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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
arV1034 '^°"'*" ""'™"'*y '■"'™'> 
 Whispering Smith / 
 
 o,i„.J 1924 031 172 756 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031172756 
 
WHISPERING SMITH 
 
BOOKS BY FRAITK H. SPEARMAft 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S S0I7S 
 
 WmSPERnJG SMITH, ninstrated. lamo. $1.50 
 
 THE DAUGHTER OP A MAGNATE. lUustrated. 
 i2nio $1.50 
 
 DOCTOR BRTSON. A Novel. lamo . . $1.50 
 
 THE STRATEGY OP GREAT RAILROADS. With 
 Maps. ismo. (Postage 12 cents.) Net, $1.50 
 
Following the trail itself. Whispering Smith rode slowly. 
 
 [ Page 406] 
 
WHISPERING 
 SMITH 
 
 BY » 
 
 FRANK H. SPEARMAN 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 N. C. WYETH 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::: 1906 
 
 
COPYMGHT, 1906, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 Published, September, 190* 
 
 4^.^^^$C^^ 
 
TO MY SON 
 
 THOMAS CLARK SPEARMAN 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 A PIEDMONT WINTER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Wrecking Boss i 
 
 II. At Smoky Creek lo 
 
 III. Dicksie 23 
 
 IV. George McCloud 33 
 
 V. The Crawling Stone 51 
 
 VI. The Final Appeal 60 
 
 VII. In Marion's Shop 64 
 
 VIII. Smoky Creek Bridge 71 
 
 IX. The Misunderstanding 76 
 
 X. Sweeping Orders 88 
 
 XI. At the Three Horses 93 
 
 XII. Parley 103 
 
 XIII. The Turn in the Storm 122 
 
 XIV. The Quarrel 131 
 
 XV. The Shot in the Pass 141 
 
 XVI. At the Wickiup 148 
 
 vii 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVII. A Test 155 
 
 XVIII. New Plans 162 
 
 XIX. The Crawling Stone Rise . . .169 
 
 XX. At the Dike 179 
 
 XXI. Supper in Camp 197 
 
 XXII. A Talk with Whispering Smith . 207 
 
 XXIII. At the River 217 
 
 XXIV. Between Girlhood and Woman- 
 
 hood 225 
 
 XXV. The Man on the Frenchman . . 242 
 
 XXVI. Tower W 256 
 
 XXVII. Pursuit 262 
 
 XXVIII. The Sunday Murder 271 
 
 XXIX. Williams Cache 281 
 
 XXX. The Fight in the Cache . . . 292 
 
 XXXI. The Death of Du Sang .... 305 
 
 XXXII. McCloud and Dicksie 312 
 
 XXXIII. The Laugh of a Woman . . . .320 
 
 XXXIV. A Midnight Visit 327 
 
 XXXV. The Call 334 
 
 XXXVI. Duty 340 
 
 viii 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTBR PAGE 
 
 XXXVII. WiCKWIRE 346 
 
 XXXVIII. Into the North 352 
 
 XXXIX. Among the Coyotes 361 
 
 XL. _A Sympathetic Ear 373 
 
 XLI. Dicksie's Ride 379 
 
 XLII. At the Door 389 
 
 XLIII. Closing In 395 
 
 XLIV. Crawling Stone Wash .... 403 
 
 XLV. Back to the Mountains . . .413 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Following the trail itself. Whispering Smith rode 
 
 slowly Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 "And whom may I say the message is from?" . . 27 
 
 These three carried rifles slung across their pommels, 
 
 and in front of them rode the stranger . . . • '33 
 
 Wheeling at arm's length, shot again 302 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WRECKING BOSS 
 
 NEWS of the wreck at Smoky Creek reached 
 Medicine Bend from Point of Rocks at 
 five o'clock. Sinclair, in person, was overseeing 
 the making up of his wrecking train, and the yard, 
 usually quiet at that hour of the morning, was alive 
 with the hurry of men and engines. In the train- 
 master's room of the weather-beaten, headquarters 
 building, nicknamed by railroad men " The Wicki- 
 up," early comers — sleepy-faced, keen-eyed train- 
 men^lounged on the tables and in chairs discuss- 
 ing the reports from Point of Rocks, and among 
 them crew-callers and messengers moved in and 
 out. From the door of the big operators' room, 
 pushed at intervals abruptly open, burst a blaze of 
 light and the current crash of many keys; within, 
 behind glass screens, alert, smooth-faced boys in 
 shirt sleeves rained calls over the wires or bent with 
 flying pens above clips, taking incoming messages. 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 At one end of the room, heedless of the strain 
 on the division, press despatches and cablegrams 
 clicked in monotonous relay over commercial wires ; 
 while at the other, operators were taking from the 
 despatchers' room the train orders and the hurried 
 dispositions- made for the wreck emergency by 
 Anderson, the assistant superintendent. At a table 
 in the alcove the chief operator was trying to reach 
 the division superintendent, McCloud, at Sleepy 
 Cat; at his elbow, his best man was ringing the 
 insistent calls of the despatcher and clearing the 
 line for Sinclair and the wrecking gang. Two min- 
 utes after the wrecking train reported ready they 
 had their orders and were pulling out of the upper 
 yard, with right of way over everything to Point 
 of Rocks. 
 
 The wreck had occurred just west of the creek. 
 A fast east-bound freight train, double-headed, had 
 left the track on the long curve around the hill, and 
 when the wrecking train backed through Ten Shed 
 Cut the sun streamed over the heaps of jammed and 
 twisted cars strung all the way from the point of 
 the curve to the foot of Smoky Hill. The crew 
 of the train that lay in the ditch walked slowly 
 up the track to where the wreckers had pulled up, 
 and the freight conductor asked for Sinclair. Men 
 rigging the derrick pointed to the hind car. The 
 conductor, swinging up the caboose steps, made his 
 
The Wrecking Boss 
 
 way inside among the men that were passing out 
 tools. The air within was bluish-thick with tobacco 
 smoke, but through the haze the freightman saw 
 facing him, in the far corner of the den-like interior, 
 a man seated behind an old dining-car table, finish- 
 ing his breakfast ; one glimpse was enough to iden- 
 tify the dark beard of Sinclair, foreman of the 
 bridges and boss of the wrecking gang. 
 
 Beside him stood a steaming coffee-tank, and in 
 his right hand he held an enormous tin cup that he 
 was about to raise to his mouth when he saw the 
 freight conductor. With a laugh, Sinclair threw 
 up his left hand and beckoned him over. Then he 
 shook his hair just a little, tossed back his head, 
 opened an unusual mouth, drained the cup at a 
 gulp, and cursing the freightman fraternally, ex- 
 claimed, " How many cars have you ditched this 
 time?" 
 
 The trainman, a sober-faced fellow, answered 
 dryly, " All I had." 
 
 " Running too fast, eh? " glared Sinclair. 
 
 With the box cars piled forty feet high on the 
 track, the conductor was too old a hand to begin 
 a controversy. " Our time's fast," was all he 
 said. 
 
 Sinclair rose and exclaimed, " Come on ! " And 
 the two, leaving the car, started up the track. The 
 wrecking boss paid no attention to his companion 
 
 3 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 as they forged ahead, but where the train had hit 
 the curve he scanned the track as he would a blue 
 print. " They'll have your scalp for this," he de- 
 clared abruptly. 
 
 " I reckon they will." 
 
 " What's your name? " 
 
 " Stevens." 
 
 "Looks like all day for you, doesn't it? No 
 matter; I guess I can help you out." 
 
 Where the merchandise cars lay, below the 
 switch, the train crew knew that a tramp had been 
 caught. At intervals they heard groans under the 
 wreckage, which was piled high there. Sinclair 
 stopped at the derrick, and the freight conductor 
 went on to where his brakeman had enlisted two of 
 Sinclair's giants to help get out the tramp. A 
 brake beam had crushed the man's legs, and the 
 pallor of his face showed that he was hurt inter- 
 nally, but he was conscious and moaned softly. 
 The men had started to carry him to the way car 
 when Sinclair came up, asked what they were doing, 
 and ordered them back to the wreck. They hastily 
 laid the tramp down. " But he wants water," pro- 
 tested a brakeman who was walking behind, carry- 
 ing his arm in a sling. 
 
 " Water 1 " bawled Sinclair. " Have my men 
 got nothing to do but carry a tramp to water? Get 
 ahead there and help unload those refrigerators. 
 
 4 
 
The Wrecking Boss 
 
 He'll find water fast enough. Let the damned 
 hobo crawl down to the creek after it." 
 
 The tramp was too far gone for resentment; 
 he had fainted when they laid him down, and his 
 half-glazed eyes, staring at the sky, gave no evi- 
 dence that he heard anything. 
 
 The sun rose hot, for in the Red Desert sky there 
 is rarely a cloud. Sinclair took the little hill near- 
 est the switch to bellow his orders from, running 
 down among the men whenever necessary to help 
 carry them out. Within thirty minutes, though 
 apparently no impression had been made on the 
 great heaps of wrenched and splintered equipment, 
 Sinclair had the job in hand. 
 
 Work such as this was the man's genius. In 
 handling a wreck Sinclair was a marvel among 
 mountain men. He was tall but not stout, with 
 flashing brown eyes and a strength always equal 
 to that of the best man in his crew. But his in- 
 spiration lay in destruction, and the more complete 
 the better. There were no futile moves under 
 Sinclair's quick eyes, no useless pulling and haul- 
 ing, no false grappling; but like a raven at^ a 
 feast, every time his derrick-beak plucked at the 
 wreck he brought something -worth while away. 
 Whether he was righting a tender, rerailing an 
 engine, tearing out a car-body, or swinging a set 
 of trucks into the clear, Sinclair, men said, had 
 
 5 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 luck, and no confusion in day or night was great 
 enough to drown his heavy tones or blur his rapid 
 thinking. 
 
 Just below where the wrecking boss stood lay 
 the tramp. The sun scorched his drawn face, but 
 he made no effort to turn from it. Sometimes he 
 opened his eyes, but Sinclair was not a promising 
 source of help, and no one that might have helped 
 dared venture within speaking distance of the in- 
 jured man. When the heat and the pain at last 
 extorted a groan and an appeal, Sinclair turned. 
 "Damn you, ain't you dead yet? What? 
 Water? " He pointed to a butt standing in 
 the shade of a car that had been thrown out 
 near the switch. "There's water; go get it!" 
 The cracking of a box car as the derrick wrenched 
 it from the wreck was engaging the attention of the 
 boss, and as he saw the grapple slip he yelled to 
 his men and pointed to the chains. 
 
 The tramp lay still a long time. At last he be- 
 gan to drag himself toward the butt. In the glare 
 of the sun timbers strained and snapped, and men 
 with bars and axes chopped and wrenched at the 
 massive frames and twisted iron on the track. The 
 wrecking gang moved like ants in and out of the 
 shapeless debris, and at intervals, as the sun rose 
 higher, the tramp dragged himself nearer the butt. 
 He lay on the burning sand like a crippled insect, 
 
 6 
 
The Wrecking Boss 
 
 crawling, and waiting for strength to crawl. To 
 him there was no railroad and no wreck, but only 
 the blinding sun, the hot sand, the torture of thirst, 
 and somewhere water, if he could reach it. 
 
 The freight conductor, Stevens, afraid of no 
 man, had come up to speak to Sinclair, and Sin- 
 clair, with a smile, laid a cordial hand on his shoul- 
 der. " Stevens, it's all right. I'll get you out of 
 this. Come here." He led the conductor down the 
 track where they had walked in the morning. He 
 pointed to flange-marks on the ties. " See there — 
 there's where the first wheels left the track, and 
 they left on the inside of the curve; a thin flange 
 under the first refrigerator broke. I've got the 
 wheel itself back there for evidence. They can't 
 talk fast running against that. Damn a private 
 car-line, anyway! Give me a cigar — haven't got 
 any ? Great guns, man, there's a case of Key Wests 
 open up ahead ; go fill your pockets and your grip. 
 Don't be bashful; you've got friends on the divis- 
 ion if you are Irish, eh? " 
 
 " Sure, only I don't smoke," said Stevens, with 
 diplomacy. 
 
 " Well, you drink, don't you? There's a barrel 
 of brandy open at the switch." 
 
 The brandy-cask stood up-ended near the water- 
 butt, and the men dipped out of both with cups. 
 They were working now half naked at the wreck. 
 
 7 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 The sun hung in a cloudless sky, the air was still, 
 and along the right of way huge wrecking fires 
 added to the scorching heat. Ten feet from the 
 water-butt lay a flattened mass of rags. Crusted 
 in smoke and blood and dirt, crushed by a vise of 
 beams and wheels out of human semblance, and left 
 now an aimless, twitching thing, the tramp clutched 
 at Stevens's foot as he passed. " Water ! " 
 
 " Hello, old boy, how the devil did you get 
 here? " exclaimed Stevens, retreating in alarm. 
 
 "Water I" 
 
 Stevens stepped to the butt and filled a cup. 
 The tramp's eyes were closed. Stevens poured the 
 water over his face ; then he lifted the man's head 
 and put a cupful to his lips. 
 
 " Is that hobo alive yet? " asked Sinclair, com- 
 ing back smoking a cigar. " What does he want 
 now? Water? Don't waste any time on him." 
 
 " It's bad luck refusing water," muttered Ste- 
 vens, holding the cup. 
 
 " He'll be dead in a minute," growled Sinclair. 
 
 The sound of his voice roused the failing man to 
 a fury. He opened his bloodshot eyes, and with the 
 dregs of an ebbing vitality cursed Sinclair with a 
 frenzy that made Stevens draw back. If Sinclair 
 was startled he gave no sign. " Go to belli "he 
 exclaimed harshly. 
 
 With a ghastly effort the man made his retort. 
 8 
 
The Wrecking Boss 
 
 He held up his blood-soaked fingers. " I'm going 
 all right — I know that," he gasped, with a curse, 
 " but I'll come back for you I " 
 
 Sinclair, unshaken, stood his ground. He re- 
 peated his imprecation more violently ; but Stevens, 
 swallowing, stole out of hearing. As he disap- 
 peared, a train whistled in the west. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AT SMOKY CREEK 
 
 KARG, Sinclair's crew foreman, came running 
 over to him from a pile of merchandise that 
 had been set off the right of way on the wagon-road 
 for loot. " That's the superintendent's car coming, 
 ain't it, Murray?" he cried, looking across the 
 creek at the approaching train. 
 
 " What of it? " returned Sinclair. 
 
 " Why, we're just loading the team." 
 
 The incoming train, an engine with a way car, 
 two flats, and the Bear Dance derrick, slowed up at 
 one end of the wreck while Sinclair and his foreman 
 talked. Three men could be seen getting out of 
 the way car — McCloud and Reed Young, the 
 Scotch roadmaster, and Bill Dancing. A gang of 
 trackmen filed slowly out after them. 
 
 The leaders of the party made their way down 
 the curve, and Sinclair, with Karg, met them at the 
 point. McCloud asked questions about the wreck 
 and the chances of getting the track clear, and while 
 they talked Sinclair sent Karg to get the new derrick 
 into action. Sinclair then asked McCloud to walk 
 
 10 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 with him up the track to see where the cars had left 
 the rail. The two men showed in contrast as they 
 stepped along the ties. McCloud was not alone 
 younger and below Sinclair's height: his broad 
 Stetson hat flattened him somewhat. His move- 
 ment was deliberate beside Sinclair's litheness, and 
 his face, though burned by sun and wind, was boy- 
 ish, while Sinclair's was strongly lined. 
 
 " Just a moment," suggested McCloud mildly, 
 as Sinclair hastened past the goods piled in the 
 wagon-road. "Whose team is that, Sinclair?" 
 The road followed the right of way where they 
 stood, and a four-horse team of heavy mules was 
 pulling a loaded ranch-wagon up the grade when 
 McCloud spoke. 
 
 Sinclair answered cordially. " That's my team 
 from over on the Frenchman. I picked them up 
 at Denver. Nice mules, McCloud, ain't they? 
 Give me mules every time for heavy work. If I 
 had just a hundred more of 'em the company could 
 have my job — ^what? " 
 
 " Yes. What's that stufF they are hauling? " 
 
 " That's a little stuff mashed up in the merchan- 
 dise car; there's some tobacco there and a little 
 wine, I guess. The cases are all smashed." 
 
 " Let's look at it." 
 
 " Oh, there's nothing there that's any good, 
 McCloud." 
 
 II 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Let's look at it." 
 
 As Bill Dancing and Young walked behind the 
 two men toward the wagon, Dancing made extraor- 
 dinary efforts to wink at the roadmaster. " That's 
 a good story about the mules coming from Denver, 
 ain't it? " he muttered. Young, unwilling to com- 
 mit himself, stopped to light his pipe. When he 
 and Dancing joined Sinclair and McCloud the talk 
 between the superintendent and the wrecking boss 
 had become animated. 
 
 " I always do something for my men out of a 
 wreck when I can; that's the way I get the work 
 out of them," Sinclair was saying. " A little stuff 
 like this," he added, nodding toward the wagon, 
 " comes handy for presents, and the company 
 wouldn't get any salvage out of it, anyway. I get 
 the value a dozen times over in quick work. Look 
 there! " Sinclair pointed to where the naked men 
 heaved and wrenched in the sun. " Where could 
 you get white men to work like that if you didn't 
 jolly them along once in a while? What? You 
 haven't been here long, McCloud," smiled Sinclair, 
 laying a hand with heavy affection on the young 
 man's shoulder. " Ask any man on the division 
 who gets the work out of his men — who gets the 
 wrecks cleaned up and the track cleared. Ain't 
 that what you want? " 
 
 " Certainly, Sinclair; no man that ever saw 
 
 12 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 you handle a wreck would undertake to do it 
 better." 
 
 " Then what's all this fuss about? " 
 
 " We've been over all this matter before, as 
 you know. The claim department won't stand for 
 this looting; that's the whole story. Here are ten 
 or twelve cases of champagne on your wagon — 
 soiled a little, but worth a lot of money." 
 
 " That was a mistake loading that up; I admit 
 it; it was Karg's carelessness." 
 
 " Here is one whole case of cigars and part of 
 another," continued McCloud, climbing from one 
 wheel to another of the wagon. " There is a 
 thousand dollars in this load 1 I know you've got 
 good men, Sinclair. If they are not getting paid 
 as they should be, give them time and a half or 
 double time, but put it in the pay checks. The 
 freight loss and damage account increased two 
 hundred per cent last year. No railroad company 
 can keep that rate up and last, Sinclair." 
 
 " Hang the company! The claim agents are a 
 pack of thieves," cried Sinclair. " Look here, Mc- 
 Cloud, what's a pay check to a man that's sick, com- 
 pared with a bottle of good wine? " 
 
 " When one of your men is sick and needs wine, 
 let me know," returned McCloud; " I'll seh that 
 he gets it. Your men don't wear silk dresses, do 
 they? " he asked, pointing to another case of goods 
 
 13 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 under the driver's seat. " Have that stuff all 
 hauled back and loaded into a box car on track." 
 
 " Not by a damned sight ! " exclaimed Sinclair. 
 He turned to his ranch driver, Barney Rebstock. 
 " You haul that stuff where you were told to haul 
 it, Barney." Then, " you and I may as well have 
 an understanding right here," he said, as McCloud 
 walked to the head of the mules. 
 
 " By all means, and I'll begin by countermand- 
 ing that order right now. Take your load straight 
 back to that car," directed McCloud, pointing up 
 the track. Barney, a ranch hand with a cigarette 
 face looked surlily at McCloud. 
 
 Sinclair raised a finger at the boy. " You drive 
 straight ahead where I told you to drive. I don't 
 propose to have my affairs interfered with by you 
 or anybody else, Mr. McCloud. You and I can 
 settle this thing ourselves," he added, walking^ 
 straight toward the superintendent. 
 
 " Get away from those mules ! " yelled Barney 
 at the same moment, cracking his whip. 
 
 McCloud's dull eyes hardly lightened as he 
 looked at the driver. " Don't swing your whip 
 this way, my boy," he said, laying hold quietly of 
 the near bridle. 
 
 " Drop that bridle I " roared Sinclair; 
 
 " I'll drop your mules in their tracks if they 
 move one foot forward. Dancing, unhook those 
 
 14 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 traces," said McCloud peremptorily. " Dump 
 the wine out of that wagon-box, Young." Then 
 he turned to Sinclair and pointed to the wreck. 
 " Get back to your work." 
 
 The sun marked the five men rooted for an in- 
 stant on the hillside. Dancing jumped at the 
 traces. Reed Young clambered over the wheel, and 
 Sinclair, livid, faced McCloud. With a bitter de- 
 nunciation of interlopers, claim agents, and 
 " fresh " railroad men generally, Sinclair swore he 
 would not go back to work, and a case of wine 
 crashing to the ground infuriated him. He turned 
 on his heel and started for the wreck. " Call off 
 the men ! " he yelled to Karg at the derrick. The 
 foreman passed the word. The derrickmen, drop- 
 ping their hooks and chains in some surprise, moved 
 out of the wreckage. The axemen and laborers 
 gathered around the foreman and followed him 
 toward Sinclair. 
 
 " Boys," cried Sinclair, " we've got a new super- 
 intendent, a college guy. You know what they 
 are; the company has tried 'em before. They 
 draw the salaries and we do the work. This one 
 down here now is making his little kick about the 
 few pickings we get out of our jobs. You can go 
 back to your work or you can stand right here with 
 me till we get our rights. What ? " 
 
 Half a dozen men began talking at once. The 
 IS 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 derrickman from below, a hatchet-faced wiper, with 
 the visor of a greasy cap cocked over his ear, stuck 
 Ijiis head between the uprights and called out shrilly, 
 "What's er matter, Murray?" and a few men 
 laughed. Barney had deserted the mules. Dan- 
 cing ,and Young, with small regard for loss or dam- 
 age, were emptying the wagon like deckhands, for 
 in a fight such as now appeared imminent, pos- 
 session of the goods even on the ground seemed 
 vital to prestige. McCloud waited only long 
 enough to , assure the emptying of the wagon, 
 and then followed Sinclair tg where he had assem- 
 bled his men. " Sinclair, put your men back to 
 work." 
 
 " Not till we know just how we stand," Sinclair 
 answered insolently. He continued to speak, but 
 McCloud turned to the men. " Boys, go back to 
 your work. Your boss and I can settle our own 
 differences. I'll see that you lose nothing by work- 
 ing hard." 
 
 " And you'll see we make nothing, won't you ? " 
 suggested Karg. 
 
 " I'll see that every man in the crew gets twice 
 what is coming to him — all except you, Karg. I 
 discharge you now. Sinclair, will you go back to 
 work?" 
 
 "No I" 
 
 " Then take your time. Any men that want to 
 i6 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 go back to work may step over to the switch," 
 added McCloud. 
 
 Not a man moved. Sinclair and Karg smiled 
 at each other, and with no apparent embarrassment 
 McCloud himself smiled. " I like to see men loyal 
 to their bosses," he said good-naturedly. " I 
 wouldn't give much for a man that wouldn't stick 
 to his boss if he thought him right. But a question 
 has come up here, boys, that must be settled once 
 for all. This wreck-looting on the mountain di- 
 vision is going to stop — right here — at this par- 
 ticular wreck. On that point there is no room for 
 discussion. Now, any man that agrees with me on 
 that matter may step over here and I'll discuss with 
 him any other grievance. If what I say about loot- 
 ing is a grievance, it can't be discussed. Is there 
 any man that wants to come over?" No man 
 stirred. 
 
 " Sinclair, you've got good men," continued Mc- 
 Cloud, unmoved. " You are leading them into 
 pretty deep water. There's a chance yet for you 
 to get them out of serious trouble if you think as 
 much of them as they do of you. Will you advise 
 them to go back to work — all except Karg? " 
 
 Sinclair glared in high humor. " Oh, I couldn't 
 do that I I'm discharged I " he protested, bowing 
 low. 
 
 " I don't want to be over-hasty," returned Mc- 
 
 17 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Cloud. " This is a serious business, as you know 
 better than they do, and there will never be as good 
 a time to fix it up as now. There is a chance for 
 you, I say, Sinclair, to take hold if you want to 
 now." \ 
 
 " Why, I'll take hold if you'll take your nose 
 out of my business and agree to keep it out." 
 
 " Is there any man here that wants to go back 
 to work for the company? " continued McCloud 
 evenly. It was one man against thirty; McCloud 
 saw there was not the shadow of a chance to win 
 the strikers over. " This lets all of you out, you 
 understand, boys," he added; " and you can never 
 work again for the company on this division if you 
 don't take hold now." 
 
 " Boys," exclaimed Sinclair, better-humored 
 every moment, " I'll guarantee you work on this 
 division when all the fresh superintendents are run 
 out of the country, and I'll lay this matter before 
 Bucks himself, and don't you forget it ! " 
 
 " You will have a chilly job of it," interposed 
 McCloud. 
 
 " So will you, my hearty, before you get trains 
 running past here," retorted the wrecking boss. 
 " Come on, boys." 
 
 The disaffected men drew off. The emptied 
 wagon, its load scattered on the ground, stood de- 
 serted on the hillside, and the mules drooped in the 
 
 18 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 heat. Bill Dancing, a giant and a dangerous one, 
 stood lone guard over the loot, and Young had 
 been called over by McCloud. " How many men 
 have you got with you. Reed? " 
 
 " Eleven." 
 
