had drained the glass, though his forehead was damp with sweat.

“Now where’s the list of the truck Gascoyne got?” he said.  “I’ll look it up.”

“Sure you feel all right?” the clerk inquired.

“Get the list,” said Keller.  “Take that glass away.”

He picked up a pen, but put it down when he found his hand shook, and told the clerk to charge the goods.  When the latter had gone, he sat still for some minutes and then opened a book of accounts.  He had had another warning, sharper than the last, and had better put things straight while he could.  With this object he worked later than usual, and when he returned to the hotel called Sadie into his private room.  The girl sat down, and he studied her, leaning his elbow heavily on the table.

Sadie had a strained look and had been quiet for the last week or two except when she was angry.  This indicated that her nerves were on edge, and Keller thought he knew why.

“I guess we’ve got to have a talk,” he said.  “I’ve put it off, but now’s the time.”

Sadie waited calmly.  She had courage and knew she must be frank with her father.  He did not, as a rule, say much, but he noted things and understood.

“Well,” he resumed, “I’ve built up a pretty good business here, but I’ll have to quit and leave you some day, and reckon you won’t be satisfied to stop at the hotel all your life.  You’re smart and a looker, and I guess you want to go out and see the world.  That’s all right, and you’ll be able, as far as dollars count; but I can’t go with you and you can’t go alone.”

Sadie shivered.  Keller’s face was pinched, and she knew his health was not good, although she did not know how bad it really was.