 " How long will it take them to clean up this 
 mess with what help we can run in this after- 
 noon ? " 
 
 Young studied the prospect before replying. 
 "They're green at this sort of thing, of course; 
 they might be fussing here till to-morrow noon, I'm 
 afraid; perhaps till to-morrow night, Mr. Mc- 
 Cloud." 
 
 " That won't do! " The two men stood for a 
 moment in a study. " The merchandise is all 
 unloaded, isn't it? " said McCloud reflectively. 
 " Get your men here and bring a water-bucket with 
 you." 
 
 McCloud walked down to the engine of the 
 wrecking train and gave orders to the train and en- 
 gine crews. The best of the refrigerator cars had 
 been rerailed, and they were pulled to a safe dis- 
 tance from the wreck. Young brought the bucket, 
 and McCloud pointed to the caskful of brandy. 
 " Throw that brandy over the wreckage, Reed." 
 
 The roadmaster started. " Burn the whole thing 
 up, eh? " 
 
 " Everything on the track." 
 19 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Bully I It's a shame to waste the liquor, but It's 
 Sinclair's fault. Here, boys, scatter this stuff where 
 it will catch good, and touch her off. Everything 
 goes — the whole pile. Burn up everything ; that's 
 orders. If you can get a few rails here, now, I'll 
 give you a track by sundown, Mr. McCloud, in 
 spite of Sinclair and the devil." 
 
 The remains of many cars lay in heaps along 
 the curve, and the trackmen like firebugs ran in 
 and out of them. A tongue of flame leaped from 
 the middle of a pile of stock cars. In five minutes 
 the wreck was burning; in ten minutes the flames 
 were crackling fiercely; then in another instant the 
 wreck burst into a conflagration that rose hissing 
 and seething a hundred feet straight up in the air. 
 
 From where they stood, Sinclair's men looked on. 
 They were nonplussed, but their boss had not 
 lost his nerve. He walked back to McCloud. 
 " You're going to send us back to Medicine Bend 
 with the car, I suppose? " 
 
 McCloud spoke amiably. *' Not on your life. 
 Take your personal stuff out of the car and tell 
 your men to take theirs ; then get off the train and 
 off the right of way." 
 
 " Going to turn us loose on Red Desert, are 
 you? " asked Sinclair steadily. 
 , " You've turned yourselves loose." 
 
 " Wouldn't give a man a tie-pass, would you? " 
 20 
 
At Smoky Creek 
 
 " Come to my office In Medicine Bend and I'll 
 talk to you about it," returned McCloud impas- 
 sively. 
 
 " Well,' boys," roared Sinclair, going back to his 
 followers, " we can't ride on this road now I But 
 I want to tell you there's something to eat for 
 every one of you over at my place on the Crawling 
 Stone, and a place to sleep — and something to 
 drink," he added, cursing McCloud once more. 
 
 The superintendent eyed him, but made no re- 
 sponse. Sinclair led his men to the wagon, and 
 they piled Into It till the box was filled. Barney 
 Rebstock had the reins again, and the mules 
 groaned as the whip cracked. Those that could 
 not climb into the wagon as it moved off straggled 
 along behind, and the air was filled with cheers and 
 curses. 
 
 The wreck burned furiously, and the column 
 of black smoke shot straight up. Sinclair, as his 
 cavalcade moved over the hill, followed on foot, 
 grimly. He was the last to cross the divide that 
 shut the scene on the track away from the strik- 
 ing wreckers, and as he reached the crest he paused 
 and looked back, standing for a moment like a 
 statue outlined In the vivid sunshine. For all his 
 bravado, something told him he should never 
 handle another wreck on the mountain divis- 
 ion — that he stood a king dethroned. Uninviting 
 
 21 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 enough to many men, this had been his kingdom, 
 and he loved the power it gave him. He had run 
 it like many a reckless potentate, but no one could 
 say he had not been royal in his work as well as in 
 his looting. It was impossible not to admire the 
 man, his tremendous capacity, his extraordinary 
 power as a leader; and no one liked his better 
 traits more than McCloud himself. But Sinclair 
 never loved McCloud. Long afterward he told 
 Whispering Smith that he made his first mistake in 
 a long and desperate game in not killing McCloud 
 when he laid his hand that morning on the bridle 
 of the mules; it would have been easy then. Sin- 
 clair might have been thinking of it even as he 
 stood looking back. But he stood only for a raxj- 
 ment, then turned and passed over the hill. 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 DICKSIE 
 
 THE wreckers, drifting in the blaze of the 
 sun across the broad alkali valley, saw the 
 smoke of the wreck-fire behind them. No breath 
 of wind stirred it. With the stillness of a signal 
 column- it rose, thin and black, and high in the air 
 spread motionless, like a huge umbrella, above 
 Smoky Creek. Reed Young had gone with an en- 
 gine to wire reenforcements, and McCloud, active 
 among the trackmen until the conflagration spent 
 itself, had retired to the shade of the hill. 
 
 Reclining against a rock with his legs crossed, 
 he had clasped his hands behind his head and sat 
 lookipg at the iron writhing in the dying heat of 
 the fire. The sound of hoofs aroused him, and 
 looking below he saw a horsewoman reining up 
 near his men at the wreck. She rode an Ameri- 
 can horse, thin and rangy, and the experienced way 
 in which she checked him drew him back almost 
 to his haunches. But McCloud's eyes were fixed 
 on the slender figure of the rider. He was wholly 
 at a loss to account, at such a time and in such a 
 
 23 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 place, for a visitor in gauntleted gloves and a 
 banded Panama hat. He studied her with grow- 
 ing amazement. Her hair coiled low on her neck 
 supported the very free roll of the hat-brim. Her 
 black riding-skirt clung to her waist to form its 
 own girdle, and her white stock, rolled high on her 
 neck, rose above a heavy shirtwaist of white linen, 
 and gave her an air of confident erectness. The 
 trackmen stopped work to look, but her attitude 
 in their gaze was one of impatience rather than of 
 embarrassment. Her boot flashed in the stirrup 
 while she spoke to the nearest man, and her horse 
 stretched his neck and nosed the brown alkali-grass 
 that spread thinly along the road. 
 
 To McCloud she was something like an ap- 
 parition. He sat spellbound until the trackman 
 indiscreetly pointed him out, and the eyes of the 
 visitor, turning his way, caught him with his hands 
 on the rock in an attitude openly curious. She 
 turned immediately away, but McCloud rose and 
 started down the hill. The horse's head was pulled 
 up, and there were signs of departure. He quick- 
 ened his steps. Once he saw, or thought he saw, 
 the rider's head so turned that her eyes might have 
 commanded one approaching from his quarter; 
 yet he could catch no further glimpse of her face. 
 A second surprise awaited him. Just as she seemed 
 about to ride away, she dropped lightly from the 
 
 24 
 
Dicksie 
 
 horse to the ground, and he saw how confident in 
 figure she was. As she began to try her saddle- 
 girths, McCloud attempted a greeting. She could 
 not ignore his hat, held rather high above his head 
 as he approached, but she gave him the slightest 
 nod in return — one that made no attempt to explain 
 why she was there or where she had come from. 
 
 " Pardon me," ventured McCloud, " have you 
 lost your way? " 
 
 He was immediately conscious that he had said 
 the wrong thing. The expression of her eyes im- 
 plied that it was foolish to suppose she was lost, 
 but she only answered, " I saw the smoke and 
 feared the bridge was on fire." 
 
 Something in her voice made him almost sorry 
 he had intervened; if she stood in need of help of 
 any sort it was not apparent, and her gaze was con- 
 fusing. He became conscious that he was at the 
 worst for an inspection; his face felt streaky with 
 smoke, his hat and shirt had suffered severely 
 in directing the fire, and his hands were black. Pie 
 said to himself in revenge that she was not pretty, 
 despite the fact that she seemed completely to take 
 away his consequence. He felt, while she inspected 
 him, like a brakeman. 
 
 "I presume Mr. Sinclair is here?" she said 
 presently. 
 
 " I am sorry to say he is not." 
 25 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " He usually has charge of the wrecks, I think. 
 What a dreadful fire ! " she murmured, looking 
 down the track. She stood beside the horse with 
 one hand resting on her girdle. Around the hand 
 that held the bridle her quirt lay coiled in the 
 folds of her glove, and, though seemingly un- 
 decided as to what to do, her composure did not 
 lessen. As she looked at the wreckage, a breath of 
 wind lifted the hair that curled around her ear. 
 The mountain wind playing on her neck had left it 
 brown, and above, the pulse of her ride rose red> 
 in her cheek. " Was it a passenger wreck? " She 
 turned abruptly on McCloud to ask the question. 
 Her eyes were brown, too, he saw, and a doubt 
 assailed him. Was she pretty ? 
 
 " Only a freight wreck," he answered. 
 
 " I thought if there were passengers hurt I 
 could send help from the ranch. Were you the 
 conductor? " 
 
 " Fortunately not." 
 
 " And no one was hurt? " 
 
 " Only a tramp. We are burning the wreck to 
 clear the track." 
 
 " From the divide it looked like a mountain on 
 fire. I'm sorry Mr. Sinclair is not here." 
 
 " Why, indeed, yes, so am I." 
 
 " Because I know him. You are one of his men, 
 I presume." 
 
 26 
 
"And whom may I say the message is from?" 
 
do- 
 
 Dicksie 
 
 "Not exactly; but is there anything I can 
 
 " Oh, thank you, nothing, except that you might 
 tell him the pretty bay colt he sent over to us has 
 sprung his shoulder." 
 
 " He will be sorry to hear it, I'm sure." 
 
 " But we are doing everything possible for him. 
 He is going to make a perfectly lovely horse." 
 
 " And whom may I say the message is from ? " 
 Though disconcerted, McCloud was regaining his 
 wits. He felt perfectly certain there was no dan- 
 ger, if she knew Sinclair and lived in the moun- 
 tains, but that she would sometime find out he was 
 not a conductor. When he asked his question 
 she appeared slightly surprised and answered 
 easily, " Mr. Sinclair will know it is from Dicksie 
 Dunning." 
 
 McCloud knew her then. Every one knew Dick- 
 sie Dunning in the high country. This was Dicksie 
 Dunning of the great Crawling Stone ranch, most 
 widely known of all the mountain ranches. While 
 his stupidity in not guessing her identity before 
 overwhelmed him, he resolved to exhaust the last 
 effort to win her interest. 
 
 " I don't know just when I shall see Mr. Sin- 
 clair," he answered gravely, " but he shall certainly 
 have your message." 
 
 A doubt seemed to steal over Dicksie at the 
 27 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 change in McCloud's manner. " Oh, pardon me 
 — I thought you were working for the company." 
 
 " You are quite right, I am; but Mr. Sinclair Is 
 not." 
 
 Her eyebrows rose a little. " I think you are 
 mistaken, aren't you? " 
 
 " It is possible I am; but if he Is working for the 
 company, it is pretty certain that I am not," he con- 
 tinued, heaping mystification on her. " However, 
 that will not prevent my delivering the message. 
 By the way, may I ask which shoulder? " 
 
 "Shoulder!" 
 
 " Which shoulder is sprung." 
 
 " Oh, of course I The right shoulder, and it is 
 sprung pretty badly, too. Cousin Lance says. How 
 very stupid of me to ride over here for a freight 
 wreck ! " 
 
 McCloud felt humiliated at having nothing bet- 
 ter worth while to offer. " It was a very bad one," 
 he ventured. 
 
 " But not of the kind I can be of any help at, I 
 fear." 
 
 McCloud smiled. " We are certainly short of 
 help." 
 
 Dicksie brought her horse's head around. She 
 felt again of the girth as she replied, " Not such 
 as I can supply, I'm afraid." And with the words 
 she stepped away, as if preparing to mount. 
 
 28 
 
Dicksie 
 
 McCloud intervened. " I hope you won't go 
 away without resting your horse. The sun is so 
 hot. Mayn't I offer you some sort of refresh- 
 ment?" 
 
 Dicksie Dunning thought not. 
 
 " The sun is very warm," persisted McCloud. 
 
 Dicksie smoothed her gauntlet in the assured 
 manner natural to her. " I am pretty well used 
 to it." 
 
 But McCloud held on. " Several cars of fruit 
 were destroyed in the wreck. I can offer you any 
 quantity of grapes — crates of them are spoiling 
 over there — and pears." 
 
 " Thank you, I am just from luncheon." 
 
 " And I have cooled water in the car. I hope 
 you won't refuse that, so far out in the desert." 
 
 Dicksie laughed a little. " Do you call this 
 far? I don't; and I don't call this desert by any 
 means. Thank you ever so much for the water, 
 but I'm not in the least thirsty." 
 
 " It was kind of you even to think of extending 
 help. I wish you would let me send some fruit 
 over to your ranch. It is only spoiling here." 
 
 Dicksie stroked the neck of her horse. "It is 
 about eighteen miles to the ranch house." 
 
 " I don't call that far." 
 
 " Oh, it isn't," she returned hastily, professing 
 not to notice the look that went with the words, 
 
 29 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " except for perishable things! " Then, as if ac- 
 knowledging her disadvantage, she added, swing- 
 ing her bridle rein around, " I am under obliga- 
 tions for the offer, just the same." 
 
 "At least, won't you let your horse drink?" 
 McCloud threw the force of an appeal into his 
 words, and Dicksie stopped her preparations and 
 appeared to waver. 
 
 " Jim is pretty thirsty, I suppose. Have you 
 plenty of water? " 
 
 " A tender full. Had I better lead him down 
 while you wait up on the hill in the shade? " 
 
 "Can't I ride him down?" 
 
 " It would be pretty rough riding." 
 
 " Oh, Jim goes anywhere," she said, with her 
 attractive indifference to situations. " If you don't 
 mind helping me mount." 
 
 " With pleasure." 
 
 She stood waiting for his hand, and McCloud 
 stood, not knowing just what to do. She glanced 
 at him expectantly. The sun grew intensely hot. 
 
 " You will have to show me how," he stammered 
 at last. 
 
 " Don't you know?" 
 
 He mentally cursed the technical education that 
 left him helpless at such a moment, but it was use- 
 less to pretend. " Frankly, I don't! " 
 
 " Just give me your hand. Oh, not in that way ! 
 30 
 
Dicksie 
 
 But never mind, I'll walk," she suggested, catch- 
 ing up her skirt. 
 
 " The rocks will cut your boots all to pieces. 
 Suppose you tell me what to do this once," he said, 
 assuming some confidence. " I'll never forget." 
 
 " Why, if you will just give me your hand for 
 my foot, I can manage, you know." 
 
 He did not know, but she lifted her skirt gra- 
 ciously, and her crushed boot rested easily for a 
 mo^ient in his hand. She rose in the air above 
 him before he could well comprehend. He felt 
 the quick spring from his supporting hand, and it 
 was an instant of exhilaration. Then she balanced 
 herself with a flushed laugh in the saddle, and he 
 guided her ahead among the loose rocks, the horse 
 nosing at his elbow as they picked their way. 
 
 Crossing the track, they gained better ground. 
 As they reached the switch and passed a box car, 
 Jim shied, and Dicksie spoke sharply to him. Mc- 
 Cloud turned. 
 
 In the shade of the car lay the tramp. 
 
 " That man lying there frightened him," ex- 
 plained Dicksie. " Oh," she exclaimed suddenly, 
 *' he has been hurt! " She turned away her head. 
 " Is that the man who was in the wreck? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do something for him. He must be suffer- 
 ing terribly." 
 
 31 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 " The men gave him some water awhile ago, 
 and when we moved him into the shade we thought 
 he was dead." 
 
 "He isn't dead yet!" Dicksie's face, still 
 averted, had grown white. " I saw him move. 
 Can't you do something for him? " 
 
 She reined up at a little distance. McCloud 
 bent over the man a moment and spoke to him. 
 When he rose he called to the men on the track. 
 " You are right," he said, rejoining Dicksie; " he 
 is very much alive. His name is Wickwire; he is 
 a cowboy." 
 
 "A cowboy!" 
 
 " A tramp cowboy." 
 
 " What can you do with him? " 
 
 " I'll have the men put him in the caboose and 
 send him to Earnhardt's hospital at Medicine 
 Bend when the engine comes back. He may live 
 yet. If he does, he can thank you for it." 
 
 32 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 GEORGE MCCLOUD 
 
 McCLOUD was an exception to every tra- 
 dition that goes to make up a mountain 
 railroad man. He was from New England, with 
 a mild voice and a hand that roughened very 
 slowly. McCloud was a classmate of Morris 
 Blood's at the Boston " Tech," and the acquaint- 
 ance begun there continued after the two left 
 school, with a scattering fire of letters between the 
 mountains and New England, as few and as far 
 between as men's letters usually scatter after an 
 ardent school acquaintance. 
 
 There were just two boys in the McCloud fam- 
 ily — John and George. One had always been in- 
 tended for the church, the other for science. Some- 
 how the boys got mixed in their cradles, or, what 
 is the same matter, in their assignments, and John 
 got into the church. For George, who ought to 
 have been a clergyman, nothing was left but a long 
 engineering course for which, after he got it, he 
 appeared to have no use. However, it seemed a 
 little late to shift the life alignments. John had 
 
 33 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 the pulpit and appeared disposed to keep it, and 
 George was left, like a New England farm, to 
 wonder what had become of himself. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, odd how matters come about. 
 John McCloud, a prosperous young clergyman, 
 stopped on a California trip at Medicine Bend to 
 see brother George's classmate and something of 
 a real Western town. He saw nothing sensational 
 — it was there, but he did not see it — ^but he found 
 both hospitality and gentlemen, and, if surprised, 
 was too well-bred to admit it. His one-day stop 
 ran on to several days. He was a guest at the 
 Medicine Bend Club, where he found men who 
 had not forgotten the Harvard Greek plays. He 
 rode in private cars and ate antelope steak grilled 
 by Glover's own darky boy, who had roasted buf- 
 falo hump for the Grand Duke Alexis as far back 
 as 1 87 1, and still hashed his browned potatoes in 
 ragtime ; and with the sun breaking clear over the 
 frosty table-lands, a ravenous appetite, and a day's 
 shooting in prospect, the rhythm had a particularly 
 cheerful sound. John was asked to occupy a Medi- 
 cine Bend pulpit, and before Sunday the fame of 
 his laugh and his marksmanship had spread so far 
 that Henry Markover, the Yale cowboy, rode in 
 thirty-two miles to hear him preach. In leaving, 
 John McCloud, in a seventh heaven of enthu- 
 siasm over the high country, asked Morris Blood 
 
 34 
 
George McCloud 
 
 why he could not find something for George out 
 there ; and Blood, not even knowing the boy wanted 
 to come, wrote for him, and asked Bucks to give 
 him a job. Possibly, being over-solicitous, George 
 was nervous when he talked to Bucks ; possibly the 
 impression left by his big, strong, bluff brother 
 John made against the boy; at all events, Bucks, 
 after he talked with George, shook his head. 
 " I could make a first-class railroad man out of the 
 preacher, Morris, but not out of the brother. Yes, 
 I've talked with him. He can't do anything but 
 figure elevations, and, by heaven, we can't feed our 
 own engineers here now." So George found him- 
 self stranded in the mountains. 
 
 Morris Blood was cut up over it, but George 
 McCloud took it quietly. " I'm no worse off here 
 than I was back there, Morris." Blood, at that, 
 plucked up courage to ask George to take a job in 
 the Cold Springs mines, and George jumped at it. 
 It was impossible to get a white man to live at Cold 
 Springs after he could save money enough to get 
 away, so George was welcomed as assistant super- 
 intendent at the Number Eight Mine, with no 
 salary to speak of and all the work. 
 
 In one year everybody had forgotten him. 
 Western men, on the average, show a higher heart 
 temperature than Eastern men, but they are toler- 
 ably busy people and have their own troubles. 
 
 35 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Be patient," Morris Blood had said to him. 
 *' Sometime there will be more railroad work in 
 these mountains; then, perhaps, your darned en- 
 gineering may come into play. I wish you knew 
 how to sell cigars." 
 
 Meantime, McCloud stuck to the mine, and in- 
 sensibly replaced his Eastern tissue with Western. 
 In New England he had been carefully moulded 
 by several generations of gentlemen, but never 
 baked hard. The mountains put the crust on him. 
 For one thing, the sun and wind, best of all hem- 
 locks, tanned his white skin into a tough all- 
 American leather, seasoned his muscles into raw- 
 hide sinews, and, without burdening him with 
 an extra ounce of flesh, sprinkled the red through 
 his blood till, though thin, he looked apoplectic. 
 
 Insensibly, too, something else came about. 
 George McCloud developed the rarest of all gifts 
 of temperament, even among men of action — the 
 ability to handle men. In Cold Springs, indeed, it 
 was a case either of handling or of being handled. 
 McCloud got along with his men and, with the 
 tough element among them, usually through per- 
 suasion; but he proved, too, that he could inspire 
 confidence even with a club. 
 
 One day, coming down " special " from Bear 
 Dance, Gordon Smith, who bore the nickname 
 Whispering Smith, rode with President Bucks in 
 
 36 
 
George McCloud 
 
 the privacy of his car. The day had been long, and 
 the alkali lay light on the desert. The business in 
 hand had been canvassed, and the troubles put aside 
 for chicken, coffee, and cigars, when Smith, who did 
 not smoke, told the story of something .he had seen 
 the day before at Cold Springs that pleased him. 
 
 The men in the Number Eight Mine had deter- 
 mined to get rid of some Italians, and after a good 
 deal of rowing had started in to catch one of them 
 and hang him. They had chosen a time when Mc- 
 Cloud, the assistant superintendent of the mine, 
 was down with mountain fever. It was he who 
 had put the Italians into the mine. He had already 
 defended them from injury, an^ would be likely, 
 it was known, to do so again if he were able. On 
 this day a mob had been chasing the Dagos, and 
 had at length captured one. They were running 
 him down street to a telegraph pole when the as- 
 sistant superintendent appeared in scant attire and 
 stopped them. Taking advantage of the momen- 
 tary confusion, he hustled their victim into the only 
 place of refuge at hand, a billiard hall. The mob 
 rushed the hall. In the farthest corner the un- 
 lucky Italian, bleeding like a bullock and in- 
 sane with fright, knelt, clinging to McCloud's 
 shaky knees. In trying to make the back door the 
 two had been cut off, and the sick boss had got 
 into a corner behind a pool-table to make his stand. 
 
 37 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 In his pocket he had a pistol, knowing that to use 
 it meant death to him as well as to the wretch he 
 was trying to save. Fifty men were yelling in the 
 room. They had rope, hatchets, a sprinkling of 
 guns, and whiskey enough to bum the town, and in 
 the corner behind a pool-table stood the mining 
 boss with mountain fever, the Dago, and a broken 
 bilhard-cue. 
 
 Bucks took the cigar from his mouth, leaned 
 forward in his chair, and stretched his heavy chin 
 out of his neck as if the situation now promised a 
 story. The leader. Smith continued, was the mine 
 blacksmith, a strapping Welshman, from whom 
 McCloud had taken the Italian in the street. 
 The blacksmith had a revolver, and was crazy with 
 liquor. McCloud singled him out in the crowd, 
 pointed a finger at him, got the attention of the 
 men, and lashed hint across the table with his 
 tongue until the blacksmith opened fire on him with 
 his revolver, McCloud all the while shaking his 
 finger at him and abusing him like a pickpocket. 
 " The crowd couldn't believe its eyes," Gordon 
 Smith concluded, " and McCloud was pushing for 
 the blacksmith with his cue when Kennedy and I 
 squirmed through to the front and relieved the ten- 
 sion. McCloud wasn't hit." 
 
 "What is that mining man's name?" asked 
 Bucks, reaching for a message clip. 
 
 38 
 
George McCloud 
 
 " McCloud." 
 
 " First name?" continued Bucks mechanically. 
 
 " George." 
 
 Bucks looked at his companion in surprise. 
 Then he spoke, and a feeling of self-abasement 
 was reflected in his words. " George McCloud," 
 he echoed. " Did you say George? Why, I must 
 know that man. I turned him down once for a 
 job. He looked so peaceable I thought he was 
 too soft for us." The president laid down his cigar 
 with a gesture of disgust. " And yet there really 
 are people along this line that think I'm clever. I 
 haven't judgment enough to operate a trolley car. 
 It's a shame to take the money they give me for 
 running this system, Gordon. Hanged if I didn't 
 think that fellow was too soft." He called the 
 flagman over. " Tell Whitmyer we will stay at 
 Cold Springs to-night." 
 
 " I thought you were going through to Medicine 
 Bend," suggested Smith as the trainman disap- 
 peared. 
 
 " McCloud," repeated Bucks, taking up his 
 cigar and throwing back his head in a cloud of 
 smoke. 
 
 "Yes," assented his companion; "but I am 
 going through to Medicine Bend, Mr. Bucks." 
 
 " Do." 
 
 "How am I to do it?" 
 39 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Take the car and send it back to-morrow on 
 Number Three." 
 
 " Thank you, if you won't need it to-night." 
 
 " I sha'n't. I am going to stay at Cold Springs 
 to-night and hunt up McCloud." 
 
 " But that man is in bed in a very bad way; you 
 can't see him. He is going to die." 
 
 " No, he isn't. I am going to hunt him up and 
 have him taken care of." 
 
 That night Bucks, in the twilight, was sitting by 
 McCloud's bed, smoking and looking him over. 
 " Don't mind me," he said when he entered the 
 room, lifted the ill-smelling lamp from the table, 
 and, without taking time to blow it out, pitched 
 it through the open window. " I heard you were 
 sick, and just looked in to see how they were taking 
 care of you. Wilcox," he added, turning to the 
 nurse he had brought In — a barber who wanted to 
 be a railroad man, and had agreed to step into the 
 breach and nurse McGloud — " have a box of 
 miner's candles sent up from the roundhouse. We 
 have some down there ; if not, buy a box and send 
 me the bill." 
 
 McCloud, who after the rioting had crawled 
 back to bed with a temperature of 105 degrees, 
 knew the barber, but felt sure that a lunatic had 
 wandered in with him, and immediately bent his 
 feeble mental energies on plans for getting rid of 
 
 40 
 
George McCloud 
 
 a dangerous man. When Bucks sat down by him 
 and continued talking at the nurse, McCloud caught 
 nothing of what was said until Bucks turned quietly 
 toward him. " They tell me, McCloud, you have 
 the fever." 
 
 The sick man, staring with sunken eyes, rose 
 half on his elbow in astonishment to look again 
 at his visitor, but Bucks eased him back with 
 an admonition to guard his strength. McCloud's 
 temperature had already risen with the excitement 
 of seeing a man throw his lamp out of the win- 
 dow. Bucks, meantime, working carefully to 
 seem unconcerned and incensing McCloud with 
 great clouds of smoke, tried to discuss his case 
 with him as he had already done with the mine 
 surgeon. McCloud, thinking it best to humor 
 a crazy man, responded quietly. " The doctor 
 said yesterday," he explained, " it was moun- 
 tain fever, and he wants to put me into an ice- 
 pack." 
 
 Bucks objected vigorously to the ice-pack. 
 
 " The doctor tells me that it is the latest treat- 
 ment for that class of fevers in the Prussian army," 
 answered McCloud feebly, but getting interested 
 in spite of himself. 
 
 " That's a good thing, no doubt, for the Prus- 
 sian army," replied Bucks, " but, McCloud, in the 
 first place, you are not a Dutchman ; in the second, 
 
 41 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 you have not got mountain fever — not in my judg- 
 
 ment." 
 
 McCloud, confident now that he had an insane 
 man on his hands, held his peace. 
 
 " Not a symptom of mountain fever," continued 
 Bucks calmly; "you have what looks to me like 
 gastritis, but the homeopaths," he added, " have 
 a better name for it. Is it stomatitis, McCloud? 
 I forget." 
 
 The sick man, confounded by such learning, de- 
 termined to try one question, and, if he was at 
 fault, to drag his gun from under his pillow and 
 sell his life as dearly as possible. Summoning his 
 waning strength, he looked hard at Bucks. " Just 
 let me ask you one question. I never saw you be- 
 fore. Are you a doctor? " 
 
 " No, I'm a railroad man; my name is Bucks." 
 McCloud rose half up in bed with amazement. 
 " They'll kill you if you lie here a week," contin- 
 ued Bucks. " In just a week. Now I'll tell you 
 my plan. I'll take you down in the morning in my 
 car to Medicine Bend; this barber will go with 
 us. There in the hospital you can get everything 
 you need, and I can make you comfortable. What 
 do you say? " 
 
 McCloud looked at his benefactor solemnly, but 
 if hope flickered for an instant in his eyes It soon 
 died. Bucks said afterward that he looked like a 
 
 42 
 
George McCloud 
 
 cold-storage squab, just pinfeathers and legs. 
 " Shave him clean," said he, " and you could have 
 counted his teeth through his cheeks." 
 
 The sick man turned his face to the wall. 
 " It's kind enough," he muttered, " but I guess it's 
 too late." 
 
 Bucks did not speak for some time. Twilight 
 had faded above the hills, and only the candle 
 lighted the room. Then the master of mountain 
 men, grizzled and brown, turned his eyes again to 
 the bed. McCloud was staring at the ceiling. 
 " We have a town of your name down on the 
 plains, McCloud," said Bucks, blowing away the 
 cigar smoke after the long silence. " It is one of 
 our division points, and a good one." 
 
 " I know the town," responded McCloud. " It 
 was named after one of our family." 
 
 " I guess not." 
 
 " It was, though," said McCloud wearily. 
 
 " I think," returned Bucks, " you must be mis- 
 taken. The man that town was named after be- 
 longed to the fighting McClouds." 
 
 " That is my family." 
 
 " Then where is your fight? When I propose to 
 put you into my car and pull you out of this, why 
 do you say it is too late? It is never too late." 
 
 McCloud made no answer, and Bucks ran on: 
 " For a man that worked out as well as you did 
 
 43 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 yesterday in a trial heat with a billiard-cue, I should 
 say you could turn a handspring or two yet if you 
 had to. For that matter, if you don't want to be 
 moved, I can run a spur in here to your door in 
 three hours in the morning. By taking out the 
 side-wall we can back the car right up to the bed. 
 Why not? Or we can stick a few hydraulic jacks 
 under the sills, raise the house, and push your bed 
 right on the observation platform." He got Mc- 
 Cloud to laughing, and lighted a fresh cigar. A 
 framed photograph hung on one of the bare walls 
 of the room, and it caught the eye of the railroad 
 man. He walked close to it, disinfected it with 
 smoke, brushed the dust from the glass, and ex- 
 amined the print. " That looks like old Van Dyne 
 College campus, hanged if it doesn't! " 
 
 McCloud was watching him. " It is a photo- 
 graph of the campus." 
 
 " McCloud, are you a Van Dyne man? " 
 
 " I did my college work there before I went to 
 Boston." 
 
 Bucks stood motionless. " Poor little old Van 
 Dyne! Why, my brother Sam taught at Van 
 Dyne. No, you would not have known him ; he's 
 dead. Never before west of the Missouri River 
 have I seen a Van Dyne man. You are the first." 
 He shook his head as he sat down again. " It is 
 crowded out now: no money, no prestige, half- 
 
 44 
 
George McCloud 
 
 starved professors with their elbows out, the presi- 
 dent working like a dog all the week and preaching 
 somewhere every Sunday to earn five dollars. 
 But, by Heaven, they turned out men I Did you 
 know Bug Robinson ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " He gave me my degree," 
 
 " Old Bug I He was Sam's closest friend, Mc- 
 Cloud. It's good to see him getting the recog- 
 nition he deserves, isn't it? Do you know, I send 
 him an annual every year? Yes, sir 1 And one year 
 I had the whole blooming faculty out here on a fos- 
 sil expedition ; but, by Heaven, McCloud, some of 
 them looked more like megatheriums than what 
 they dug up did." 
 
 " I heard about that expedition." 
 
 " I never got to college. I had to hustle. I'll 
 get out of here before I tire you. Wilcox will be 
 here'all night, and my China boy is making some 
 broth for you now. You'll feel better in the 
 morning." 
 
 Ten weeks later- McCloud was sent from Medi- 
 cine Bend up on the Short Line as trainmaster, and 
 on the Short Line he learned railroading. 
 
 " That's how I came here," said George Mc- 
 Cloud to Farrell Kennedy a long time afterward, 
 at Medicine Bend. " I had shrivelled and starved 
 three years out there in the desert. I lived with 
 those cattle underground till I had forgotten my 
 
 45 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 own people, my own name, my own face — and 
 Bucks came along one day with Whispering Smith 
 and dragged me out of my coffin. They had it or- 
 dered, and it being a small size and ' onhandy,' as 
 the undertaker said, I paid for it and told him to 
 store it for me. Well, do you think I ever could 
 forget either of those men, Farrell? " 
 
 McCloud's fortunes thus threw him first into the 
 operating department of the mountain lines, but 
 his heart was in the grades and the curves. To him 
 the interest in the trainwork was the work of the 
 locomotives toiling with the heavy loads up the 
 canyons and across the uneven plateaus and through 
 the deep gorges of the inner range, where the pant- 
 ing exhaust, choked between sheer granite walls, 
 roared in a mighty protest against the burden put 
 by the-steep grades on the patient machines. 
 
 In all the group of young men then on the moun- 
 tain division, obscure and unknown at the time, but 
 destined within so few years to be scattered far and 
 wide as constructionists with records made in the 
 rebuilding operations through the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, none was less likely to attract attention than 
 McCloud. Bucks, who, indeed, could hardly be 
 reckoned so much of the company as its head, was 
 a man of commanding proportions physically. 
 Like Glover, Bucks was a giant in stature, and 
 the two men, when together, could nowhere escape 
 
 46 
 
George McCloud 
 
 notice; they looked, In a word, their part, fitted 
 to cope with the tremendous undertakings that had 
 fallen to their lot. Callahan, the chess-player on 
 the Overland lines, the man who could hold large 
 combinations of traiEc movement constantly in his 
 head and by intuition reach the result of a given 
 problem before other men could work it out, was, 
 like Morris Blood, the master of tonnage, of mid- 
 dle age. But McCloud, when he went to the moun- 
 tain division, in youthfulness of features was boy- 
 ish, and when he left he was still a boy, bronzed, 
 but young of face in spite of a lifetime's pressure 
 and worry crowded into three years. He himself 
 counted this physical make-up as a disadvantage. 
 " It has embroiled me in no end of trouble, because 
 I couldn't convince men I was in earnest until I 
 made good in some hard way," he complained once 
 to Whispering Smith. " I never could acquire even 
 a successful habit of swearing, so I had to learn to 
 fight." 
 
 When, one day in Boney Street in Medicine 
 Bend, he threw open the door of Marion Sinclair's 
 shop, flung his hat sailing along the show-case with 
 his war-cry, and called to her in the back rooms, 
 she thought he had merely run in to say he was in 
 town. 
 
 " How do you do? What do you think? 
 You're going to have an old boarder back," he 
 
 47 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 cried. "I'm coming to Medicine Bend, superin- 
 tendent of the division ! " 
 
 "Mr. McCloudI" Marion Sinclair clasped 
 her hands and dropped into a chair. " Have they 
 made you superintendent already? " 
 
 " Well, I like that 1 Do you want them to wait 
 till I'm gray-headed? " 
 
 Marion threw her hands to her own head. 
 " Oh, don't say anything about gray hairs. My 
 head won't bear inspection. But I can't get over 
 this promotion coming so soon — this whole big 
 division! Well, I congratulate you very sin- 
 cerely " 
 
 " Oh, but that isn't it! I suppose anybody will 
 congratulate me. But where am I to board ? Have 
 you a cook ? You know how I went from bad to 
 worse after you left Cold Springs. May I have my 
 meals here with you as I used to there? " 
 
 " Why, I suppose you can, yes, if you can stand 
 the cooking. I have an apprentice, Mr. Dancing's 
 daughter, who does pretty well. She lives here 
 with me, and is learning the business. But I sha'n't 
 take as much as you used to pay me, for I'm doing 
 so much better down here." 
 
 " Let me run that end of it, will you ? I shall 
 be doing better down here myself." 
 
 They laughed as they bantered. Marion Sin- 
 clair wore gold spectacles, but they did not hide the 
 
 48 
 
George McCIoud 
 
 delightful good-nature in her eyes. On the third 
 finger of her slender left hand she wore, too, a gold 
 band that explained the gray in her hair at twenty- 
 six. 
 
 This was the wife of Murray Sinclair, whom he 
 had brought to the mountains from her far-away 
 Wisconsin home. Within a year he had broken her 
 heart so far as it lay in him to do it, but he could 
 not break her charm nor her spirit. She was too 
 proud to go back, when forced to leave him, and 
 had set about earning her own living in the country 
 to which she had come as a bride. She put on spec- 
 tacles, she mutilated her heavy brown hair and 
 to escape notice and secure the obscurity that she 
 craved, her name, Marion, became, over the door 
 of her millinery shop and in her business, only 
 " M. Sinclair." 
 
 Cold Springs, where Sinclair had first brought 
 her when he had headquarters there as foreman of 
 bridges, had proved a hopeless place for the milli-, 
 nery business — at least, in the way that Marion ran 
 it. The women that had husbands had no money to 
 buy hats with, and the women without husbands 
 wore gaudy headgear, and were of the kind that 
 made Marion's heart creep when they opened the 
 shop door. What was worse, they were inclined to 
 joke with her, as if there must be a community of 
 interest between a deserted woman and women who 
 
 49 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 had deserted womanhood. To this business Mar- 
 ion would not cater, and in consequence her milli- 
 nery affairs sometimes approached collapse. She 
 could, however, cook extraordinarily well, and, with 
 the aid of a servant-maid, could always provide for 
 a boarder or two — perhaps a railroad man or a 
 mine superintendent to whom she could serve meals, 
 and who, like all mountain men, were more than 
 generous In their accounting with women. Among 
 these standbys of hers was McCloud. McCloud 
 had always been her friend, and when she left Cold 
 Springs and moved to Medicine Bend to set up her 
 little shop in Boney Street near Fort, she had lost 
 him. Yet somehow, to compensate Marion for 
 other cruel things in the mountains, Providence 
 seemed to raise up a new friend for her wherever 
 she went. In Medicine Bend she did not know a 
 soul, but almost the first customer that walked into, 
 her shop— and she was a customer worth while — 
 was Dicksie Dunning of the Crawling Stone. 
 
 50 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CRAWLING STONE 
 
 WHERE the mountain chains of North 
 America have been flung up into a con- 
 tinental divide, the country in many of its aspects 
 is still terrible. In extent alone this mountain em- 
 pire is grandiose. The swiftest transcontinental 
 trains approaching its boundaries at night find night 
 falling again before they have fairly penetrated it. 
 Geologically severe, this region in geological store 
 is the richest of the continent; physically forbid- 
 ding beyond all other stretches of North America, 
 the Barren Land alone excepted, in this region lie 
 its gentlest valleys. Here the desert is most gro- 
 tesque, and here are pastoral retreats the most 
 secluded. It is the home of the Archean granite, 
 and its basins are of a fathomless dust. Under 
 its sagebrush wastes the skeletons of earth's hugest 
 mammals lie beside behemoth and the monsters 
 of the deep. The eternal snow, the granite peak, 
 the sandstone butte, the lava-bed, the gray desert, 
 the far horizon are familiar here. With the sun- 
 niest and bluest of skies, this is the range of the 
 
 51 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 deadliest storms, and Its delightful summers con- 
 trast with the dreadest cold. 
 
 Here the desert of death simulates a field of 
 cooling snow, green hills lie black in the dazzling 
 light of day, limpid waters run green over arsenic 
 stone, and sunset betricks the fantastic rock with 
 column and capital and dome. Clouds burst here 
 above arid wastes, and where dew is precious the 
 skies are most prodigal in their downpour. If the 
 torrent bed is dry, distrust it. 
 
 This vast mountain shed parts rivers whose 
 waters find two oceans, and their valleys are the 
 natural highways up which railroads wind to the 
 crest of the continent. To the mountain engineer 
 the waterway is the sphinx that holds in its silence 
 the riddle of his success ; with him lies the problem 
 of providing a railway across ranges which often 
 defy the hoofs of a horse. 
 
 The construction engineer studies the course of 
 the mountain water. The water Is both his ally 
 and his enemy — ally because it alone has made pos- 
 sible his undertakings; enemy because it fights to 
 destroy his puny work, just as it fights to level the 
 barriers that oppose him. Like acid spread on 
 copperplate, water etches the canyons In the moun- 
 tain slopes and spreads wide the valleys through 
 the plains. Among these scarcely known ranges 
 of the Rocky Mountain chain the Western rivers 
 
 52 
 
The Crawling Stone 
 
 have their beginnings. When white men crowded 
 the Indian from the plains he retreated to the 
 mountains, and in their valleys made his final 
 stand against the aggressor. The scroll of this 
 invasion of the mountain West by the white man 
 has been unrolled, read, and put away within 
 a hundred years, and of the agencies that made 
 possible the swiftness of the story transportation 
 overshadows all others. The first railroad put 
 across those mountains cost twenty-five thousand 
 miles of reconnolssances and fifteen thousand 
 miles of instrument surveys. Since the day of that 
 undertaking a generation of men has passed, and 
 in the interval the wilderness that those men pene- 
 trated has been transformed. The Indian no 
 longer extorts terms from his foe : he is not. 
 
 Where the tepee stood the rodman drives his 
 stakes, and the country of the great Indian rivers, 
 save one, has been opened for years to the rail- 
 road. That one is the Crawling Stone. The 
 valley of Crawling Stone River marked for more 
 than a decade the dead line between the Overland 
 Route of the white man and the last country of 
 the Sioux. It was long after the building of the 
 first line before even an engineer's reconnolssance 
 was made in the Crawling Stone country. Then, 
 within ten years, three surveys were made, two on 
 the north side of the river and one on the south 
 
 S3 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 side, by interests seeking a coast outlet. Three 
 reports made in this way gave varying estimates of 
 the expense of putting a line up the valley, but 
 the three coincided in this, that the cost would 
 be prohibitive. Engineers of reputation had in 
 this respect agreed, but Glover, who looked after 
 such work for Bucks, remained unconvinced, and 
 before McCloud was put into the operating depart- 
 ment on the Short Line he was asked by Glover to 
 run a preliminary up Crawling Stone Valley. Be- 
 fore the date of his report the conclusions reached 
 by other engineers had stood unchallenged. 
 
 The valley was not unknown to McCloud. 
 His first year in the mountains, in which, fitted as 
 thoroughly as he could fit himself for his profes- 
 sion, he had come West and found himself unable 
 to get work, had been spent hunting, fishing, and 
 wandering, often cold and often hungry, in the 
 upper Crawling Stone country. The valley in 
 itself offers to a constructionist no insuperable 
 obstacles; the difficulty is presented in the canyon 
 where the river bursts through the Elbow Moun- 
 tains. South of this canyon, McCloud, one day on 
 a hunting trip, found himself with two Indians 
 pocketed in the rough country, and was planning 
 how to escape passing a night away from camp 
 when his companions led him past a vertical wall 
 of rock a thousand feet high, split into a narrow 
 
 54 
 
The Crawling Stone 
 
 defile down which they rode, as it broadened out, 
 for miles. They emerged upon an open country 
 that led without a break into the valley of the 
 Crawling Stone below the canyon. Afterward, 
 when he had become a railroad man, McCloud, sit- 
 ting at a camp-fire with Glover and Morris Blood, 
 heard them discussing the coveted and impossible 
 line up the valley. He had been taken into the 
 circle of constructionists and was told of the earlier 
 reports against the line. He thought he knew 
 something about the Elbow Mountains, and dis- 
 puted the findings, offering in two days' ride to 
 take the men before him to the pass called by the 
 Indians The Box, and to take them through it. 
 Glover called it a find, and a big one, and though 
 more immediate matters in the strategy of terri- 
 torial control then came before him, the prelim- 
 inary was ordered and McCloud's findings were 
 approved. McCloud himself was soon after- 
 ward engrossed in the problems of operating the 
 mountain division; but the dream of his life was 
 to build the Crawling Stone Line with a maximum 
 grade of eight tenths through The Box. 
 
 The prettiest stretch of Crawling Stone Valley 
 lies within twenty miles of Medicine Bend. There 
 it lies widest, and has the pick of water and grass 
 between Medicine Bend and the Mission Moun- 
 tains. Cattlemen went into the Crawling Stone 
 
 55 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 country before the Indians had wholly left it. The 
 first house in the valley was the Stone Ranch, built 
 by Richard Dunning, and it still stands overlook- 
 ing the town of Dunning at the junction of the 
 Frenchman Creek with the Crawling Stone. The 
 Frenchman is fed by unfailing springs, and when 
 by summer sun and wind every smaller stream in 
 the middle basin has been licked dry, the French- 
 man runs cold and swift between its russet hills. 
 Richard Dunning, being on the border of the In- 
 dian country, built for his ranch-house a rambling 
 stone fortress' He had chosen, it afterward 
 proved, the choice spot in the valley, and he 
 stocked it with cattle when yearlings could be 
 picked up in Medicine Bend at ten dollars a head. 
 He got together a great body of valley land when 
 it could be had for the asking, and became the 
 rich man of the Long Range. 
 
 The Dunnings were Kentuckians. Richard was 
 a bridge engineer and builder, and under Brodie 
 built some of the first bridges on the mountain di- 
 vision, notably the great wooden bridge at Smoky 
 Creek. Richard brought out his nephew, Lance 
 Dunning. He taught Lance bridge-building, and 
 Murray Sinclair, who began as a cowboy on the 
 Stone Ranch, learned bridge-building from Richard 
 Dunning. The Dunnings both came West, though 
 at different times, as young men and unmarried, 
 
 56 
 
The Crawling Stone 
 
 and, as far as Western women were concerned, 
 might always have remained so. But a Kentucky 
 cousin, Betty, one of the Fairfield Dunnings, related 
 to Richard within the sixth or eighth degree, came 
 to the mountains for her health. Betty's mother 
 had brought Richard up as a boy, and Betty, when 
 he left Fairfield, was a baby. But Dick — as they 
 knew him at home — and the mother wrote back 
 and forth, and he persuaded her to send Betty out 
 for a trip, promising he would send her back in a 
 year a well woman. 
 
 Betty came with only her Colored maid, old 
 Puss Dunning, who had taken her from the nurse's 
 arms when she was born and taken care of her 
 ever since. The two — the tall Kentucky girl and 
 the bent mammy — arrived at the Stone Ranch 
 one day in June, and Richard, done then with 
 bridges and looking after his ranch interests, had 
 already fallen violently in love with Betty. She 
 was delicate, but, if those in Medicine Bend who 
 remembered her said true, a lovely creature. Re- 
 maining In the mountains was the last thing Betty 
 had ever thought of, but no one, man or woman, 
 could withstand Dick Dunning. She fell quite in 
 love with him the first time she set eyes on him in 
 Medicine Bend, for he was very handsome in the 
 saddle, and Betty was fairly wild about horses. So 
 Dick Dunning wooed a fond mistress and married 
 
 57 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 her and buried her, and all within hardly more 
 than a year. 
 
 But in that year they were very happy, never two 
 happier, and when she slept away her suffering she 
 left him, as a legacy, a tiny baby girl. Puss 
 brought the mite of a creature in its swaddling- 
 clothes to the sick mother, — very, very sick then, — 
 and poor Betty turned her dark eyes on it, kissed 
 it, looked at her husband and whispered " Dick- 
 sie," and died. Dicksie had been Betty's pet 
 name for her mountain lover, so the father said the 
 child's name should be Dicksie and nothing else; 
 and his heart broke and soon he died. Nothing' 
 else, storm or flood, death or disaster, had ever 
 moved Dick Dunning; then a single blow killed 
 him. He rode once in a while over the ranch, a 
 great tract by that time of twenty thousand acres, 
 all in one body, all under fence, up and down both 
 sides of the big river, in part irrigated, swarming 
 with cattle — ^none of it stirred Dick ! and with little 
 Dicksie in his arms he slept away his suffering. 
 
 So Dicksie was left, as her mother had been, to 
 Puss, while Lance looked after the ranch, swore at 
 the price of cattle, and played cards at Medicine 
 Bend. At ten, Dicksie, as thoroughly spoiled as a 
 pet baby could be by a fool mammy, a fond cousin, 
 and a galaxy of devoted cowboys, was sent, in spite 
 of crying and flinging, to a far-away convent — ^her 
 
 58 
 
The Crawling Stone 
 
 father had planned everything — where in many 
 tears she learned that there were other things in the 
 world besides cattle and mountains and sunshine 
 and tall, broad-hatted horsemen to swing from 
 their stirrups and pick her hat from the ground — 
 just to see little Dicksie laugh — ^when they swooped 
 past the house to the corrals. When she came 
 back from Kentucky, her grandmother dead and 
 her schooldays finished, all the land she could see 
 in the valley was hers, and all the living creatures 
 in the fields. It seemed perfectly natural, because 
 since childhood even the distant mountains and 
 their snows had been Dicksie's. 
 
 59 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FINAL APPEAL 
 
 SINCLAIR'S discharge was a matter of com- 
 ment for the whole country, from the ranch- 
 houses to the ranges. For a time Sinclair himself 
 refused utterly to believe that McCloud could keep 
 him off the division. His determination to get 
 back led him to carry his appeal to the highest 
 quarters, to Glover and to Bucks himself. But 
 Sinclair, able as he was, had passed the limit of 
 endurance and had long been marked for an ac- 
 counting. He had been a railroad man to whom 
 the West spelled license, and, while a valuable man, 
 had long been a source of demoralization to the 
 forces of the division. In the railroad life clearly 
 defined plans are often too deeply laid to fathom, 
 and it was impossible for even so acute a man as 
 Sinclair to realize that he was not the victim of an 
 accident, but that he must look to his own record 
 for the real explanation of his undoing. He was 
 not the only man to suffer in the shake-out that 
 took place under the new superintendent; but he 
 seemed the only one unable to realize that Bucks, 
 
 60 
 
The Final Appeal 
 
 patient and long-suffering, had put McCloud into 
 the mountain saddle expressly to deal with cases 
 such as his. In the West sympathy is quick but 
 not always discerning. Medicine Bend took Sin- 
 clair's grievance as its own. No other man in the 
 service had Sinclair's following, and within a 
 week petitions were being circulated through the 
 town not asking merely but calling for his re- 
 instatement. The sporting element of the com- 
 munity to a man were behind Sinclair because he 
 was a sport; the range men were with him because 
 his growing ranch on the Frenchman made him 
 one of them; his own men were with him because 
 he was a far-seeing pirate and divided liberally. 
 Among the railroad men, too, he had much sym- 
 pathy. Sinclair had always been lavish with pres- 
 ents; brides were remembered by Sinclair, and 
 babies were not forgotten. He could sit up all 
 night with a railroad man that had been hurt, and 
 he could play poker all night with one that was 
 not afraid of getting hurt. In his way, he was a 
 division autocrat, whose vices were varnished by 
 virtues such as these. His hold on the people was 
 so strong that they could not believe the company 
 would not reinstate him. In spite of the appoint- 
 ment of his successor, Phil Hailey, a mountain boy 
 and the son of an old-time bridge foreman, rumor 
 assigned again and again definite dates for Sin- 
 
 6i 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 clair's return to work; but the dates never materi- 
 alized. The bridge machinery of the big division 
 moved on in even rhythm. A final and determined 
 appeal from the deposed autocrat for a hear- 
 ing at last brought Glover and Morris Blood, the 
 general manager, to Medicine Bend for a final 
 conference. Callahan too was there with his pipe, 
 and they talked quietly with Sinclair — reminded 
 him of how often he had been warned, showed 
 him how complete a record they had of his plun- 
 dering, and Glover gave to him Bucks's final word 
 that he could never again work on the mountain 
 division. 
 
 A pride grown monstrous with prestige long un- 
 disputed broke under the final blow. The big fel- 
 low put his face in his hands and burst Into tears, 
 and the -men before him sat confused and uncom- 
 fortable at his outburst of feeling. It was only 
 for a moment. Sinclair raised his hand, shook his 
 long hair, and swore an oath against the company 
 and the men that curled the very smoke in Calla- 
 han's pipe. Callahan, outraged at the Insolence, 
 sprang to his feet, resenting Sinclair's fury. 
 Choking with anger he warned him not to go 
 too far. The two were ready to spring at each 
 other's throat when Farrell Kennedy stepped be- 
 tween them. Sinclair, drunk with rage, called for 
 McCloud; but he submitted quietly to Kennedy's 
 
 62 
 
The Final Appeal 
 
 reproof, and with a semblance of self-control 
 begged that McCloud be sent for. Kennedy, 
 without complying, gradually pushed Sinclair out 
 of the room and, without seeming officious, walked 
 with him down the hall and quite out of the 
 building. 
 
 63 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN Marion's shop 
 
 IN Boney Street, Medicine Bend, stands an early- 
 day row of one-story buildings; they once 
 made up a prosperous block, which has long since 
 fallen into the decay of palntless days. There is 
 in Boney Street a livery stable, a second-hand 
 store, a laundry, a bakery, a moribund grocery, 
 and a bicycle shop, and at the time of this story 
 there was also Marion Sinclair's millinery shop; 
 but the better class of Medicine Bend business, 
 such as the gambling houses, saloons, pawnshops, 
 restaurants, barber shops, and those sensitive, 
 clean-shaven, and alert establishments known as 
 " gents' stores," had deserted Boney Street for 
 many years. Bats fly In the dark of Boney Street 
 while Front Street at the same hour is a blaze of 
 electricity and frontier hilarity. The millinery store 
 stood next to the corner of Fort Street. The lot 
 lay in an " L," and at the rear of the store the 
 first owner had built a small connecting cottage to 
 live in. This faced on Fort Street, so that Mar- 
 ion had her shop and living-rooms communicating, 
 
 64 
 
In Marion's Shop 
 
 and yet apart. The store buJlding is still pointed 
 out as the former shop of Marion Sinclair, where 
 George McCloud boarded when the Crawling 
 Stone Line was built, where Whispering Smith 
 might often have been seen, where Sinclair him- 
 self was last seen alive in Medicine Bend, where 
 Dicksie Dunning's horse dragged her senseless one 
 wild mountain night, and where, indeed, for a 
 time the affairs of the whole mountain division 
 seemed to tangle in very hard knots. 
 
 As to the rnillinery business, it was never, after 
 Marion bought the shop, more than moderately 
 successful. The demand that existed in Medicine 
 Bend for red hats of the picture sort Marion de- 
 clined to recognize. For customers who sought 
 these she turned out hats of sombre coloring calcu- 
 lated to inspire gloom rather than revelry, and she 
 naturally failed to hold what might be termed the 
 miscellaneous business. But after Dicksie Dun- 
 ning of the Stone Ranch, fresh from the convent, 
 rode into the shop, or if not into it nearly so, 
 and, gliding through the door, ordered a hat 
 out of hand, Marion always had some business. 
 All Medicine Bend knew Dicksie Dunning, who 
 dressed stunningly, rode famously, and was so 
 winningly democratic that half the town never 
 called her anything, at a distance, but Dicksie. 
 
 The first hat was a small affair but haughty. 
 65 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 The materials were unheard of in Marion's stock 
 and had to be sent for. Marion's arrangements 
 with the jobbing houses always had a C. O. D. 
 complexion; the jobbers maintained that this 
 saved book-keeping, and Marion, who of course 
 never knew any better, paid the double express 
 charges like a lamb. She acted, too, as banker for 
 the other impecunious tradespeople in the block, 
 and as this included nearly all of them she was 
 often pressed for funds herself. McCloud under- 
 took sometimes to intervene and straighten out 
 her millinery affairs. One evening he went so 
 far as to attempt an inventory of her stock and 
 some schedule of her accounts; but Marion, with 
 the front-shop curtains closely drawn and Mc- 
 Cloud perspiring on a step-ladder, inspecting boxes 
 of feathers and asking stern questions, would look 
 so pathetically sweet and helpless when she tried to 
 recall what things cost that McCloud could not 
 be angry with her; indeed, the pretty eyes behind 
 the patient spectacles would disarm any one. In 
 the end he took inventory on the basis of the retail 
 prices, dividing it afterward by five, as Marion es- 
 timated the average profit In the business at five 
 hundred per cent. — this being what the woman she 
 bought out had told her. 
 
 How then, McCloud asked himself, could Mar- 
 ion be normally hard pressed for money? He 
 
 66 
 
In Marion's Shop 
 
 talked to her learnedly about fixed charges, but 
 even these seemed difficult to arrive at. There 
 was no rent, because the building belonged to the 
 railroad company, and when the real-estate and 
 tax man came around and talked to McCloud 
 about rent for the Boney Street property, McCloud 
 told him to chase himself. There was no insur- 
 ance, because no one would dream of insuring 
 Marion's stock boxes ; there were no bills payable, 
 because no travelling man would advise a line of 
 credit to an inexperienced and, what was worse, an 
 unpractical milliner. Marion did her own trim- 
 ming, so there were no salaries except to Katie 
 Dancing. It puzzled McCloud to find the leak. 
 How could he know that Marion was keeping 
 nearly all the block supplied with funds? So 
 McCloud continued to raise the price of his table- 
 board, and, though Marion insisted he was paying 
 her too much, held that he must be eating her out 
 of house and home. 
 
 In her dining-room, which connected through a 
 curtained door with the shop, McCloud sat one 
 day alone eating his dinner. Marion was in front 
 serving a customer. McCloud heard voices in 
 the shop, but gave no heed till a man walked 
 through the curtained doorway and he saw Mur- 
 ray Sinclair standing before him. The stormy in- 
 terview with Callahan and Blood at the Wickiup 
 
 67 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 had taken place just a week before, and McCloud, 
 after what Sinclair had then threatened, though 
 not prepared, felt as he saw him that anything 
 might occur. McCloud being in possession of the 
 little room, however, the initiative fell on Sinclair, 
 who, looking his best, snatched his hat from his 
 head and bowed ironically. " My mistake," he 
 said blandly. 
 
 " Come right in," returned McCloud, not know- 
 ing whether Marion had a possible hand in 
 her husband's unexpected appearance. ' " Do you 
 want to see me? " 
 
 " I don't," smiled Sinclair; " and to be perfectly 
 frank," he added with studied consideration, " I 
 wish to God I never had seen you. Well — you've 
 thrown me, McCloud." 
 
 " You've thrown yourself, haven't you, Mur- 
 ray?" 
 
 " From your point of view, of course. But, 
 McCloud, this is a small country for two points of 
 view. Do you want to get out of it, or do you 
 want me to ? " 
 
 " The country suits me, Sinclair." 
 
 " No man that has ever played me dirt can 
 stay here while I stay." Sinclair, with a hand on 
 the portiere, was moving from the doorway into 
 the room. McCloud in a leisurely way rose, 
 though with a slightly flushed face, and at that 
 
 68 
 
In Marion's Shop 
 
 juncture Marion ran into the room and spoke 
 abruptly. " Here is the silk, Mr. Sinclair," she 
 exclaimed, handing to him a package she had not 
 finished wrapping. " I meant you to wait in the 
 other room." 
 
 " It was an accidental intrusion," returned Sin- 
 clair, maintaining his irony. " I have apologized, 
 and Mr. McCloud and I understand one another 
 better than ever." 
 
 " Please say to Miss Dunning," continued Mar- 
 ion, nervous and insistent, " that the band for her 
 riding-hat hasn't come yet, but it should be here 
 to-morrow." 
 
 As she spoke McCloud leaned across the table, 
 resolved to take advantage of the opening, if it 
 cost him his life. " And |by the way, Mr. Sinclair, 
 Miss Dunning wished me to say to you that the 
 lovely bay colt you sent her had sprung his shoul- 
 der badly, the hind shoulder, I think, but they are 
 doing everything possible for it and they think it 
 will make a great horse." 
 
 Sinclair's snort at the information was a mar- 
 vel of indecision. Was he being made fun of? 
 Should he draw and end it? But Marion faced 
 him resolutely as he stood, and talking in the most 
 business-like way she backed him out of the room 
 and to the shop door. Balked of his opportunity, 
 he retreated stubbornly but with the utmost po- 
 
 69 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 liteness, and left with a grin, lashing his tail, so 
 to speak. 
 
 Coming back, Marion tried to hide her uneasi- 
 ness under even tones to McCloud. " I'm sorry 
 he disturbed you. I was attending to a customer 
 and had to ask him to wait a moment." 
 
 " Don't apologize for having a customer." 
 
 " He lives over beyond the Stone Ranch, you 
 know, and is taking some things out for the Dun- 
 nings to-day. He likes an excuse to come in here 
 because it annoys me. Finish your dinner, Mr. 
 McCloud." 
 
 " Thank you, I'm done." 
 
 " But you haven't eaten anything. Isn't your 
 steak right?" 
 
 " It's fine, but that man — well, you know how I 
 like him arid how he likes me. I'll content myself 
 with digesting my temper." 
 
 70 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SMOKY CREEK BRIDGE 
 
 IT was not alone that a defiance makes a bad din- 
 ner sauce : there was more than this for Mc- 
 Cloud to feed on. He was forced to confess to 
 himself as he walked back to the Wickiup that the 
 most annoying feature of the incident was the least 
 important, namely, that his only enemy in the coun- 
 try should be intrusted with commissions from the 
 Stone Ranch and be carrying packages for Dicksie 
 Dunning. It was Sinclair's trick to do things for 
 people, and to make himself so useful that they 
 must like first his obligingness and afterward him- 
 self. Sinclair, McCloud knew, was close in many 
 ways to Lance Dunning. It was said to have been 
 his influence that won Dunning's consent to sell a 
 right of way across the ranch for the new Crawling 
 Stone Line. But McCloud felt it useless to disguise 
 the fact to himself that he now had a second keen 
 interest in the Crawling Stone country — not alone 
 a dream of a line, but a dream of a girl. Sitting 
 moodily in his office, with his feet on the desk, a 
 few nights after his encounter with Sinclair, he 
 
 71 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 recalled her nod as she said good-by. It had 
 seemed the least bit encouraging, and he meditated 
 anew on the only twenty minutes of real pleasur- 
 able excitement he had ever felt in his life, the 
 twenty minutes with Dicksie Dunning at Smoky 
 Creek. Her intimates, he had heard, called her 
 Dicksie, and he was vaguely envying her intimates 
 when the night despatcher, Rooney Lee, opened the 
 door and disturbed his reflections. 
 
 "How is Number One, Rooney?" called Mc- 
 Cloud, as if nothing but the thought of a 
 train movement ever entered his head. 
 
 Rooney Lee paused. In his hand he held a mes- 
 sage. Rooney's cheeks were hollow and his sunken 
 eyes were large. His face, which was singularly 
 a night face, would shock a stranger, but any man 
 on the division would have given his life for 
 Rooney. The simple fellow had but two living 
 interests — his train-sheets and his chewing tobacco. 
 Sometimes I think that every railroad man earns 
 his salary — even the president. But Rooney was 
 a Past Worthy Master in that unnumbered lodge 
 of railroad slaves who do killing work and have 
 left, when they die, only a little tobacco to show 
 for it. It was on Rooney's account that Mc- 
 Cloud's order banishing cuspidors from his office 
 had been rescinded. A few evenings of agony 
 on the despatcher's part when in consultation 
 
 72 
 
Smoky Creek Bridge 
 
 with his chief, the mournful wandering of his 
 uncomplaining eyes, his struggle to raise an ob- 
 stinate window before he could answer a ques- 
 tion, would have moved a heart harder than 
 McCIoud's. The cuspidor had been restored to 
 one corner of the large room, and to this comer 
 Rooney, like a man with a jaw full of birdshot, al- 
 ways walked first. When he turned back to face his 
 chief his face had lost its haunted expression, and he 
 answered with solemn cheer, " On time," or 
 " Fourteen minutes late," as the case might be. 
 This night his face showed something out of the 
 ordinary, and he faced McCloud with evident un- 
 easiness. " Holy smoke, Mr. McCloud, here's a 
 ripper ! We've lost Smoky Creek Bridge." 
 
 "Lost Smoky Creek Bridge?" echoed Mc- 
 Cloud, rising in amazement. 
 
 " Burned to-night. Seventy-seven was flagged 
 by the man at the pump station." 
 
 " That's a tie-up for your life! " exclaimed Mc- 
 Cloud, reaching for the message. " How could it 
 catch fire ? Is it burned up ? " 
 
 " I can't get anything on that yet; this came 
 from Canby. I'll have a good wire in a few min- 
 utes and get it all for you." 
 
 " Have Phil Hailey and Hyde notified, Rooney, 
 and Reed and Brill Young, and get up a train. 
 Smoky Creek Bridge 1 By heavens, we are ripped 
 
 73 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 up the back now I What can we do there, 
 Rooney? " He was talking to himself. " There 
 isn't a thing for it on God's earth but switchbacks 
 and five-per-cent. grades down to the bottom of the 
 creek and cribbing across it till the new line is 
 ready. Wire Callahan and Morris Blood, and get 
 everything you can for me before we start." 
 
 Ten hours later and many huiidreds of miles 
 from the mountain division, President Bucks and a 
 companion were riding in the peace of a June morn- 
 ing down the beautiful Mohawk Valley with an 
 earlier and illustrious railroad man, William C. 
 Brown. The three men were at breakfast in 
 Brown's car. A message was brought in for Bucks. 
 He read it and passed it to his companion. Whis- 
 pering Smith, who sat at Brown's left hand. The 
 message was from Callahan with the news of the 
 burning of Smoky Creek Bridge. Details were 
 few, because no one on the West End could sug- 
 gest a plausible cause for the fire. 
 
 " What do you think of it, Gordon? " demanded 
 Bucks bluntly. 
 
 Whispering Smith seemed at all times bordering 
 on gOod-natured surprise, and. in that normal con- 
 dition he read Callahan's message. Everything 
 surprised Whispering Smith, even his salary; but 
 an important consequence was that nothing ex- 
 cited him. He seemed to accommodate himself 
 
 74 
 
Smoky Creek Bridge 
 
 to the unexpected through habitual surprise. It 
 showed markedly in his eyes, which were bright 
 and quite wide open, and, save for his eyes, no fea- 
 ture about him would fix itself in the memory. His 
 round, pleasant face, his heavy brown mustache, the 
 medium build that concealed under its common- 
 place symmetry an unusual strength, his slightly 
 rounding shoulders bespeaking a not too serious 
 estimate of himself — every characteristic, even to 
 his unobtrusive suit and black hat, made him dis- 
 tinctly an ordinary man — one to be met in the 
 street to-day and passed, and forgotten to-morrow. 
 
 He was laughing under Bucks's scrutiny when he 
 handed the message back. " Why, I don't know 
 a thing about it, not a thing ; but taking a long shot 
 and speaking by and far, I should say it looks 
 something like first blood for Sinclair," he sug- 
 gested, and to change the subject lifted his cup of 
 coffee. 
 
 " Then it looks like you for the mountains to- 
 night instead of for Weber and Fields's," retorted 
 Bucks, reaching for a cigar. " Brown, why have ' 
 you never learned to smoke ? " 
 
 75 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MISUNDERSTANDING 
 
 NO attempt was made to minimize the truth 
 that the blow to the division was a stagger- 
 ing one. The loss of Smoky Creek Bridge put 
 almost a thousand miles of the mountain division 
 out of business. Perishable freight and time freight 
 were divertbd to other lines. Passengers were 
 transferred ; lunches were served to them in the deep 
 valley, and they were supplied by an ingenuous ad- 
 vertising department with pictures of the historic 
 bridge as it had long stood, and their addresses 
 were taken with the promise of a picture of the 
 ruins. Smoky Creek Bridge had long been famous 
 in mountain song and story. For one generation 
 of Western railroad men it had stood as a monu- 
 'ment to the earliest effort to conquer the Rockies 
 with a railroad. Built long before the days of 
 steel, this high and slender link in the first transcon- 
 tinental line had for thirty years served faithfully 
 at its danger-post, only to fall in the end at the 
 hands of a bridge assassin ; nor has the mystery of 
 its fate ever completely been solved, though 
 
 76 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 it is believed to lie with Murray Sinclair in the 
 Frenchman hills. The engineering department 
 and the operating department united in a tremen- 
 dous effort to bring about a resumption of traffic. 
 Glover's men, pulled off construction, were sent 
 forward in trainloads. Dancing's linemen strung 
 arc-lights along the creek until the canyon twinkled 
 at night like a mountain village, and men in three 
 shifts worked elbow to elbow unceasingly to run 
 the switchbacks down to the creek-bed. There, 
 by cribbing across the bottom, they got in a 
 temporary line. 
 
 Train movement was thrown into a spectacle of 
 confusion. Upon the incessant and well-ordered 
 activities of the road the burning of the bridge fell 
 like the heel of a heavy boot on an ant-hill; but the 
 railroad men like ants rose to the emergency, and, 
 where the possible failed, achieved the impossible. 
 
 McCloud spent his days at the creek and his 
 nights at Medicine Bend with his assistant and his 
 chief despatcher, advising, counselling, studying 
 out trouble reports, and steadying wherever he 
 could the weakened lines of his operating forces. 
 He was getting his first taste of the trials of the 
 hardest-worked and poorest-paid man in the op- 
 erating department of a railroad — the division 
 superintendent. 
 
 To these were added personal annoyances. A 
 77 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 trainload of Duck' Bar steers, shipped by Lance 
 Dunning from the Crawling Stone Ranch, had been 
 caught west of the bridge the very night of the 
 fire. They had been loaded at Tipton and shipped 
 to catch a good market, and under extravagant 
 promises from the live-stock agent of a quick run 
 to Chicago. When Lance Dunning learned that 
 his cattle had been caught west of the break and 
 would have to be unloaded, he swore up a horse in 
 hot haste and started for Medicine Bend. Mc- 
 Cloud, who had not closed his eyes for sixty hours, 
 had just got into Medicine Bend from Smoky 
 Creek and was sitting at his desk buried in a mass 
 of papers, but he ordered the cattleman admitted. 
 He was, in fact, eager to meet the manager of the 
 big ranch and the cousin of Dicksie. Lance Dun- 
 ning stood above six feet in height, and was a hand- 
 some man, in spite of the hard lines around his 
 eyes, as he walked in ; but neither his manner nor 
 his expression was amiable. 
 
 " Are you Mr. McCloud? I've been here three 
 times this afternoon to see you," said he, ignoring 
 McCloud's answer and a proffered chair. " This 
 is your office, isn't it? " 
 
 McCloud, a little surprised, answere.d again 
 and civilly: " It certainly is; but I have been at 
 Smoky Creek for two or three days." 
 
 " What have you done with my cattle? " 
 78 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 " The Duck Bar train was run back to Point of 
 Rocks and the cattle were unloaded at the yard." 
 
 Lance Dunning spoke with increasing harshness : 
 " By whose order was that done? Why wasn't 
 I notified? Have they had feed or water? " 
 
 " All the stock caught west of the bridge was 
 sent back for feed and water by my orders. It 
 has all been taken care of. You should have been 
 notified, certainly; it is the business of the stock 
 agent to see to that. Let me inquire about it while 
 you are here, Mr. Dunning," suggested McCloud, 
 ringing for his clerk. 
 
 Dunning lost no time in expressing himself. " I 
 don't want my cattle held at Point of Rocks I " he 
 said angrily. " Your Point of Rocks yards are 
 Infected. My cattle shouldn't have been sent 
 there." 
 
 " Oh, no I The old yards where they had a 
 touch of fever were burned off the face of the earth 
 a year ago. The new yards are perfectly sanitary. 
 The loss of the bridge has crippled us, you know. 
 Your cattle are being well cared for, Mr. Dunning, 
 and if you doubt it you may go up and give our 
 men any orders you like in the matter at our 
 expense." 
 
 " You're taking altogether too much on your- 
 self when you run my stock over the country in this 
 way," exclaimed Dunning, refusing to be placated. 
 
 79 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " How am I to get to Point of Rocks — walk 
 there?" 
 
 " Not at all," returned McCloud, ringing up 
 his clerk and asking for a pass, which was brought 
 back in a moment and handed to Dunning. " The 
 cattle," continued McCloud, " can be run down, 
 unloaded, and driven around the break to-morrow 
 — with the loss of only two days." 
 
 " And in the meantime I lose my market." 
 
 " It is too bad, certainly, but I suppose it will be 
 several days before we can get a line across Smoky 
 Creek." 
 
 " Why weren't the cattle sent through that way 
 yesterday? What have they been held at Point 
 of Rocks for? I call the thing badly managed." 
 
 " We couldn't get the empty cars up from Pied- 
 mont for the transfer until to-day; empties are 
 very scarce everywhere now." 
 
 " There always have been empties here when 
 they were wanted until lately. There's been no 
 head or tail to anything on this division for six 
 months." 
 
 " I'm sorry that you have that impression." 
 
 " That impression is very general," declared the 
 stockman, with an oath, " and if you keep on dis- 
 charging the only men on this division that are 
 competent to handle a break like this, it is likely to 
 continue I " 
 
 80 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 "Just a moment I" McCloud's finger rose 
 pointedly. " My failure to please you in caring 
 for your stock in an emergency may be prop- 
 erly a matter for comment; your opinion as to 
 the way I am running this division is, of course, 
 your own: but don't attempt to criticise the re- 
 tention or discharge of any man on my pay- 
 roll! " 
 
 Dunning strode toward him. " I'm a shipper 
 on this line ; when it suits me to criticise you or your 
 methods, or anybody else's, I expect to do so," he 
 retorted in high tones. 
 
 " But you cannot tell me how to run my busi- 
 ness ! " thundered McCloud, leaning over the table 
 in front of him. 
 
 As the two men glared at each other Rooney 
 Lee opened the door. His surprise at the situa- 
 tion amounted to consternation. He shuffled to 
 the corner of the room, and while McCloud and 
 Dunning engaged hotly again, Rooney, from the 
 corner, threw a shot of his own into the quarrel. 
 " On time I " he roared. 
 
 The angry men turned. "What's on time?" 
 asked McCloud curtly. 
 
 " Number One; she's in and changing engines. 
 I told them you were going West," declared 
 Ropney in so deep tones that his fiction would 
 never have been suspected. If his cue had been, 
 
 8i 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " My lord, the conductor waits," it could not have 
 been rung in more opportunely. 
 
 Dunning, to emphasize, without a further word, 
 his disgust for the situation and his contempt for 
 the management, tore into scraps the pass that had 
 been given him, threw the scraps on the floor, took 
 a cigar from his pocket and lighted it; insolence 
 could do no more. 
 
 McCloud looked over at the despatcher. " No, 
 I am not going West, Rooney. But if you will be 
 good enough to stay here and find out from this 
 man just how this railroad ought' to be run, I will 
 go to bed. He can tell you ; the microbe seems to 
 be working in his mind right now," said McCloud, 
 slamming down the roll-top of his desk. And 
 with Lance Dunning glaring at him, somewhat 
 speechless, he put on his hat and walked out of 
 the room. 
 
 It was but one of many disagreeable incidents 
 due to the loss of the bridge. Complications aris- 
 ing frbm the tie-up followed him at every turn. It 
 seemed as if he could not get away from trouble 
 following trouble. After forty hours further of toil, 
 relieved by four hours of sleep, McCloud found 
 himself, rather dead than alive, back at Medicine 
 Bend and in the little dining-room at Marion's. 
 Coming in at the cottage door on Fort Street, he 
 dropped into a chair. The cottage rooms were 
 
 82 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 empty. He heard Marion's voice in the front 
 shop ; she was engaged with a customer. Putting 
 his head on the table to wait a moment, nature 
 asserted itself and McCIoud fell asleep. He woke 
 hearing a voice that he had heard in dreams. Per- 
 haps no other voice could have wakened him, for 
 he slept for a few minutes a death-like sleep. At 
 all events, Dicksie Dunning was in the front room 
 and McCloud heard her. She was talking with 
 Marion about the burning of Smoky Creek Bridge. 
 " Every one is talking about it yet," Dicksie was 
 saying. " If I had lost my best friend I couldn't 
 have felt worse ; you know, my father built it. I 
 rode over there the day of the fire, and down into 
 the creek, so I could look up where it stood. I 
 never realized before how high and how long it 
 was; and when I remembered how proud father 
 always was of his work there — Cousin Lance has 
 often told me — I sat down right on the ground and 
 cried. Really, the ruins were the most pathetic 
 thing you ever saw, Marion, with great clouds of 
 smoke rolling up from the canyon that day; the 
 place looked so lonely when I rode away that every 
 time I turned to look back my eyes filled with tears. 
 Poor daddy I I am almost glad he didn't live to 
 see it. How times have changed in railroading, 
 haven't they? Mr. Sinclair was over just the 
 other night, and he said if they kept using this new 
 
 83 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 coal in the engines they would burn up everything 
 on the division. Do you know, I have been wait- 
 ing in town three or four hours now for Cousin 
 Lance? I feel almost like a tramp. He is com- 
 ing from the West with the stock train. It was due 
 here hours ago, but they never seem to know when 
 anything is to get here the way things are run on 
 the railroad now. I want to give Cousin Lance 
 some mail before he goes through." 
 
 " The passenger trains crossed the creek over 
 the switchbacks hours ago, and they say the emer- 
 gency grades are first-rate," said Marion Sinclair, 
 on the defensive. " The stock trains must have 
 followed right along. Your cousin is sure to be 
 here pretty soon. Probably Mr. McCloud will 
 know which train he is on, and Mr. Lee telephoned 
 that Mr. McCloud would be over here at three 
 o'clock for his dinner. He ought to be here now." 
 
 " Oh, dear, then I must go! " 
 
 " But he can probably tell you just when your 
 cousin will be in." 
 
 " I wouldn't meet him for worlds 1 " 
 
 "You wouldn't? Why, Mr. McCloud is de- 
 lightful." 
 
 " Oh, not for worlds, Marion ! You know he 
 is discharging all the best of the older men, the 
 men that have made the road everything it is, and 
 of course we can't help sympathizing with them 
 
 84 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 over our way. For my part, I think it is terrible, 
 after a man has given all of his life to building up 
 a railroad, that he should be thrown out to starve 
 in that way by new managers, Marion." 
 
 McCloud felt himself shrinking within his weary 
 clothes. Resentment seemed to have died. He 
 felt too exhausted to undertake controversy, even 
 if it were to be thought of, and it was not. 
 
 Nothing further was needed to complete his 
 humiliation. He picked up his hat and with the 
 thought of getting out as quietly as he had come 
 in. In rising he swept a tumbler at his elbow from 
 the table. The glass broke on the floor, and Mar- 
 ion exclaimed, "What is that?" and started for 
 the dining-room. 
 
 It was too late to get away. McCloud stepped 
 to the portieres of the trimming-room door and 
 pushed them aside. Marion stood with a hat in 
 her hand, and Dicksie, sitting at the table, was 
 looking directly at the intruder as he appeared in 
 the doorway. She saw in him her pleasant ac- 
 quaintance of the wreck at Smoky Creek, whose 
 name she had not learned. In her surprise she 
 rose to her feet, and Marion spoke quickly : " Oh, 
 Mr. McCloud, is it you? I did not hear you 
 come in." 
 
 Dicksie's face, which had lighted, became a 
 spectacle of confusion after she heard the name. 
 
 85 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 McCloud, conscious of the awkwardness of his 
 position and the disorder of his garb, said the 
 worst thing at once : " I fear I am inadvertently 
 overhearing your conversation." 
 
 He looked at Dicksie as he spoke, chiefly be- 
 cause he could not help it, and this made matters 
 hopeless. 
 
 She flushed more deeply. " I cannot conceive 
 why our conversation should invite a listener." 
 
 Her words did not, of course, help to steady 
 him. " I tried to get away," he stammered, 
 " when I realized I was a part of it." 
 
 " In any event," she exclaimed hastily, " if you 
 are Mr. McCloud I think It unpardonable to do 
 anything like that! " 
 
 " I am Mr. McCloud, though I should rather 
 be anybody else ; and I am sorry that I was unable 
 to help hearing what was said; I " 
 
 " Marion, will you be kind enough to give me 
 my gloves? " said Dicksie, holding out her hand. 
 
 Marion, having tried once or twice to Intervene, 
 stood between the firing-lines In helpless amaze- 
 ment. Her exclamations were lost ; the two before 
 her gave no heed to ordinary intervention. 
 
 McCloud flushed at being cut off, but he bowed. 
 " Of course," he said, " If you will listen to no 
 explanation I can only withdraw." 
 
 He went back, dinnerless, to work all night; 
 86 
 
The Misunderstanding 
 
 but the switchbacks were doing capitally, and all 
 night long, trains were rolling through Medicine 
 Bend from the West in an endless string. In the 
 morning the yard was nearly cleared of westbound 
 tonnage. Moreover, the mail in the morning 
 brought compensation. A letter came from Glover 
 telling him not to worry himself to death over the 
 tie-up, and one came from Bpcks telling him to 
 make ready for the building of the Crawling Stone 
 Line. 
 
 McCloud told Rooney Lee that if anybody 
 asked for him to report him dead, and going to 
 bed slept twenty-four hours. 
 
 87 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SWEEPING ORDERS 
 
 THE burning of Smoky Creek Bridge was 
 hardly off the minds of the mountain men 
 when a disaster of a different sort befell the di- 
 vision. In the Rat Valley east of Sleepy Cat the 
 main line springs between two ranges of hills with 
 a dip and a long supported grade in each direction. 
 At the point of the dip there is a switch from 
 which a spur runs to a granite quarry. The track 
 for two miles is straight and the switch-target and 
 lights are seen easily from either direction save 
 at one particular moment of the day — a moment 
 which is in the valley neither quite day nor 
 quite night. Even this disadvantage occurs to 
 trains east-bound only, because due to unusual 
 circumstances. When the sun in a burst of dawn- 
 ing glory shows itself above the crest of the 
 eastern range an engineman, east-bound, may be 
 so blinded by the rays streaming from the rising 
 sun that he cannot see the switch at the foot of 
 the grade. For these few moments he is helpless 
 should anything be wrong with the quarry switch. 
 
 88 
 
Sweeping Orders 
 
 Down this grade, a few weeks after the Smoky 
 Creek fire, came a double-headed stock train from 
 the Short Line with forty cars of steers. The 
 switch stood open ; this much was afterward abun- 
 dantly proved. The train came down the grade 
 very fast to gain speed for the hill ahead of it. 
 The head engineman, too late, saw the open tar- 
 get. He applied the emergency air, threw his 
 engine over, and whistled the alarm. The mighti- 
 est efforts of a dozen engines would have been 
 powerless to check the heavy train. On the quarry 
 track stood three flat cars loaded with granite 
 blocks for the abutment of the new Smoky Creek 
 Bridge. On a sanded track, rolling at thirty miles 
 an hour and screaming in the clutches of the 
 burning brakes, the heavy engines struck the switch 
 like an avalanche, reared upon the granite-laden 
 flats, and with forty loads of cattle plunged into 
 the canyon below ; not a car remained on the rails. 
 The head brakeman, riding in the second cab, was 
 instantly killed, and the engine crews, who jumped, 
 were badly hurt. 
 
 The whole operating department of the road 
 was stirred. What made the affair more dreadful 
 was that it had occurred on the time of Num- 
 ber Six, the east-bound passenger train, held that 
 morning at Sleepy Cat by an engine failure. 
 Glover came to look into the matter. The testi- 
 
 89 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 mony of all tended to one conclusion — that the 
 quarry switch had been thrown at some time be- 
 tween four-thirty and five o'clock that morning. 
 Inferences were many: tramps during the early 
 summer had been unusually troublesome and many 
 of them had been rigorously handled by trainmen ; 
 robbery might have been a motive, as the express 
 cars on train Number Six carried heavy specie ship- 
 ments from the coast. 
 
 Yet a means so horrible as well as so awkward 
 and ineffective seemed unlike mountain outlaws. 
 Strange men from headquarters were on the 
 ground as soon as they could reach the wreck, men 
 from the special-service department, and a stock 
 Inspector who greatly resembled Whispering 
 Smith was on the ground looking into the brands 
 of the wrecked cattle. Glover was much In con- 
 sultation with him, and there were two or three 
 of the division men, such as Anderson, Young, Mc- 
 Cloud, and Lee, who knew him but could answer 
 no inquiries concerning his long stay at the wreck. 
 
 A third and more exciting event soon put the 
 quarry wreck into the background. Ten days 
 afterward an east-bound passenger train was 
 flagged in the night at Sugar Buttes, twelve miles 
 west of Sleepy Cat. When the heavy train slowed 
 up, two men boarded the engine and with pistols 
 compelled the engineman to cut off the express 
 
 90 
 
Sweeping Orders 
 
 cars and pull them to the water-tank a mile 
 east of the station. Three men there in waiting 
 forced the express car, blew open the safe, and the 
 gang rode away half an hour later loaded with 
 gold coin and currency. 
 
 Had a stick of dynamite been exploded under 
 the Wickiup there could not have been more ex- 
 citement at Medicine Bend. Within three hours 
 after the news reached the town a posse under 
 Sheriff Van Horn, with a carload of horseflesh and 
 fourteen guns, was started for Sugar Buttes. The 
 trail led north and the pursuers rode until nearly 
 nightfall. They crossed Dutch Flat and rode 
 single file into a wooded canyon, where they came 
 upon traces of a camp-fire. Van Horn, leading, 
 jumped from his horse and thrust his hand into 
 the ashes ; they were still warm, and he shouted to 
 his men to ride up. As he called out, a rifle 
 cracked from the box-elder trees ahead of him. 
 The sheriff fell, shot through the head, and a 
 deputy springing from his saddle to pick him up 
 was shot in precisely the same way, through the 
 head. The riderless horses bolted; the posse, 
 thrown into a panic, did not fire a shot, and for an 
 hour dared not ride back for the bodies. After 
 dark they got the two dead men and at midnight 
 rode with them into Sleepy Cat. 
 
 When the news reached McCloud he was talk- 
 91 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 ing with Bucks over the wires. Bucks had got into 
 headquarters at the river late that night, and was 
 getting details from McCloud of the Sugar Buttes 
 robbery when the superintendent sent him the news 
 of the killing of Van Horn and the deputy. In 
 the answer that Bucks sent came a name new to 
 the wires of the mountain division and rarely seen 
 even in special correspondence, but Hughie Morri- 
 son, who took the message, never forgot that name ; 
 indeed, it was soon to be thrown sharply into the 
 spotlight of the mountain railroad stage. Hughie 
 repeated the message to get it letter-perfect; to 
 handle stuff at the Wickiup signed " J. S. B." was 
 like handling diamonds on a jeweller's tongs or 
 arteries on a surgeon's hook ; and, in truth, Bucks's 
 words were the arteries and pulse-beat of the 
 mountain division. Hughie handed the message 
 to McCloud and stood by while the superintendent 
 read : 
 
 Whispering Smith is due in Cheyenne to-morrow. Meet 
 him at the Wickiup Sunday morning; he has fiill authority. I 
 have told him to get these fellows, if it takes all the money in 
 the treasury, and not to stop till he cleans them out of the Rocky 
 Mountains. J. S. B. 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 AT THE THREE HORSES 
 
 GLEAN them out of the Rocky Mountains; 
 that is a pretty good contract," mused the 
 man in McCloud's office on Sunday morning. He 
 sat opposite McCloud in Bucks's old easy chair and 
 held in his hand Bucks's telegram. As he spoke 
 he raised his eyebrows and settled back, but the 
 unusual depth of the chair and the shortness of his 
 legs left his chin helpless in his black tie, so that 
 he was really no better ofF except that he had 
 changed one position of discomfort for another. 
 " I wonder, now," he mused, sitting forward again 
 as McCloud watched him, " I wonder — ^you know, 
 George, the Andes are, strictly speaking, a part of 
 the great North American chain — whether Bucks 
 meant to include the South American ranges in that 
 message ? " and a look of mildly good-natured 
 anticipation overspread his face. 
 
 *' Suppose you wire him and find out," sug- 
 gested McCloud. 
 
 " No, George, no ! Bucks never was accurate 
 in geographical expressions. Besides, he is shifty 
 
 93 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 and would probably cover his tracks by telling me 
 to report progress when I got to Panama." 
 
 A clerk opened the outer office door. " Mr. 
 Dancing asks if he can see you, Mr. McCloud." 
 
 " Tell him 1 am busy." 
 
 Bill Dancing, close on the clerk's heels, spoke for 
 himself. " I know it, Mr. McCloud, I know it ! " 
 he interposed urgently, " but let me speak to you 
 just a moment." Hat in hand, Bill, because no one 
 would knock him down to keep him out, pushed into 
 the room. " I've got a plan," he urged, " in 
 regards to getting these hold-ups." 
 
 "How are you. Bill?" exclaimed the man in 
 the easy chair, jumping hastily to his feet and 
 shaking Dancing's hand. Then quite as hastily 
 he sat down, crossed his knees violently, stared at 
 the giant lineman, and exclaimed, " Let's have 
 it I" 
 
 Dancing looked at him in silence and with some 
 contempt. The trainmaster had broken in on the 
 superintendent for a moment and the two were 
 conferring in an undertone. " What might your 
 name be, mister? " growled Dancing, addressing 
 with some condescension the man in the easy chair. 
 
 The man waved his hand as if it were imma- 
 terial and answered with a single word: "For- 
 gotten 1 " 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 94 
 
At the Three Horses 
 
 "Forgotten!"' 
 
 " That's a blamed queer name " 
 
 " On the contrary, it's a very common name and 
 that is just the trouble: it's forgotten." 
 
 "What do you want, Bill?" demanded Mc- 
 Cloud, turning to the lineman. 
 
 " Is this man all right?" asked Dancing, jerk- 
 ing his thumb toward the easy chair. 
 
 " I can't say; you'll have to ask him." 
 
 " I'll save you that trouble. Bill, by saying that 
 if it's for the good of the division I am all right. 
 Death to its enemies, damme, say I. Now go on, 
 William, and give us your plan in regards to get- 
 ting these hold-ups — yes." 
 
 Dancing looked from one man to the other, but 
 McCloud appeared preoccupied and his visitor 
 seemed wholly serious. " I don't want to take 
 too much on myself — " Bill began, speaking to 
 McCloud. 
 
 " You look as if you could carry a fair-sized 
 load, William, provided it bore the right label," 
 suggested the visitor, entirely amiable. 
 
 " — But nobody has felt worse over this thing 
 and recent things " 
 
 " Recent things," echoed the easy chair. 
 
 " — happening to the division that I have. 
 Now I know there's been trouble on the divis- 
 ion " 
 
 95 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " I think you are putting it too strong there, 
 Bill, but let it pass." 
 
 " — there's been differences; misunderstandings 
 and differences. So I says to myself maybe some- 
 thing might be done to get everybody together 
 and bury the differences, like this: Murray Sin- 
 clair- is in town; he feels bad over this thing, 
 like any railroad man would. He's a mountain 
 man, quick as the quickest with a gun, a good 
 trailer, rides like a fiend, and can catch a streak of 
 sunshine travelling on a pass. Why not put him at 
 the head of a party to run 'em down ? " 
 
 " Run 'em down," nodded the stranger. 
 
 " Differences such as be or may be " 
 
 " May be " 
 
 " Being discussed when he brings 'em in dead 
 or alive, and not before. That's what I said to 
 Murray Sinclair, and Murray Sinclair is ready for 
 to take hold this minute and do what he can if 
 he's asked. I told him plain I could promise no 
 promises ; that, I says, lays with George McCloud. 
 Was I right, was I wrong ? If I was wrong, right 
 me ; if I was right, say so. All I want is harmony." 
 
 The new man nodded approval. " Bully, Bill ! " 
 he exclaimed heartily. 
 
 " Mister," protested the lineman, with simple 
 dignity, " I'd just a little rather you wouldn't bully 
 me nor Bill me." 
 
 96 
 
At the Three Horses 
 
 " All in good part, Bill, as you shall see; all in 
 good part. Now before Mr. McCloud gives you 
 his decision I want to be allowed a word. Your 
 idea looks good to me. At first I may say it 
 didn't. I am candid; I say it didn't. It looked 
 like setting a dog to catch his own tail. Mind you, 
 I don't say it can't be done. A dog can catch his 
 own tail; they do do it,^^ proclaimed the stranger 
 In a low and emphatic undertone. " But," he added^ 
 moderating his utterance, " when they succeed — 
 who gets anything out of it but the dog? " Bill 
 Dancing, somewhat clouded and not deeming it 
 well to be drawn into any damaging admissions, 
 looked around for a cigar, and not seeing one, 
 looked solemnly at the new Solomon and stroked 
 his beard. " That is how it looked to me at 
 first," concluded the orator; " but, I say now it 
 looks good to me, and as a stranger I may say I 
 favor it." 
 
 Dancing tried to look unconcerned and seemed 
 disposed to be friendly. " What might be your 
 line of business ? " 
 
 " Real estate. I am from Chicago. I sold 
 everything that was for sale in Chicago and came 
 out here to stake out the Spanish Sinks and the 
 Great Salt Lake — yes. It's drying up and there's 
 an immense opportunity for claims along the shore. 
 I've been looking into it." 
 
 97 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Into the claims or into the lake? " asked Mc- 
 Cloud. 
 
 " Into both; and, Mr. McCloud, I want to 
 say I favor Mr. Dancing's idea, that's all. Right 
 wrongs no man. Let Bill see Sinclair and see what 
 they can figure out." And having spoken, the 
 stranger sank back and tried to look comfortable. 
 
 " I'll talk with you later about it. Bill," said 
 McCloud briefly. 
 
 " Meantime, Bill, see Sinclair and report," sug- 
 gested the stranger. 
 
 " It's as good as done," announced Dancing, 
 taking up his hat, " and, Mr. McCloud, might I 
 have a little advance for cigars and things? " 
 
 " Cigars and ammunition — of course. See 
 Sykes, William, see Sykes; if the office is closed 
 go to his house — and see what will happen to 
 you — " added the visitor in an aside, " and tell him 
 fo telephone up to Mr. McCloud for instruction," 
 he concluded unceremoniously. 
 
 " Now why do you want to start Bill on a fool 
 business like that? " asked McCloud, as Bill Dan- 
 cing took long steps from the room toward the 
 office of Sykes, the cashier. 
 
 " He didn't know me to-day, but he will to- 
 morrow," said the stranger reflectively. " Gods, 
 what I've seen that man go through in the days of 
 the giants ! Why, George, this will keep the boys 
 
 98 
 
At the Three Horses 
 
 talking, and they have to do something. Spend 
 the money ; the company is making it too fast any- 
 way; they moved twenty-two thousand cars one 
 day last, week. Personally I'm glad to have a 
 little fun out of it ; it will be hell pure and undefiled 
 long before we get through. This will be an easy 
 way of letting Sinclair know I am here. Bill will 
 report me confidentially to him as a suspicious 
 personage." 
 
 To the astonishment of Sykes, the superintendent 
 confirmed over the telephone Dancing's statement 
 that he was to draw some expense money. Bill 
 asked for twenty-five dollars. Sykes offered him 
 two, and Bill with some indignation accepted five. 
 He spent all of this in trying to find Sinclair, and 
 on the strength of his story to the boys borrowed 
 five dollars more to prosecute the search. At ten 
 o'clock that night he ran into Sinclair playing cards 
 in the big room above the Three Horses. 
 
 The Three Horses still rears its hospitable two- 
 story front in Fort Street, the only one of the Med- 
 icine Bend gambling houses that goes back to the 
 days of '67 ; and it is the boast of its owners that 
 since the key was thrown away, thirty-nine years 
 ago, its doors have never been closed, night or day, 
 except once for two hours during the funeral of 
 Dave Hawk. Bill Dancing drew Sinclair from his 
 game and told him of the talk with McCloud, 
 
 99 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 touching it up with natural enthusiasm. The 
 bridgeman took the news in high good humor and 
 slapped Dancing on the back. " Did you see 
 him alone, Bill ? " asked Sinclair, with interest. 
 " Come over here, come along. I want you to 
 meet a good friend. Here, Harvey, shake hands 
 with Bill Dancing. Bill, this is old Harvey Du 
 Sang, meanest man in the mountains to his enemies 
 and the whitest to his friends — eh, Harvey? " 
 
 Harvey seemed uncommunicative. Studying his 
 hand, he asked in a sour way whether it was a jack- 
 pot, and upon being told that it was not, pushed 
 forward some chips and looked stupidly up — 
 though Harvey was by no means stupid. " Proud 
 to know you, sir," said Bill, bending frankly as he 
 put out his hand. " Proud to know any friend 
 of Murray Sinclair's. What might be your 
 business? " 
 
 Again Du Sang appeared abstracted. He 
 looked up at the giant lineman, who, in spite of his 
 own size and strength, could have crushed him be- 
 tween his fingers, and hitched his chair a little, 
 but got no further toward an answer and paid no 
 attention whatever to Bill's extended hand. 
 
 " Cow business. Bill," interposed Sinclair. 
 "Where? Why, up near the park, Bill, up near 
 the park. Bill is an old friend of mine, Harvey. 
 Shake hands with George Seagrue, Bill, and you 
 
 loo 
 
At the Three Horses 
 
 know Henry Karg — and old Stormy Gorman — 
 well, I guess you know him top," exclaimed Sin- 
 clair, introducing the other players. " Look here 
 a minute, Harvey." 
 
 Harvey, much against his inclination, was drawn 
 from the table and retired with Sinclair and Dan- 
 cing to an empty corner, where Dancing told his 
 story again. At the conclusion of it Harvey 
 rather snorted. Sinclair asked questions. " Was 
 anybody else there when you saw McCloud, 
 Bill?" 
 
 " One man," answered Bill impressively. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " A stranger to me." 
 
 " A stranger? What did he look like ? " 
 
 " Slender man and kind of odd talking, with a 
 sandy mustache." 
 
 " Hear his name? " 
 
 " He told me his name, but it's skipped me, I 
 declare. He's kind of dark-complected like." 
 
 " Stranger, eh ? " mused Du Sang; his eyes were 
 wandering over the room. 
 
 " Slender man," repeated Bill, " but I didn't 
 take much notice of him. Said he was in the real- 
 estate business." 
 
 " In the real-estate business? And did he sit 
 there while you talked this over with the college 
 guy? "muttered Du Sang. 
 
 lOI 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " He is all right, boys, and he said you'd know 
 his name if I could speak it," declared Bill. 
 
 " Look anything like that man standing with his 
 hands in his pockets over there by the wheel?" 
 asked Du Sang, turning his back carefully on a 
 new-comer as he made the suggestion, 
 
 "Where— there? No I Yes, hold on, that's 
 the man there now I Hold on, now I " urged Bill, 
 struggling with the excitement bf ten hours and 
 ten dollars all in one day. " His name sounded 
 like Fogarty." 
 
 As Dancing spoke, Sinclair's eyes riveted on the 
 new face at the other side of the gambling-room. 
 " Fogarty, hell I " he exclaimed, starting. " Stand 
 right still, Du Sang; don't look around. That 
 man is Whispering Smith." 
 
 I02 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 PARLEY 
 
 IT was recalled one evening not long ago at the 
 Wickiup that the affair with Sinclair had all 
 taken place within a period of two years, and that 
 practically all of the actors in the event had been 
 together and in friendly relation on a Thanksgiv- 
 ing Day at the Dunning ranch not so very long 
 before the trouble began. Dicksie Dunning was 
 away at school at the time, and Lance Dunning 
 was celebrating with a riding and shooting fest and 
 a barbecue. 
 
 The whole country had been invited. Bucks 
 was in the mountains on an inspection trip, and Bill 
 Dancing drove him with a party of railroad men 
 over from Medicine Bend. The mountain men 
 for a hundred and fifty miles around were out. 
 Gene and Bob Johnson, from Oroville and the 
 Peace River, had come with their friends. From 
 Williams Cache there was not only a big delega- 
 tion — ^more of one than was really desirable — but 
 it was led by old John Rebstock himself. When 
 the invitation is general, lines cannot be too closely 
 
 103 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 drawn. Not only was Lance Dunning something 
 of a sport himself, but on the Long Range it is 
 part of a stockman's creed to be on good terms with 
 his neighbors. At a Thanksgiving Day barbecue 
 not even a mountain sheriff would ask questions, 
 and Ed Banks, though present, respected the holi- 
 day truce. Cowboys rode that day in the roping 
 contest who were from Mission Creek and fi;om 
 Two Feather River. 
 
 Among the railroad people were George Mc- 
 Cloud, Anderson, the assistant superintendent, Far- 
 rell Kennedy, chief of the special service, and his 
 right-hand man. Bob Scott. In especial, Sinclair's 
 presence at the barbecue was recalled. He had 
 some cronies with him from among his up-country 
 following, and was introducing his new bridge 
 foreman, Karg, afterward known as Flat Nose, 
 and George Seagrue, the Montana cowboy. Sin- 
 clair fraternized that day with the Williams Cache 
 men, and it was remarked even then that though a 
 railroad man he appeared somewhat outside the 
 railroad circle. When the shooting matches were 
 announced a brown-eyed railroad man was asked to 
 enter. He had been out of the mountains for 
 some time and was a comparative stranger in the 
 gathering, but the Williams Cache men had not 
 forgotten him ; Rebstock, especially, wanted to see 
 him shoot. While much of the time out of the 
 
 104 
 
Parley 
 
 mountains on railroad business, he was known to 
 be closely in Bucks's counsels, and as to the moun- 
 tains themselves, he was reputed to know them 
 better than Bucks or Glover himself knew them. 
 This was Whispering Smith; but, beyond a low- 
 voiced greeting or an expression of surprise at 
 meeting an old acquaintance, he avoided talk. 
 When urged to shoot he resisted all persuasion and 
 backed up his refusal by showing a bruise on his 
 trigger finger. He declined even to act as judge in 
 the contest, suggesting the sheriff, Ed Banks, for 
 that office. 
 
 The rifle matches were held in the hills above 
 the ranch-house, and in the contest between the 
 ranches, for which a sweepstakes had been ar- 
 ranged, Sinclair entered Seagrue, who was then 
 working for him. Seagrue shot all the morning and 
 steadily held up the credit of the Frenchman Val- 
 ley Ranch against the field. Neither continued 
 shooting nor severe tests availed to upset Sinclair's 
 entry, and riding back after the matches with the 
 prize purse in his pocket, Seagrue, who was tall, 
 light-haired, and perfectly built, made a new honor 
 for himself on a dare from Stormy Gorman, the 
 foreman of the Dunning ranch. Gorman, who 
 had ridden a race back with Sinclair, was at the 
 foot of the long hill, down which the crowd was 
 riding, when he stopped, yelled back at Seagrue, 
 
 105 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 and, swinging his hat from his head, laid it on a 
 sloping rock beside the trail. 
 
 " You'd better not do that. Stormy," said Sin- 
 clair. " Seagrue will put a hole through it." 
 
 Gorman laughed jealously. " If he can hit it, 
 let him hit it." 
 
 At the top of the hill Seagrue had dismounted 
 and was making ready to shoot. Whispering 
 Smith, at his side, had halted with the party, and 
 the cowboy knelt to adjust his sights. On his 
 knee he turned to Whispering Smith, whom he 
 seemed to know, with an abrupt question: " How 
 far do you call it? " 
 
 The answer was made without hesitation: 
 " Give it seven hundred and fifty yards, Seagrue." 
 
 The cowboy made ready, brought his rifle to 
 his shoulder, and fired. The slug passed through 
 the crown of the hat, and a shower of splinters fly- 
 ing back from the rock blew the felt into a sieve. 
 Gorman's curiosity, as well as that of everybody 
 else, seemed satisfied, and, gaining the level ground, 
 the party broke Into a helter-skelter race for the 
 revolver-shooting. 
 
 In this Sinclair himself had entered, and after 
 the early matches found only one troublesome con- 
 testant — Du Sang from the Cache, who was pres- 
 ent under Rebstock's wing. After Sinclair and 
 Du Sang had tied in test after test at shooting out 
 
 1 06 
 
Parley 
 
 of the saddle, Whispering Smith, who lost sight of 
 nothing in the gun-play, called for a pack of cards, 
 stripped the aces from the deck, and had a little 
 conference with the judge. The two contestants, 
 Sinclair and Du Sang, were ordered back thirty- 
 five paces on their horses, and the railroad man, 
 walking over to the targets, held out between the 
 thumb and forefinger of his left hand the ace 
 of clubs. The man that should first spot the 
 pip out of the card was to take the prize, a 
 Cheyenne saddle. Sinclair shot, and his horse, 
 perfectly trained, stood like a statue. The card 
 flew from Smith's hand, but the bullet had struck 
 the ace almost an inch above the pip, and a second 
 ace was held out for Du Sang. As he raised his 
 gun his horse moved. He spurred angrily, circled 
 quickly about, halted, and instantly fired. It was 
 not alone that his bullet cut the shoulder of the 
 club pip on the card: the whole movement, be- 
 ginning with the circling dash of the horse under 
 the spur, the sudden halt, and the instantly accurate 
 aim, raised a quick, approving yell for the new- 
 comer. The signal was given for Sinclair, and a 
 third ace went up. In the silence Sinclair, with 
 deliberate care, brought his gun down on the card, 
 fired, and cut the pip cleanly from the white field. 
 Du Sang was urged to shoot again, but his horse 
 annoyed him and he would not. 
 
 107 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 With a little speech the prize was given by Ed 
 Banks to Sinclair. " Here's hoping your gun will 
 never be trained on me, Murray," smiled the 
 modest sheriff. 
 
 Sinclair responded in high humor. He had every 
 reason to feel good. His horses had won the run- 
 ning races, and his crowd had the honors with the 
 guns. He turned on Du Sang, who sat close by 
 in the circle of horsemen, and, holding the big prize 
 out toward him on his knee, asked him to accept 
 it. " It's yours by rights anyway, Du Sang," de- 
 clared Sinclair. " You're a whole lot better shot 
 than I am, every turn of the road. You've shot 
 all day from a nervous horse." 
 
 Not only would Sinclair not allow a refusal of 
 his gift, but, to make his generosity worth while, 
 he dispatched Flat Nose to the corral, and the 
 foreman rode back leading the pony that had 
 won the half-mile dash. Sinclair cinched the prize 
 saddle on the colt with his own hands, led the 
 beast to Du Sang, placed the bridle in his hand, 
 and bowed. " From a jay to a marksman," he 
 said, saluting. 
 
 Du Sang, greatly embarrassed by the affair — he 
 had curious pink eyes — ^blinked and got away to 
 the stables. When Rebstock joined him the Wil- 
 liams Cache party were saddling to go home. Du 
 Sang made no reference to his gift horse and 
 
 io8 
 
Parley 
 
 saddle, but spoke of the man that had held the 
 target aces. " He must be a sucker I " declared 
 Du Sang, with an oath. " I wouldn't do that for 
 any man on top of ground. Who is he? " 
 
 "That man?" wheezed Rebstock. "Never 
 have no dealings with him. He plays 'most any 
 kind of a game. He's always ready to play, and 
 holds aces most of the time. Don't you remember 
 my telling about the man that got Chuck Williams 
 and hauled him out of the Cache on a buckboard? 
 That's the man. Here, he give me this for you; 
 it's your card." Rebstock handed Du Sang the 
 target ace of clubs. " Why didn't you thank Mur- 
 ray Sinclair, you mule ? " 
 
 Du Sang, whose eyelashes were white, blinked 
 at the hole through the card, and looked around 
 as he rode back across the field for the man 
 that had held it; but Whispering Smith had dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 He was at that moment walking past the bar- 
 becue pit with George McCloud. " Rebstock 
 talks a great deal about your shooting, Gordon," 
 said McCloud to his companion. 
 
 " He and I once had a little private match of 
 our own. It was on the Peace River, over a bunch 
 of steers. Since then we have got along very well, 
 though he has an exaggerated opinion of my abil- 
 ity. Rebstock's worst failing is his eyesight. It 
 
 109 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 bothers him in seeing brands. He's liable to 
 brand a critter half a dozen tim6s. That albino, 
 Du Sang, is a queer duck. Sinclair gave him a 
 fine horse. There they go." The Cache riders 
 were running their horses and whooping across the 
 creek. " What a hand a State's prison warden at 
 Fort City could draw out of that crowd, George I " 
 continued McCloud's companion. " If the right 
 man should get busy with that bunch of horses Sin- 
 clair has got together, and organize those up-coun- 
 try fellows for mischief, wouldn't it make things 
 hum on the mountain division for a while? " 
 
 McCloud did not meet the host, Lance Dunning, 
 that day, nor since the day of the barbecue had 
 Du Sang or Sinclair seen Whispering Smith until 
 the night Du Sang spotted him near the wheel in 
 the Three Horses. Du Sang at once drew out 
 of his game and left the room. Sinclair in the 
 meantime had undertaken a quarrelsome interview 
 with Whispering Smith. 
 
 " I supposed you knew I was here," said Smith 
 to him amiably. " Of course I dg^n't travel in a 
 private car or carry a bill-board on my back, but I 
 haven't been hiding." 
 
 " The last time we talked," returned Sinclair, 
 measuring words carefully, *' you were going to 
 stay out of the mountains." 
 
 " I should have been glad to, Murray. Affairs 
 no 
 
Parley 
 
 are in such shape on the division now that some- 
 body had to come, so they sent for me." 
 
 The two men were sitting at a table. Whisper- 
 ing Smith was cutting and leisurely mixing a pack 
 of cards. 
 
 " Well, so far as I'm concerned, I'm out of it," 
 Sinclair went on after a pause, " but, however that 
 may be, if you're back here looking for trouble 
 there's no reason, I guess, why you can't find it." 
 
 " That's not it. I'm not here looking for 
 trouble; I'm here to fix this thing up. What do 
 you want? " 
 
 " Not a thing." 
 
 " I'm willing to do anything fair and right," de- 
 clared Whispering Smith, raising his voice a little 
 above the hum of the rooms. 
 
 " Fair and right is an old song." 
 
 " And a good one to sing in this country just 
 now. I'll do anything I can to adjust any griev- 
 ance, Murray. What do you want? " 
 
 Sinclair for a moment was silent, and his answer 
 made plain his unwillingness to speak at all. 
 " There never would have been a grievance if I'd 
 been treated like a white man." His eyes burned 
 sullenly. " I've been treated like a dog." 
 
 " That is not it." 
 
 " That is it," declared Sinclair savagely, " and 
 they'll find it's it." 
 
 Ill 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Murray, I want to say only this — only this to 
 make things clear. Bucks feels that he's been 
 treated worse than a dog." 
 
 " Then let him put me back where I belong." 
 
 " It's a little late for that, Murray; a little late," 
 said Smith gently. " Shouldn't you rather take 
 good money and get off the division ? Mind you, 
 I say good money, Murray — and peace." 
 
 Sinclair answered without the slightest hesita- 
 tion: " Not while that man McCloud is here." 
 
 Whispering Smith smiled. " I've got no au- 
 thority to kill McCloud." 
 
 " There are plenty of men in the mountains that 
 don't need any." 
 
 " But let's start fair," urged Whispering Smith 
 softly. He leaned forward with one finger ex- 
 tended in confidence. " Don't let us have any 
 misunderstanding on the start. Let McCloud 
 alone. If he is killed — now I'm speaking fair and 
 open and making no threats, but I know how it 
 will come out — there will be nothing but killing 
 here for six months. We will make just that mem- 
 orandum on McCloud. Now about the main ques- 
 tion. Every sensible man in the world wants 
 something." 
 
 " I know men that have been going a long time 
 without what they wanted." 
 
 Smith flushed and nodded. " You needn't have 
 
 112 
 
Parley 
 
 said that, but no matter. Every sensible man 
 wants something Murray. This is a big country. 
 There's a World's Fair running somewhere all the 
 time in it. Why not travel a little ? What do you 
 want?" 
 
 " I want my job, or I want a new superintendent 
 here." 
 
 " Just exactly the two things, and, by heavens! 
 the only two, I can't manage. Come once more 
 and I'll meet you." 
 
 " No I " Sinclair rose to his feet. " No — damn 
 your money ! This is my home. The high coun- 
 try is my country; it's where my friends are." 
 
 " It's filled with your friends ; I know that. But 
 don't put your trust in your friends. They will 
 stay by you, I know; but once in a 'long while there 
 will be a false friend, Murray, one that will sell 
 you — remember that." 
 
 " I stay." 
 
 Whispering Smith looked up in admiration. 
 " I know you're game. It isn't necessary for me 
 to say that to you. But think of the fight you are 
 going into against this company. You can worry 
 them ; you've done it. But a bronco might as well 
 try to buck a locomotive as for one man or six 
 or six hundred to win out in the way you are 
 playing." 
 
 " I will look out for my friends; others — " Sin- 
 "3 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 clair hitched his belt and paused, but Whispering 
 Smith, cutting and running the cards, gave no heed. 
 His eyes were fixed on the green cloth under his 
 fingers. " Others — " repeated Sinclair. 
 
 "Others?" echoed Whispering Smith good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 " May look out for themselves." 
 
 " Of course, of course ! Well, if this is the end 
 of it, I'm sorry." 
 
 " You will be sorry if you mix in a quarrel that 
 is none of yours." 
 
 " Why, Murray, I never had a quarrel with a 
 man in my life." 
 
 " You are pretty smooth, but you can't drive me 
 out of this country. I know how well you'd like 
 to do it ; and, take notice, there's one trail you can't 
 cross even if you stay here. I suppose you under- 
 stand that." 
 
 Smith felt his heart leap. He sat in his chair 
 turning the pack slowly, but with only one hand 
 now ; the other hand was free. Sinclair eyed him 
 sidewise. Smith moistened his lips and when he 
 replied spoke slowly : " There is no need of drag- 
 ging any allusion to her into it. For that matter, 
 I told Bucks he should have sent any man but me. 
 If I'm in the way, Sinclair, if my presence here is 
 all that stands in the way, I'll go back and stay 
 back as before, and send any one else you like or 
 
 114 
 
Parley 
 
 Bucks likes. Arc you wilfing to say that I stand 
 in the way of a settlement? " 
 
 Sinclair sat down and put his hands on the table. 
 " No; your matter and mine is another affair. All 
 I want betw^een you and me is fair and right." 
 
 Whispering Smith's eyes were on the cards. 
 " You've always had it." 
 
 " Then keep away from her." 
 
 " Don't tell me what to do." 
 
 " Then don't tell me." 
 
 " I'm not telling you. You will do as you 
 please; so will I. I left here because Marion 
 asked me to. I am here now because I have been 
 sent here. It is in the course of my business. I 
 have my living to earn and my friends to pro- 
 tect. Don't dictate to me, because it would be 
 of no use." 
 
 " Well, you know now how to get into trouble." 
 
 " Every one knows that; few know how to keep 
 out." 
 
 " You can't lay your finger on me at any turn of 
 the road." 
 
 " Not if you behave yourself." 
 
 " And you can't bully me." 
 
 " Surely not. No hard feelings, Murray. I 
 came for a friendly talk, and if it's all the same to 
 you I'll watch this wheel awhile and then go over to 
 the Wickiup. I leave first — that's understood, I 
 
 "5 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 hope — and if your pink-eyed friend is waiting out- 
 side tell him there is nothing doing, will you, Mur- 
 ray? Who is the albino, by the way? You don't 
 know him ? I think I do. Fort City, if I remem- 
 ber. Well, good-night, Murray." 
 
 It was after twelve o'clock and the room had 
 filled up. Roulette-balls were dropping, and above 
 the faro-table the extra lights were on. The deal- 
 ers, fresh from supper, were putting things in order 
 for the long trick. 
 
 At the Wickiup Whispering Smith found Mc- 
 Cloud in the office signing letters. " I can do 
 nothing with him," said Smith, drawing down a 
 window-shade before he seated himself to detail 
 his talk with Sinclair. " He wants a fight." 
 
 McCloud put down his pen. " If I am the dis- 
 turber it would be better for me to get out." 
 
 " That would be hauling down the flag across 
 the whole division. It is too late for that. If he 
 didn't centre the fight on you he would centre it 
 . somewhere else. The whole question is, who is 
 going to run this division, Sinclair and his gang 
 or the company ? and it is as easy to meet them on 
 one point as another. I know of no way of mak- 
 ing this kind of an affair pleasant. I am going to 
 do some riding, as I told you. Kennedy is work- 
 ing up through the Deep Creek country, and has 
 three men with him. I shall ride toward the 
 
 ii6 
 
Parley 
 
 Cache and meet him somewhere near South Mis- 
 sion Pass." 
 
 " Gordon, would it do any good to ask a few 
 questions ? " 
 
 " Ask as many as you like, my dear boy, but 
 don't be disappointed if I can't answer them. I 
 can look wise, but I don't know anything. You 
 know what we are up against. This fellow has 
 grown a tiger among the wolves, and he has turned 
 the pack loose on us. One thing I ask you to do. 
 Don't expose yourself at night. Your life isn't 
 worth a coupling-pin if you do." 
 
 McCIoud raised his hand. " Take care of 
 yourself. If you are murdered in this fight I shall 
 know I got you in and that I am to blame." 
 
 "And suppose you were?" Smith had risen 
 from his chair. He had few mannerisms, and re- 
 calling the man the few times I have seen him, 
 the only impression he has left on me is that of 
 quiet and gentleness. " Suppose you were? " He 
 was resting one arm on top of McCloud's desk. 
 "What of it? You have done for me up here 
 what I couldn't do, George. You have been kind 
 to Marion when she hadn't a friend near. You 
 have stood between him and her when I couldn't 
 be here to do it, and when she didn't want me to — 
 helped her when I hadn't the privilege of doing it." 
 McCloud put up his hand in protest, but it was 
 
 117 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 unheeded. " How many times it has been in my 
 heart to kill that man. She knows it ; she prays it 
 may never happen. That is why she stays here 
 and has kept me out of the mountains. She says 
 they would talk about her if I lived in the same 
 town, and I have stayed away." He threw him- 
 self back into the chair. " It's going beyond both 
 of us now. I've kept the promise I made to her 
 to-day to do all in my power to settle this thing 
 without bloodshed. It will not be settled in that 
 way, George." 
 
 " Was he at Sugar Buttes? " 
 
 " If not, his gang was there. The quick get- 
 away, the short turn on Van Horn, killing two men 
 to rattle the posse — it all bears Sinclair's ear-marks. 
 He has gone too far. He has piled up plunder 
 till he is reckless. He is crazy with greed and 
 insane with revenge. He thinks he can gallop 
 over this division and scare Bucks "till he gets down 
 on his knees to him. Bucks will never do it. I 
 know him, and I tell you Bucks will never do it. 
 He is like that man in Washington: he will fight 
 it to the death. He would fight Sinclair if he had 
 to come up here and meet him single-handed, but 
 he will never have to do it. He put you here, 
 George, to round that man up. This is the price 
 for your advancement, and you must pay it." 
 
 " It is all right for me to pay it, but I don't want 
 ii8 
 
Parley 
 
 you to pay it. Will you have a care for yourself, 
 Gordon?" 
 
 "Will you?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You need never ask me to be careful," Smith 
 went on. " That is my business. I asked you to 
 watch your window-shades at night, and when I 
 came in just now I found one up. It is you who 
 are likely to forget, and in this kind of a game a 
 man never forgets but once. I'll lie down on the 
 Lincoln lounge, George." 
 
 " Get into the bed." 
 
 " No; I like the lounge, and I'm off early." 
 
 In the private room of the superintendent, pro- 
 vided as a sleeping apartment in the old headquar- 
 ters building many years before hotel facilities 
 reached Medicine Bend, stood the only curio the 
 Wickiup possessed — the Lincoln lounge. When 
 the car that carried the remains of Abraham Lin- 
 coln from Washington to Springfield was dis- 
 mantled, the Wickiup fell heir to one piece of its 
 elaborate furnishings, the lounge, and the lounge 
 still remains as an early-day relic. Whispering 
 Smith walked into the bedroom and disposed him- 
 self in an incredibly short time. " I've borrowed 
 one of your pillows, George," he called out 
 presently. 
 
 " Take both." 
 
 119 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " One's enough. I hope," he went on, rolling 
 himself like a hen into the double blanket, " the 
 horse Kennedy has left me will be all right; he 
 got three from Bill Dancing. Bill Dancing," 
 he snorted, driving his nose into the pillow as if 
 in final memorandum for the night, " he will get 
 himself killed if he fools around Sinclair too much 
 now." 
 
 McCloud, under a light shaded above his desk, 
 opened a roll of blue-prints. He was going to 
 follow a construction gang up the Crawling Stone 
 in the morning and wanted to look over the sur- 
 veys. Whispering Smith, breathing regularly, lay 
 not far away. It was late when McCloud put 
 away his maps, entered the inner room, and looked 
 at his friend. 
 
 He lay like a boy asleep. On the chair beside 
 his head he had placed his old-fashioned hunting- 
 case watch, as big as an alarm-clock, the kind 
 a railroad man would wind up with a spike- 
 maul. Beside the watch he had laid his huge re- 
 volver in its worn leather scabbard. Breathing 
 peacefully, he lay quite at his companion's mercy, 
 and McCloud, looking down on this man who 
 never made a mistake, never forgot a danger, and 
 never took an unnecessary chance, thought of what 
 between men confidence may sometimes mean. 
 He sat a moment with folded arms on the side of 
 
 1 20 
 
Parley 
 
 his bed, studying the tired face, defenceless in the 
 slumber of fatigue. When he turned out the 
 light and lay down, he wondered whether, some- 
 where in the valley of the great river to which 
 he was to take his men in the morning, he 
 should encounter the shght and reckless horse- 
 woman who had blazed so in anger when he 
 stood before her at Marion's. He had struggled 
 against her charm too long. She had become, 
 how or when he could not tell, not alone a pretty 
 woman but a fascinating one — the creature of his 
 constant thought. Already she meant more to 
 him than all else in the world. He well knew that 
 if called on to choose between Dicksie and all else 
 he could only choose her. But as he drew to- 
 gether the curtains of thought and sleep stole in 
 upon him, he was resolved first to have Dicksie; 
 to have all else if he could, but, in any case, Dick- 
 sie Dunning. When he awoke day was breaking 
 in the mountains. The huge silver watch, the low- 
 voiced man, and the formidable six-shooter had 
 disappeared. It was time to get up, and Marion 
 Sinclair had promised an early breakfast. 
 
 121 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TURN IN THE STORM 
 
 THE beginning of the Crawling Stone Line 
 marked the first determined effort under 
 President Bucks, while undertaking the reconstruc- 
 tion of the system for through traffic, to develop 
 the rich local territory tributary to the mountain 
 division. New policies in construction dated from 
 the same period. Glover, with an enormous capi- 
 tal staked for the new undertakings, gave orders to 
 push the building every month in the year, and for 
 the first time in mountain railroad-building win- 
 ter was to be ignored. The older mountain men 
 met the innovation as they met any departure from 
 their traditions, with curiosity and distrust. On the 
 other hand, the new and younger blood took hold 
 with confidence, and when Glover called, " Yo, 
 heave ho ! " at headquarters, they bent themselves 
 clear across the system for a hard pull -together. 
 
 McCloud, resting the operating on the shoulders 
 of his assistant Anderson, devoted himself wholly 
 to forwarding the construction plans, and his first 
 clash over winter road-building in the Rockies came 
 
 122 
 
The Turn in the Storm 
 
 with his own right-hand man, Mcars. McCloud 
 put in a switch below Piedmont, opened a material- 
 yard, and began track-laying toward the lower 
 Crawling Stone Valley, when Mears said it was 
 time to stop work till spring. When McCloud 
 told him he wanted track across the divide and 
 into the lower valley by spring, Mears threw up 
 his hands. But there was metal in the old man, 
 and he was for orders all the time. He kept up 
 a running fire of protests and forebodings about 
 the danger of exposing men during the winter sea- 
 son, but stuck to his post. Glover sent along the 
 men, and although two out of every three deserted 
 the day after they arrived, Mears kept a force in 
 hand, and crowded the track up the new grade as 
 fast as the ties and steel came in, working day in 
 and day out with one eye on the clouds and one on 
 the tie-line and hoping every day for orders to stop. 
 December slipped away to Christmas with the 
 steel still going down and the disaffected element 
 among the railroad men at Medicine Bend waiting 
 for disaster. The spectacle of McCloud handling 
 a flying column on the Crawling Stone work In the 
 face of the most treacherous weather in the moun- 
 tain year was one that brought out constant criti- 
 cism of him among Sinclair's sympathizers and 
 friends, and while McCloud laughed and pushed 
 ahead on the work, they waited only for his dis- 
 
 123 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 comfiture. Christmas Day found McCloud at the 
 front, with men still very scarce, but Mears's gang 
 at work and laying steel. The work train was in 
 charge of Stevens, the freight conductor, who had 
 been set back after the Smoky Creek wreck and 
 was slowly climbing back to position. They were 
 working in the usual way, with the flat cars ahead 
 pushed by the engine, the caboose coupled to the 
 tender being on the extreme hind end of the train. 
 
 At two o'clock on Christmas afternoon, when 
 there was not a cloud in the sky, the horizon thick- 
 ened in the east. Within thirty minutes the moun- 
 tains from end to end of the sky-line were lost in 
 the sweep of a coming wind, and at three o'clock 
 snow struck the valley like a pall. Mears, greatly 
 disturbed, ordered the men off the grade and into 
 the caboose. McCloud had been inspecting cul- 
 verts ahead, and had started for the train when the 
 snow drove across the valley. It blotted the land- 
 scape from sight so fast that he was glad after an 
 anxious five minutes to regain the ties and find 
 himself safely with his men. 
 
 But when McCloud came in the men were bor- 
 dering on a panic. Mears, with his two foremen, 
 had gone ahead to hunt McCloud up, and had 
 passed him in the storm ; it was already impossible 
 to see, or to hear an ordinary sound ten yards away. 
 McCloud ordered the flat cars cut off the train and 
 
 124 
 
The Turn .in the Storm 
 
 the engine whistle sounded at short intervals, and, 
 taking Stevens, buttoned his reefer and started 
 up the grade after the three trackmen. They fired 
 their revolvers as they went on, but the storm 
 tossed their signals on the ears of Mears and his 
 companions from every quarter of the compass. 
 McCloud was standing on the last tie and planning 
 with his companion how best to keep the grade as 
 the two advanced, when the engine signals sud- 
 denly changed. " Now that sounds like one of 
 Bill Dancing's games," said McCloud to his com- 
 panion. " What the deuce is it, Stevens? " 
 
 Stevens, who knew a little of everything, recog- 
 nized the signals in an instant and threw up his 
 hands. " It's Morse code, Mr. McCloud, and 
 they are in — Mears and the foremen — and us for 
 the train as quick as the Lord will let us; that's 
 what they're whistling." 
 
 " So much for an education, Stevens. Bully for 
 you I Come on 1 " 
 
 They regained the flat cars and made their way 
 back to the caboose and engine, which stood un- 
 coupled. McCloud got into the cab with "Dan- 
 cing and Stevens. Mears, from the caboose 
 ahead, signalled all in, and, with a whistling 
 scream, the engine started to back the caboose 
 to Piedmont. They had hardly more than got 
 under full headway when a difficulty became ap- 
 
 125 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 parent to the little group around the superin- 
 tendent. They were riding an unballasted track 
 and using such speed as they dared to escape from 
 a situation that had become perilous. But the light 
 caboose, packed like a sardine-box with men, was 
 dancing a hornpipe on the rail-joints. McCloud 
 felt the peril, and the lurching of the car could be 
 seen in the jerk of the engine tender to which it 
 was coupled. Apprehensive, he crawled back on 
 the coal to watch the caboose himself, and stayed 
 long enough to see that the rapidly drifting snow 
 threatened to derail the outfit any minute. He 
 got back to the cab and ordered a stop. " This 
 won't do ! " said he to Stevens and the engineman. 
 " We can't back that caboose loaded with men 
 through this storm. We shall be off the track in 
 five minutes." 
 
 " Try it slow," suggested Stevens. 
 
 " If we had the time," returned McCloud; " but 
 the snow is drifting on us. We've got to make a 
 run for it if we ever get back, and we must have 
 the engine in front of that way car with her pilot 
 headed for the drifts. Let's look at things." 
 
 Dancing and Stevens, followed by McCloud, 
 dropped out of the gangway. Mears opened the 
 caboose door and the four men went forward to 
 inspect the track and the trucks. In the lee of the 
 caboose a council was held. The roar of the wind 
 
 126 
 
The Turn in the Storm 
 
 was like the surge of many waters, and the snow 
 had whitened into storm. They were ten miles from 
 a habitation, and, but for the single track they 
 were travelling, might as well have been a hundred 
 miles so far as reaching a place of safety was con- 
 cerned. They were without food, with a caboose 
 packed with men on their ha,nds, and they real- 
 ized that their supply of fuel for either engine or 
 caboose was perilously slender. 
 
 " Get your men ready with their tools, Pat," 
 said McCloud to Mears. 
 
 " What are you going to do? " 
 
 " I'm going to turn the train around and put 
 the nose of the engine into it." 
 
 " Turn the train around — ^why, yes, that would 
 make it easy. I'd be glad to see it turned around. 
 But where's your turntable, Mr. McCloud?" 
 asked Mears. 
 
 " How are you going to turn your train around 
 on a single track? " asked Stevens darkly. 
 
 "I'm going to turn the track around. I know 
 about where we are, I think. There's a little stretch 
 just beyond this curve where the grade is flush 
 with the ground. Ask your engineman to run back 
 very slowly and watch for the bell-rope. I'll ride 
 on the front platform of the caboose till we get 
 to where we want to go to work. Lose no time, 
 Pat; tell your men it's now or never. If we are 
 
 127 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 caught here we may stay till they carry us home, 
 and the success of this little game depends on 
 having everything ready and working quick." 
 
 Stevens, who stayed close to McCloud, pulled 
 the cord within five minutes, and before the caboose 
 had stopped the men were tumbling out of it. Mc- 
 Cloud led Mears and his foreman up the track. 
 They tramped a hundred yards back and forth, 
 and, with steel tapes for safety lines, swung a hun- 
 dred feet out on each side of the track to make 
 sure of the ground. " This will do," announced 
 McCloud; "you waited here half a day for steel 
 a week ago ; I know the ground. Break that joint, 
 Pat." He pointed to the rail under his foot. 
 " Pass ahead with the engine and car about a thou- 
 sand feet," he said to the conductor, " and when I 
 give you a signal back up slow and look out for a 
 thirty-degree curve — ^without any elevation, either. 
 Get out all your men with lining-bars." 
 
 The engine and caboose faded in the blur of the 
 blizzard as the break was made in the track. 
 " Take those bars and divide your men into batches 
 of ten with foremen that can make signs, if they 
 can't talk English," directed McCloud. " Work 
 lively now, and throw this track to the south ! " 
 
 Pretty much everybody — Japs, Italians, and 
 Greeks — understood the game they were playing. 
 McCloud said afterward he would match his Pied- 
 
 128 
 
The Turn in the Storm 
 
 mont hundred in making a movable Y against 
 any two hundred experts Glover could pick; they 
 had had the experience, he added, when the move 
 meant their last counter in the game of mountain 
 life or death. The Piedmont " hundred," to Mc- 
 Cloud's mind, were after that day past masters in 
 the art of track-shifting. Working in a driving 
 cloud of grit and snow, the ignorant, the dull, and 
 the slow rose to the occasion. Bill Dancing, Pat 
 Mears and his foreman, and Stevens moved about 
 in the driving snow like giants. The howling storm 
 rang with the shouting of the foremen, the guttural 
 cries of the Japs, and the clank of the lining-bars 
 as rail-length after rail-length of the heavy track 
 was slued bodily from the grade alignment and 
 swung around in a short curve to a right angle 
 out on the open ground. 
 
 McCloud at last gave the awaited signal, and, 
 with keen-eyed, anxious men watching every revo- 
 lution of the cautious driving-wheels, the engine, 
 hissing and pausing as the air-brakes went off and 
 on, pushed the light caboose slowly out on the rough 
 spur to its extreme end and stopped with the pilot 
 facing the main track at right angles ; but before it 
 had reached its halting-place spike-mauls were 
 ringing at the fish-plates where a moment before 
 it had left the line on the curve. The track at 
 that point was cut again, and under a long line of 
 
 129 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 bars and a renewed shouting it was thrown grad- 
 ually quite across the long gap in the main line, and 
 the new joints in a very rough curve were made fast 
 just as the engine, running now with its pilot ahead, 
 steamed slowly around the new curve and without 
 accident regained the regular grade. It was 
 greeted by a screeching yell as the men climbed 
 into the caboose, for the engine stood safely headed 
 into the teeth of the storm for Piedmont. The 
 ten miles to cover were now a matter of less than 
 thirty minutes, and the construction train drew into 
 the Piedmont yards just as the telegraph wires were 
 heating from headquarters with orders annulling 
 freights, ordering ploughs on outgoing engines, 
 and battening the division hatches for a grapple 
 with a Christmas blizzard. 
 
 No man came back better pleased than Stevens. 
 " That man is all right," said he to Mears, nod- 
 ding his head toward McCloud, as they walked up 
 from the caboose. " That's all I want to say. 
 Some of these fellows have been a little shy about 
 going out with him; they've hounded me for 
 months about stepping over his way when Sinclair 
 and his mugs struck. I reckon I played my hand 
 about right." 
 
 130 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE QUARREL 
 
 SPRING found the construction of the valley 
 line well advanced, and the grades nearing 
 the lands of the Dunning ranch. Right-of-way 
 men had been working for months with Lance 
 Dunning, over the line, and McCloud had been 
 called frequently into consultation to adjust the 
 surveys to objections raised by Dicksie's cousin to 
 the crossing of the ranch lands. Even when the 
 proceedings had been closed, a strong current of 
 discontent set from the managing head of the 
 Stone Ranch. Rumors of Lance Dunning's dissat- 
 isfaction often reached the railroad people. Vague 
 talk of an extensive irrigation scheme planned by 
 Sinclair for the Crawling Stone Valley crept into 
 the newspapers, and it was generally understood 
 that Lance Dunning had expressed himself favor- 
 ably to the enterprise. 
 
 Dicksie gave slight heed to matters as weighty 
 as these. She spent much of her time on horse- 
 back, with Jim under the saddle ; and in Medicine 
 
 131 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 Bend, where she rode with frequency, Marlon's 
 shop became her favorite abiding-place. Dicksie 
 ordered hats until Marion's conscience rose and she 
 practically refused to supply any more. But the 
 spirited controversy on this point, as on many 
 others — Dicksie's haughtiness and Marion's re- 
 straint, quite unmoved by any show of displeasure 
 — ended always in drawing the two closer to each 
 other. 
 
 At home Dicksie's fancies at that time ran to 
 chickens, and crate after crate of thoroughbreds 
 and clutch after clutch of eggs were brought over 
 the pass from far-away countries. But the coyotes 
 stole the chickens and kept the hens in such a state 
 of excitement that they could not be got to sit 
 effectively. Nest after nest Dicksie had the mor- 
 tification of seeing deserted at critical moments 
 and left to furred prowlers of the foothills and 
 canyons. Once she had managed to shoot a par- 
 ticularly bold coyote, only to be overcome with 
 remorse at seeing its death-struggle. She gained 
 reputation with her cousin and the men, but was 
 ever afterward assailed with the reflection that the 
 poor fellow might have been providing for a hunr 
 gry family. Housekeeping cares rested lightly on 
 Dicksie. Puss had charge of the house, and her 
 mistress concerned herself more with the setting 
 of Jim's shoes than with the dust on the elk heads 
 
 132 
 
These three carried rifles slung across their pommels, and in 
 front of them rode the stranger. 
 
The Quarrel 
 
 over the fireplace in the dining-room. Her Medi- 
 cine Bend horseshoer stood in much greater awe of 
 her than Puss did, because if he ever left a mis- 
 take on Jim's heels Dicksie could, and would, 
 point it coldly out. 
 
 One March afternoon, coming home from 
 Medicine Bend, she saw at some distance before 
 her a party of men on horseback. She was riding 
 a trail leading from the pass road that followed 
 the hills, and the party was coming up the bridge 
 road from the lower ranch. Dicksie had good 
 eyes, and something unusual in the riding of the 
 men was soon apparent to her. Losing and re- 
 gaining sight of them at different turns in the trail, 
 she made out, as she rode among the trees, that 
 they were cowboys of her own ranch, and riding, 
 under evident excitement, about a strange horse- 
 man. She recognized in the escort Stormy Gor- 
 man, the ferocious foreman of the ranch, and Deni- 
 son and Jim Baugh, two of the most reckless of 
 the men. These three carried rifles slung across 
 their pommels, and in front of them rode the 
 stranger. 
 
 Fragments of the breakfast-table talk of the 
 morning came back to Dicksie's mind. The rail- 
 road graders were in the valley below the ranch, 
 and she had heard her cousin say a good deal on 
 a point she cared little about, as to where the rail- 
 
 133 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 road should cross the Stone Ranch. Approaching 
 the fork of the two roads toward which she and the 
 cowboys were riding, she checked her horse in the 
 shade of a cotton-wood tree, and as the party rode 
 up the draw she saw the horseman under surveil- 
 lance. It was George McCloud. 
 
 Unluckily, as she caught a glimpse of him she 
 was conscious that he was looking at her. She 
 bent forward to hide a momentary confusion, 
 spoke briskly to her horse, and rode out of sight. 
 At Marion's she h,ad carefully avoided him. Her 
 precipitancy at their last meeting had seemed, on 
 reflection, unfortunate. She felt that she must have 
 appeared to him shockingly rude, and there was 
 in her recalling of the scene an unconfessed impres- 
 sion that she had been to blame. Often when Mar- 
 ion spoke of him, which she did without the slight- 
 est reserve and with no reference as to whether 
 Dicksie liked it or not, it had been in Dicksie's 
 mind to bring up the subject of the disagreeable 
 scene, hoping that Marion would suggest a way 
 for making some kind of unembarrassing amends. 
 But such opportunities had slipped away unim- 
 proved, and here was the new railroad superintend- 
 ent, whom their bluff neighbor Sinclair never re- 
 ferred to other than as the college guy, being 
 brought apparently as a prisoner to the Stone 
 Hanch. 
 
 134 
 
The Quarrel 
 
 Busied with her thoughts, Dicksie rode slowly 
 along the upper trails until a long detour brought 
 her around the corrals and in at the back of the 
 house. Throwing her lines to the ground, she 
 alighted and through the back porch door made 
 her way unobserved to her room. From the office 
 across the big hall she heard men's voices in dispute, 
 and she slipped into the dining-room, where she 
 could hear and might see without being seen. The 
 office was filled with cowboys. Lance Dunning, 
 standing with a cigar in his hand and one leg 
 thrown over a corner of the table, was facing Mc- 
 Cloud, who stood before him with his hand on a 
 chair. Lance was speaking as Dicksie looked into 
 the room, and in curt tones : " My men were act- 
 ing under my orders." 
 
 " You have no right to give such orders," Mc- 
 Cloud said distinctly, " nor to detain me, nor to 
 obstruct our free passage along the right of way 
 you have agreed to convey to us under our survey." 
 
 " Damn your survey ! I never had a plat of any 
 such survey. I don't recognize any such survey. 
 And if your right-of-way men had ever said a word 
 about crossing the creek above the flume I never 
 would have given you a right of way at all." 
 
 " There were never but two lines run below the 
 creek; after you raised objection I ran them both, 
 and both were above the flume." 
 
 135 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Well, you can't put a grade there. I and some 
 of my neighbors are going to dam up that basin, 
 and the irrigation laws will protect our rights." 
 
 " I certainly can't put a grade in below the flume, 
 and you refuse to talk about our crossing above it." 
 
 " I certainly do." 
 
 " Why not let us cross where we are, and run a 
 new level for your ditch that will put the flume 
 higher up?" 
 
 " You will have to cross below the flume where 
 It stands, or you won't cross the ranch at all." 
 
 McCloud was silent for a moment. " I am 
 using a supported grade there for eight miles to 
 get over the hill within a three-tenths limit. I 
 can't drop back there. We might as well not build 
 at all if we can't hold our grade, whereas it would 
 be very simple to run a new line for your ditch, 
 and my engineers will do It for you without a dol- 
 lar of expense to you, Mr. Dunning." 
 
 Lance Dunning waved his hand as an ultimatum. 
 " Cross where I tell you to cross, or keep off the 
 Stone Ranch. Is that English? " 
 
 " It certainly Is. But In matter of fact we must 
 cross on the survey agreed on In the contract for 
 a right-of-way deed." 
 
 " I don't recognize any contract obtained under 
 false representations." 
 
 " Do you accuse me of false representations? " 
 136 
 
The Quarrel 
 
 Lance Dunning flipped the ash from his cigar. 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 " I am just a plain, every-day civil engineer, but 
 you must not talk false representations in any con- 
 tract drawn under my hand." 
 
 " I am talking facts. Whispering Smith may 
 have rigged the joker — I don't know. Whoever 
 rigged it, it has been rigged all right." 
 
 " Any charge against Whispering Smith is a 
 charge against me. He is not here to defend him- 
 self, but he needs no defence. You have charged 
 me already with misleading surveys. I was tele- 
 phoned for this morning to come over to see 
 why you had held up our work, and your men 
 cover me with rifles while I am riding on a 
 public road." 
 
 " You have been warned, or your men have, to 
 keep off this ranch. Your man Stevens cut our 
 wires this morning " 
 
 " As he had a perfect right to do on our right 
 of way." 
 
 " If you think so, stranger, go ahead again I " 
 
 " Oh, no ! We won't have civil war — ^not right 
 away, at least. And if you and your men have 
 threatened and browbeaten me enough for to-day, 
 I will go." 
 
 " Don't set foot on the Stone Ranch again, and 
 don't send any men here to trespass, mark you! " 
 
 137 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 " I mark you perfectly. I did not set foot will- 
 ingly on your ranch to-day. I was dragged on it. 
 Where the men are grading now, they will finish 
 their work." 
 
 " No, they won't." 
 
 " What, would you drive us off land you have 
 already deeded? " 
 
 " The first man that cuts our wires or orders 
 them cut where they were strung yesterday will 
 get into trouble." 
 
 " Then don't string any wires on land that be- 
 longs to us, for they will certainly come down if 
 you do." 
 
 Lance Dunning turned in a passion. " I'll put 
 a bullet through you if you touch a barb of Stone 
 Ranch wire I " 
 
 Stormy Gorman jumped forward with his hand 
 covering the grip of his six-shooter. " Yes, damn 
 you, and I'll put another I " 
 
 " Cousin Lance I " Dicksie Dunning advanced 
 swiftly into the room. " You are under our own 
 roof, and you are wrong to talk in that way." 
 
 Her cousin stared at her. " Dicksie, this is no 
 place for you! " 
 
 " It is when my cousin is in danger of forgetting 
 he is a gentleman." 
 
 " You are interfering with what you know noth- 
 ing about! " exclaimed Lance angrily. 
 
 138 
 
The Quarrel 
 
 " I know what is due to every one under this 
 roof." 
 
 " Will you be good enough to leave this room? " 
 
 " Not if there is to be any shooting or threats 
 of shooting that involve my cousin." 
 
 " Dicksie, leave the rooml " 
 
 There was a hush. The cowboys dropped back. 
 Dicksie stood motionless. She gave no sign in her 
 manner that she heard the words, but she looked 
 very steadily at her cousin. " You forget your- 
 self I " was all she said. 
 
 " I am master here 1 " 
 
 *' Also my cousin," murmured I)icksie evenly. 
 
 " You don't understand this matter at all I " de- 
 clared Lance Dunning vehemently. 
 
 " Nothing could justify your language." 
 
 " Do you think I am going to allow this railroad 
 company to ruin this ranch while I am responsible 
 here? You have no business interfering, I say! " 
 
 " I think I have." 
 
 " These matters are not of your affair I " 
 
 "Not of my affair?" The , listeners stood 
 riveted. McCloud felt himself swallowing, and 
 took a step backward with an effort as Dicksie 
 advanced. Her hair, loosened by her ride, 
 spread low upon her head. She stood in her sad- 
 dle habit, with her quirt still in hand. " Any 
 affair that may lead my cousin into shooting is my 
 
 139 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 affair. I make it mine. This is my father's roof. 
 I neither know nor care anything about what led 
 to this quarrel, but the quarrel is mine now. I 
 will not allow my cousin to plunge into anything 
 that may cost him his life or ruin it." She turned 
 suddenly, and her eyes fell on McCloud. " I am 
 not willing to leave either myself or my cousin in 
 a false position. I regret especially that Mr. Mc- 
 Cloud should be brought into so unpleasant a 
 scene, because he has' already suffered rudeness at 
 my own hands " 
 
 McCloud flushed. He raised his hand slightly. 
 
 " And I am very sorry for it," added Dicksie, 
 before he could speak. Then, turning, she with- 
 drew from the room. 
 
 " I am sure," said McCloud slowly, as he spoke 
 again to her cousin, " there need be no serious con- 
 troversy over the right-of-way matter, Mr. Dun- 
 ning. I certainly shall not precipitate any. Sup- 
 pose you give me a chance to ride over the ground 
 with you again and let us see whether we can't 
 arrive at some conclusion? " 
 
 But Lance was angry, and nursed his wrath a 
 long time. 
 
 140 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE SHOT IN THE PASS 
 
 DICKSJE walked hurriedly through the din- 
 ing-room and out upon the rear porch. 
 Her horse was standing where she had left him. 
 Her heart beat furiously as she caught up the reins, 
 but she sprang into the saddle and rode rapidly 
 away. The flood of her temper had brbught a 
 disregard of consequence: it was in the glow of 
 her eyes, the lines of her lips, and the tremor of 
 her nostrils as she breathed long and deeply on her 
 flying horse. 
 
 When she checked Jim she had ridden miles, 
 but not without a course nor without a purpose. 
 Where the roads ahead of her parted to lead down 
 the river and over the Elbow Pass to Medicine 
 Bend, she halted within a clump of trees almost 
 where she had first seen McCloud. Beyond the 
 Mission Mountains the sun was setting in a fire 
 like that which glowed under her eyes. She 
 could have counted her heart-beats as the crimson 
 ball sank below the verge of the horizon and the 
 
 141 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 shadows threw up the silver thread of the big river 
 and deepened across the heavy green of the alfalfa 
 fields. Where Dicksie sat, struggling with her 
 bounding pulse and holding Jim tightly in, no one 
 from the ranch or, indeed, from the up-country 
 could pass her unseen. She was waiting for a 
 horseman, and the sun had set but a few minutes 
 when she heard a sharp gallop coming down the 
 upper road from the hills. 
 
 All her brave plans, terror-stricken at the sound 
 of the hoof-beats, fled from her utterly. She was 
 stunned by the suddenness of the crisis. She had 
 meant to stop McCloud and speak to him, but 
 before she could summon her courage a tall, slen- 
 der man on horseback dashed past within a few 
 feet of her. She could almost have touched him 
 as he flew by, and a horse less steady than Jim 
 would have shied under her. Dicksie caught her 
 breath. She did not know this man — she had seen 
 only his eyes, oddly bright in the twilight as he 
 passed — ^but he was not of the ranch. He must 
 have come from the hill road, she concluded, down 
 which she herself had just ridden. He was some- 
 where from the North, for he sat his horse like a 
 statue and rode like the wind. 
 
 But the encounter nerved her to her resolve. 
 Some leaden moments passed, and McCloud, gal- 
 loping at a far milder pace toward the fork of the 
 
 142 
 
The Shot in the Pass 
 
 roads, checked his speed as he approached. He 
 saw a woman on horseback waiting in his path. 
 
 "Mr. McCloudI" 
 
 " Miss Dunning! " 
 
 " I could not forgive myself if I waited too long 
 to warn you that threats have been made against 
 your life. Not of the kind you heard to-day. My 
 cousin is not a murderer, and never could be, I 
 am sure, in spite of his talk; but I was frightened 
 at the thought that if anything dreadful should 
 happen his name would be brought into it. There 
 are enemies of yours in this country to be feared, 
 and it is against these that I warn you. Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 " Surely you won't ride away without giving 
 me a chance to thank you ! " exclaimed McCloud. 
 Dicksie checked her horse. " I owe you a double 
 debt of gratitude," he added, " and I am anxious 
 to assure you that we desire nothing that will injure 
 your interests in any way in crossing your lands." 
 
 " I know nothing about those matters, because 
 my cousin manages everything. It is growing 
 late and you have a good way to go, so good- 
 night." 
 
 " But you will allow me to ride back to the house 
 with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, no, indeed, thank you ! " 
 
 " It will soon be dark and you are alone." 
 143 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " No, no I I am quite safe and I have only a 
 short ride. It is you who have far to go," and she 
 spoke again to Jim, who started briskly. 
 
 " Mi^s Dunning, won't you listen just a mo- 
 ment? Please don't run away I " McCloud was 
 trying to come up with her. " Won't you hear 
 me a moment? I have suffered some little humil- 
 iation to-day; I should really rather be shot up 
 than have more put on me. I am a man and 
 you are a woman, and it is already dark. Isn't it 
 for me to see you safely to the house? Won't 
 you at least pretend I can act as an escort and let 
 me go with you ? I should make a poor figure try- 
 ing to catch you on horseback— — " 
 
 Dicksie nodded naively. " With that horse." 
 
 " With any horse — I know that," said Mc- 
 Cloud, keeping at her side. 
 
 " But I can't let you ride back with me," de- 
 clared Dicksie, urging Jim and looking directly 
 at McCloud for the first time. " How could I 
 explain ? " 
 
 " Let me explain. I am famous for explaining," 
 urged McCloud, spurring too. 
 
 " And will you tell me what / should be doing 
 while you were explaining? " she asked. 
 
 " Perhaps getting ready a first aid for the in- 
 jured." 
 
 " I feel as if I ought to run away," declared 
 144 
 
The Shot in the Pass 
 
 Dicksie, since she had clearly decided not to. " It 
 will have to be a compromise, I suppose. You 
 must not ride farther than the first gate, and let 
 us take this trail instead of the road. Now make 
 your horse go as fast as you can and I'll keep 
 up. 
 
 But McCloud's horse, though not a wonder, 
 went too fast to suit his rider, who divided his 
 efforts between checking him and keeping up the 
 conversation. When McCloud dismounted to open 
 Dicksie's gate, and stood in the twilight with his 
 hat in his hand and his bridle over his arm, he was 
 telling a story about Marion Sinclair, and Dicksie 
 in the saddle, tapping her knee with her bridle-rein, 
 was looking down and past him as if the light upon 
 his face were too bright. Before she would start 
 away she made him remount, and he said good-by 
 only after half a promise from her that she would 
 show him sometime a trail to the top of Brid- 
 ger's Peak, with a view of the Peace River on the 
 east and the whole Mission Range and the park 
 country on the north. Then she rode away at an 
 amazing run, nodding back as he sat still holding 
 his hat above his head. 
 
 McCloud galloped toward the pass with one de- 
 termination — that he would have a horse, and a 
 good one, one that could travel with Jim, if it cost 
 him his salary. He exulted as he rode, for the day 
 
 145 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 had brought him everything he wished, and humili- 
 ation had been swallowed up in triumph. It was 
 nearly dark when he reached the crest between the 
 hills. At this point the southern grade of the pass 
 winds sharply, whence its name, the Elbow; but 
 from the head of the pass the grade may be com- 
 manded at intervals for half a mile. Trotting down 
 this road with his head in a whirl of excitement, 
 McCloud heard the crack of a rifle ; at the same in- 
 stant he felt a sharp slap at his hat. Instinct works 
 on all brave men very much alike. McCloud 
 dropped forward in his saddle, and, seeking no ex- 
 planation, laid his head low and spurred Bill Dan- 
 cing's horse for life or death. The horse, quite 
 amazed, bolted and swerved down the grade like a 
 snipe, with his rider crouching close for a second 
 shot. But no second shot came, and after another 
 mile McCloud ventured to take off his hat and put 
 his finger through the holes in it, though he did not 
 stop his horse to make the examination. When 
 they reached the open country the horse had 
 settled into a fast, long stride that not only re- 
 deemed his reputation but relieved his rider's 
 nerves. 
 
 When McCloud entered his office it was half- 
 past nine o'clock, and the first thing he did before 
 turning on the lights was to draw the window- 
 shades. He examined the hat again, with sensa- 
 
 146 
 
The Shot in the Pass 
 
 tlons that were new to him — fear, resentment, and 
 a hearty hatred of his enemies. But all the while 
 the picture of Dicksie remained. He thought of 
 her nodding to him as they parted in the saddle, 
 and her picture blotted out all that had followed. 
 
 147 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AT THE WICKIUP 
 
 TWO nights later Whispering Smith rode into 
 Medicine Bend. " I've been up around 
 Williams Cache," he said, answering McCloud's 
 greeting as he entered the upstairs office. " How 
 goes it? " He was in his riding rig, just as he 
 had come from a late supper. 
 
 When he asked for news McCloud told him the 
 story of the trouble with Lance Dunning over the 
 survey, and added that he had referred the matter 
 to Glover. He told then of his unpleasant sur- 
 prise when riding home afterward. 
 
 " Yes," assented Smith, looking with feverish 
 interest at McCloud's head; " I heard about it." 
 
 " That's odd, for I haveif t said a word about 
 the matter to- anybody but Marion Sinclair, and 
 you haven't seen her." 
 
 " I heard up the country. It is great luck that 
 he missed you." 
 
 " Who missed me? " 
 
 " The man that was after you." 
 
 " The bullet went through my hat." 
 148 
 
At The Wickiup 
 
 " Let me see the hat." 
 
 McCloud produced it. It was a heavy, broad- 
 brimmed Stetson, with a bullet-hole cut cleanly 
 through the front and the back of the crown. 
 Smith made McCloud put the hat on and describe 
 his position when the shot was fired. McCloud 
 stood up, and Whispering Smith eyed him and put 
 questions. 
 
 " What do you think of it? " asked McCloud 
 when he had done. 
 
 Smith leaned forward on the table and pushed 
 McCloud's hat toward him as if the incident were 
 closed. " There is no question in my mind, and 
 there never has been, but that Stetson puts up the 
 best hat worn on the range." 
 
 McCloud raised his eyebrows. " Why, thank 
 you I Your conclusion clears things so. After you 
 speak a man has nothing to do but guess." 
 
 " But, by Heaven, George," exclaimed Smith, 
 speaking with unaccustomed fervor, " Miss Dick- 
 sie Dunning is a hummer, isn't she? That child 
 will have the whole range going in another year. 
 To think of her standing up and lashing her cousin 
 in that way when he was browbeating a railroad 
 man!" 
 
 " Where did you hear about that? " 
 
 " The whole Crawling Stone country Is talking 
 about it. You never told me you had a mis- 
 
 149 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 understanding with Dicksie Dunning at Marion's. 
 Loosen up I " 
 
 " I will loosen up in the way you do. What 
 scared me most, Gordon, was waiting for the sec- 
 ond shot. Why didn't he fire again ? " 
 
 " Doubtless he thought he had you the first 
 time. Any man big enough to start after you is 
 not used to shooting twice at two hundred and 
 fifty yards. He probably thought you were falling 
 out of the saddle ; and it was dark. I can account 
 for everything but your reaching the pass so late. 
 How did you spend all your time between the 
 ranch and the foothills? " 
 
 McCloud saw there was no escape from tell- 
 ing of his meeting with Dicksie Dunning, of her 
 warning, and of his ride to the gate with her. 
 Every point brought a suppressed exclamation from 
 Whispering Smith. " So she gave you your life," 
 he mused. " Good for her ! If you had got into 
 the pass on time you could not have got away — the 
 cards were stacked for you. He overestimated you 
 a little, George; just a little. Good men make 
 mistakes. The sport of circumstances that we are ! 
 The sport of circumstances ! " 
 
 " Now tell me how you heard so much about it, 
 Gordon, and where? " 
 
 " Through a friend, but forget it." 
 
 " Do you know who shot at me? " 
 150 
 
At The Wickiup 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I think I do, too. I think it was the fellow 
 that shot so well with the rifle at the barbecue — 
 what was his name ? He was working for Sinclair, 
 and perhaps is yet." 
 
 "You mean Seagrue, the Montana cowboy? 
 No, you are wrong, Seagrue is a man-killer, but 
 a square one." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 " I will tell you sometime — but this was not 
 Seagrue." 
 
 " One of Dunning's men, was it? Stormy 
 Gorman?" 
 
 " No, no, a very different sort I Stormy is a 
 wind-bag. The man that is after you is in town 
 at this minute, and he has come to stay until he 
 finishes his job." 
 
 " The devil I That's what makes your eyes so 
 bright, is it? Do you know him? " 
 
 " I have seen him. You may see him yourself 
 if you want to." 
 
 " I'd like nothing better. When? " 
 
 " To-night — ^in thirty minutes." McCloud 
 closed his desk. There was a rap at the door. 
 
 " That must be Kennedy," said Smith. " I 
 haven't seen him, but I sent word for him to meet 
 me here." The door opened and Kennedy en- 
 tered the room. 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Sit down, Farrell," said Whispering Smith 
 easily. " Ve gates'? " 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 " Wie geht es? Don't pretend you can't make 
 out my German. He is trying to let on he is 
 not a Dutchman," observed Whispering Smith 
 to McCloud. " You wouldn't believe it, but I 
 can remember when Farrell wore wooden shoes 
 and lighted his pipe with a candle. He sleeps 
 under a feather-bed yet. Du Sang is in town, 
 Farrell." 
 
 " Du Sang ! " echoed the tall man with mild in- 
 terest as he picked up a ruler and, throwing his leg 
 on the edge of the table, looked cheerful. " How 
 long has Du Sang been in town ? Visiting friends 
 or doing business ? " 
 
 " He is after your superintendent. He has been 
 here since four o'clock, I reckon, and I've ridden 
 a hard road to-day to get in in time to talk it over 
 with him. Want to go? " 
 
 Kennedy slapped his leg with the ruler. " I 
 always want to go, don't I? " 
 
 " Farrell, if you hadn't been a railroad man you 
 would have made a great undertaker, do you know 
 that?" Kennedy, slapping his leg, showed his 
 ivory teeth. " You have such an instinct for 
 funerals," added Whispering Smith. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Smith I Well, who are we waiting 
 152 
 
At The Wickiup 
 
 for? I'm ready," said Kennedy, taking out his 
 revolver and examining it. 
 
 McCloud put on his new hat and asked if he 
 should take a gun. " You are really accompany- 
 ing me as my guest, George," explained Whisper- 
 ing Smith reproachfully. " Won't it be fun to 
 shove this man right under Du Sang's nose and 
 make him bat his eyes?" he added to Kennedy. 
 " Well, put one in your pocket if you like, George, 
 provided you have one that will go off when suf- 
 ficiently urged." 
 
 McCloud opened the drawer of the table and 
 took from it a revolver. Whispering Smith 
 reached out his hand for the gun, examined it, 
 and handed it back. 
 
 " You don't like it." 
 
 Smith smiled a sickly approbation. " A forty- 
 five gun with a thirty-eight bore, George? A 
 little light for shock ; a little light. A bullet is in- 
 tended to knock a man down; not necessarily to 
 kill him, but, if possible, to keep him from kill- 
 ing you. Never mind, we all have our fads. 
 Come on I " 
 
 At the foot of the stairs Whispering Smith 
 stopped. " Now I don't know where we shall find 
 this man, but we'll try the Three Horses." As 
 they started down the street McCloud took the in- 
 side of the sidewalk, but Smith dropped behind and 
 
 153 ■ 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 brought McCloud into the middle. They failed 
 to find Du Sang at the Three Horses, and leav- 
 ing started to round up the street. They visited 
 many places, but each was entered in the same way. 
 Kennedy sauntered in first and moved slowly ahead. 
 He was to step aside only in case he saw Du Sang. 
 McCloud in every instance followed him, with 
 Whispering Smith just behind, amiably surprised. 
 They spent an hour in and out of the Front Street 
 resorts, but their search was fruitless. 
 
 " You are sure he is in town? " asked Kennedy. 
 The three men stood deliberating in the shadow of 
 a side street. 
 
 " Sure I " answered Whispering Smith. " Of 
 course, if he turns the trick he wants to get away 
 quietly. He is lying low. Who is that, Far- 
 rell ? " A man passing out of the shadow of a 
 shade tree was crossing Fort Street a hundred 
 feet away. 
 
 " It looks like our party," whispered Kennedy. 
 "No, stop a bit I" They drew back into the 
 shadow. " That is Du Sang," said Kennedy; " I 
 know his hobble." 
 
 IS4 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A TEST 
 
 DU SANG had the sidewise gait of a wolf, 
 and crossed the street with the choppy walk 
 of the man out of a long saddle. Being both uncer- 
 tain and quick, he was a man to slip a trail easily. 
 He travelled around the block and disappeared 
 among the many open doors that blazed along 
 Hill Street. Less alert trailers than the two be- 
 hind him would have been at fault; but when he 
 entered the place he was looking for, Kennedy 
 was so close that Du Sang could have spoken to 
 him had he turned around. 
 
 Kennedy passed directly ahead. A moment 
 later Whispering Smith put his head inside the 
 door of the joint Du Sang had entered, withdrew 
 it, and, rejoining his companions, spoke in an un- 
 dertone : " A negro dive; he's lying low. Now we 
 will keep our regular order. It's a half-basement, 
 with a bar on the left; crap games at the table 
 behind the screen on the right. Kennedy, will you 
 take the rear end of the bar ? It covers the whole 
 room and the back door. George, pass in ahead 
 
 155 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 of me and step just to the left of the slot machine ; 
 you've got the front door there and everything 
 behind the screen, and I can get close to Du Sang. 
 Look for a thinnish, yellow-faced man with a 
 brown hat and a brown shirt — and pink eyes — 
 shooting craps under this window. I'll shoot craps 
 with him. Is your heart pumping, George? 
 Never mind, this is easy ! Farrell, you're first ! " 
 The dive, badly lighted and ventilated, was 
 counted tough among tough places. White men 
 and colored mixed before the bar and about the 
 tables. When Smith stepped around the screen 
 and into the flare of the hanging lamps, Du Sang 
 stood in the small comer below the screened street 
 window. McCloud, though vitally interested in 
 looking at the man that had come to town to kill 
 him, felt his attention continually wandering back 
 to Whispering Smith. The clatter of the rolling 
 dice, the guttural jargon of the negro gamblers, 
 the drift of men to and from the bar, and the 
 clouds of tobacco smoke made a hazy background 
 for the stoop-shouldered man with his gray hat and 
 shabby coat, dust-covered and travel-stained. In- 
 dustriously licking the broken wrapper of a cheap 
 cigar and rolling it fondly under his forefinger, he 
 was making his way unostentatiously toward Du 
 Sang. Thirty-odd men were in the saloon, but only 
 two knew what the storm centre moving slowly 
 
 156 
 
A Test 
 
 across the room might develop. Kennedy, seeing 
 everything and talking pleasantly with one of the 
 barkeepers, his close-set teeth gleaming twenty 
 feet away, stood at the end of the bar sliding an 
 empty glass between his hands. Whispering Smith 
 pushed past the on-lookers to get to the end of the 
 table where Du Sang was shooting. He made no 
 effort to attract Du Sang's attention, and when the 
 latter looked up he could have pulled the gray hat 
 from the head of the man whose brown eyes were 
 mildly fixed on Du Sang's dice; they were lying 
 just in front of Smith. Looking indifferently at 
 the intruder, Du Sang reached for the dice: just 
 ahead of his right hand. Whispering Smith's right 
 hand, the finger-tips extended on the table, rested 
 in front of them ; it might have been through acci- 
 dent or it might have been through design. In 
 his left hand Smith held the broken cigar, and 
 without looking at Du Sang he passed the wrapper 
 again over the tip of his tongue and slowly across 
 his lips. 
 
 Du Sang now looked sharply at him, and Smith 
 looked at his cigar. Others were playing around 
 the semicircular table — it might mean nothing. 
 Du Sang waited. Smith lifted his right hand from 
 the table and felt in his waistcoat for a match. 
 Du Sang, however, made no effort to take up the 
 dice. He watched Whispering Smith scratch a 
 
 157 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 match on the table, and, either because It failed to 
 light or through design, it was scratched the sec- 
 ond time on the table, marking a cross between the 
 two dice. 
 
 The meanest negro in the joint would not have 
 stood that, yet Du Sang hesitated. Whispering 
 Smith, mildly surprised, looked up. " Hello, 
 Pearline! You shooting here? " He pushed the 
 dice back toward the outlaw. " Shoot again ! " 
 
 Du Sang, scowling, snapped the dice and threw 
 badly. 
 
 "Up jump the devil, is it? Shoot again!" 
 And, pushing back the dice, Smith moved closer to 
 Du Sang. The two men touched arms. Du Sang, 
 threatened in a way wholly new to him, waited 
 like a snake braved by a mysterious enemy. His 
 eyes blinked like a badger's. He caught up the dice 
 and threw. " Is that the best you can do? " asked 
 Smith. "See here!" He took up the dice. 
 " Shoot with me I " Smith threw the dice up the 
 table toward Du Sang. Once he threw craps, but, 
 reaching directly in front of Du Sang, he picked 
 the dice up and threw eleven. " Shoot with me, 
 Du Sang." 
 
 " What's your game? " snapped Du Sang, with 
 an oath. 
 
 " What do you care, if I've got the coin? I'll 
 throw you for twenty-dollar gold pieces." 
 
 iS8 
 
A Test 
 
 Du Sang's eyes glittered. Unable to under- 
 stand the reason for the affront, he stood like a 
 cat waiting to spring. " This is my game ! " he 
 snarled. 
 
 " Then play it." 
 
 " Look here, what do you want? " he demanded 
 angrily. 
 
 Smith stepped closer. " Any game you've got. 
 I'll throw you left-handed, Du Sang." With his 
 right hand he snapped the dice under Du Sang's 
 nose and looked squarely into his eyes. " Got any 
 Sugar Buttes money?" 
 
 Du Sang for an instant looked keenly back ; his 
 eyes contracted in that time to a mere narrow slit; 
 then, sudden as thought, he sprang back into the 
 corner. He knew now. This was the man who 
 held the aces at the barbecue, the railroad man — 
 Whispering Smith. Kennedy, directly across the 
 table, watched the lightning-like move. For the 
 first time the crap-dealer looked impatiently up. 
 
 It was a showdown. No one watching the two 
 men under the window breathed for a moment. 
 Whispering Smith, motionless, only watched the 
 half-closed eyes. " You can't shoot craps," he said 
 coldly. "What can you shoot, Pearline? You 
 can't stop a man on horseback." 
 
 Du Sang knew he must try for a quick kill or 
 make a retreat. He took in the field at a glance. 
 
 159 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Kennedy's teeth gleamed only ten feet away, and 
 with his right hand half under his coat lapel he 
 toyed with his watch-chain. McCloud had moved 
 in from the slot machine and stood at the point of 
 the table, looking at Du Sang and laughing at him. 
 Whispering Smith threw off all pretence. " Take 
 your hand away from your gun, you albino ! I'll 
 blow your head off left-handed if you pull I Will 
 you get out of this town to-night? If you can't 
 drop a man in the saddle at two hundred and fifty 
 yards, what do you think you'd look like after a 
 break with me ? Go back to the whelp that hired 
 you, and tell him when he wants a friend of mine 
 to send a man that can shoot. If you are within 
 twenty miles of Medicine Bend at daylight I'll 
 rope you like a fat cow and drag you down Front 
 Street!" 
 
 Du Sang, with burning eyes, shrank narrower 
 and smaller into his corner, ready to shoot if he 
 had to, but not liking the chances. No man in 
 Williams Cache could pull or shoot with Du Sang, 
 but no man in the mountains had ever drawn suc- 
 cessfully against the man that faced him. 
 
 Whispering Smith saw that he would not draw. 
 He taunted him again in low tones, and, backing 
 away, spoke laughingly to McCloud. While Ken- 
 nedy covered the corner, Smith backed to the door 
 and waited for the two to join him. They halted 
 
 1 60 
 
A Test 
 
 a moment at the door, then they backed slowly up 
 the steps and out into the street. 
 
 There was no talk till they reached the Wickiup 
 office. " Now, will some of you tell me who Du 
 Sang is?" asked McCloud, after Kennedy and 
 Whispering Smith with banter and laughing had 
 gone over the scene. 
 
 Kennedy picked up the ruler. " The wickedest, 
 crudest man in the bunch — and the best shot." 
 
 " Where is your hat, George — the one he put 
 the bullet through? " asked Whispering Smith, 
 limp in the. big chair. " Burn it up ; he thinks he 
 missed you. Burn it up now. Never let him find 
 out what a close call you had. Du Sang I Yes, he 
 is cold-blooded as a wild-cat and cruel as a soft 
 bullet. Du Sang would shoot a dying man, 
 George, just to keep him squirming in the dirt. 
 Did you ever see such eyes in a human being, set 
 like that and blinking so in the light? It's bad 
 enough to watch a man when you can see his eyes. 
 Here's hoping we're done with him I " 
 
 i6i 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 NEW PLANS 
 
 CALLAHAN crushed the tobacco under his 
 thumb in the palm of his right hand. " So 
 I am sorry to add," he concluded, speaking to Mc- 
 Cloud, " that you are now out of a job." The 
 two men were facing each other across the table 
 in McCloud's office. " Personally, I am not sorry 
 to say it, either," added Callahan, slowly filling 
 the bowl of his pipe. 
 
 McCloud said nothing to the point, as there 
 seemed to be nothing to say until he had heard 
 more. " I never knew before that you were left- 
 handed," he returned evasively. 
 
 " It's a lucky thing, because it won't do for a 
 freight-traffic man, nowadays, to let his right hand 
 know what his left hand does," observed Calla- 
 han, feeling for a mat(;h. " I am the only left- 
 handed man in the traffic department, but the man 
 that handles the rebates, Jimmie Black, is cross- 
 eyed. Bucks offered to send him to Chicago to 
 have Bryson straighten his eyes, but Jimmie thinks 
 
 162 
 
New Plans 
 
 it is better to have them as they arc for the present, 
 so he can look, at a thing in two different ways — 
 one for the Interstate Commerce Commission and 
 one for himself. You haven't heard, then ? " con- 
 tinued Callahan, returning to his riddle about 
 McCloud's job. " Why, Lance Dunning has 
 gone into the United States Court and got an in- 
 junction against us on the Crawling Stone Line — 
 tied us up tighter than zero. No more construc- 
 tion there for a year at least. Dunning comes in 
 for himself and for a cousin who is his ward, and 
 three or four little ranchers have filed bills — so it's 
 up to the lawyers for eighty per cent, of the gate 
 receipts and peace. Personally, I'm glad of it. 
 It gives you a chance to look after this operating 
 for a year yourself. We are going to be swamped 
 with freight traffic this year, and I want it moved 
 through the mountains like checkers for the next 
 six months. You know what I mean, George." 
 
 To McCloud the news came, in spite of him- 
 self, as a blow. The results he had attained in 
 building through the lower valley had given him 
 a name among the engineers of the whole line. 
 The splendid showing of the winter construction, 
 on which he had depended to enable him to finish 
 the whole work within the year, was by this news 
 brought to naught. Those of the railroad men 
 who said he could not deliver a completed line 
 
 163 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 within the year could never be answered now. And 
 there was some slight bitterness in the reflection 
 that the very stumbling-block to hold him back, to 
 rob him of his chance for a reputation with men 
 like Glover and Bucks, should be the lands of 
 Dicksie Dunning. 
 
 He made no complaint. On the division he 
 took hold with new energy and bent his faculties 
 on the operating problems. At Marion's he saw 
 Dicksie at intervals, and only to fall more hope- 
 lessly under her spell each time. She could be 
 serious and she could be volatile and she could be 
 something between which he could never quite 
 make out. She could be serious with him when 
 he was serious, and totally irresponsible the next 
 minute with Marion. On the other hand, when 
 McCloud attempted to be flippant, Dicksie could 
 be confusingly grave. Once when he was banter- 
 ing with her at Marion's she tried to say some- 
 thing about her regret that complications over the 
 right of way should have arisen; but McCloud 
 made light of it, and waved the matter aside as if 
 he were a cavalier. Dicksie did not like it, but 
 it was only that he was afraid she would realize 
 he was a mere railroad superintendent with hopes 
 of a record for promotion quite blasted. And as 
 if this obstacle to a greater reputation were not 
 enough, a wilier enemy threatened in the spring to 
 
 164 
 
New Plans 
 
 leave only shreds and patches of what he had 
 already earned. 
 
 The Crawling Stone River is said to embody, 
 historically, all of the deceits known to moun- 
 tain streams. Below the Box Canyon it ploughs 
 through a great bed of yielding silt, its own de- 
 posit between the two imposing lines of bluffs that 
 resist its wanderings from side to side of the wide 
 valley. This fertile soil makes up the rich lands 
 that are the envy of less fortunate regions in the 
 Great Basin ; but the Crawling Stone is not a river 
 to give quiet title to one acre of its own making. 
 The toil of its centuries spreads beautifully green 
 under the June skies, and the unsuspecting settler, 
 lulled into security by many years of the river's re- 
 pose, settles on its level bench lands and lays out his 
 long lines of possession ; but the Sioux will tell you 
 in their own talk that this man is but a tenant at 
 will; that in another time and at another place 
 the stranger wijl inherit his fields; and that the 
 Crawling Stone always comes back for its own. 
 
 This was the peril that Glover and McCloud 
 essayed when they ran a three-tenths grade and 
 laid an eighty-pound rail up two hundred and fifty 
 miles of the valley. It was in local and exclusive 
 territory a rich prize, and they brought to their 
 undertaking not, perhaps, greater abilities than 
 other men, but incomparably greater material 
 
 165 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 resources than earlier American engineers had 
 possessed. 
 
 Success such as theirs is cumulative: when the 
 work is done one man stands for it, but it repre- 
 sents the work of a thousand men in every walk 
 of American industry. Where the credit must lie 
 with the engineer who achieves is in the application 
 of these enormous reserves of industrial triumphs 
 to the particular conditions he faces in the prob- 
 lem before him; in the application lies the genius 
 called success, and this is always new. Moreover, 
 men like Grover and McCloud were fitted for a 
 fight with a mountain river because trained in the 
 Western school, where poverty or resource had 
 sharpened the wits. The building of the Crawling 
 Stone Line came with the dawn of a new day in 
 American capital, when figures that had slept in 
 fairies' dreams woke into every-day use, and when 
 enlarged calculation among men controlling hither- 
 to unheard-of sums of money demanded the best 
 and most permanent methods of construction to in- 
 sure enduring economies in operating. Thus the 
 constructing of the Crawling Stone Line opened in 
 itself new chapters in Rocky Mountain railroad- 
 building. An equipment of machinery, much of 
 which had never before been applied to such 
 building, had been assembled by the engineers. 
 Steam-shovels had been sent in battalions, grading- 
 
 i66 
 
New Plans 
 
 machines and dump-wagons had gone forward in 
 trainloads, and an army of men were operating in 
 the valley. A huge steel bridge three thousand feet 
 long was now being thrown across the river below 
 the Dunning ranch. 
 
 The winter had been an unusual one even in a 
 land of winters. The season's fall of snow had 
 not been above an average, but it had fallen in 
 the spring and had been followed by excessively 
 low temperatures throughout the mountains. June 
 came again, but a strange June. The first rise of 
 the Crawling Stone had not rhoved out the winter 
 frost, and the stream lay bound from bank to bank, 
 and for hundreds of miles, under three feet of ice. 
 When June opened, backward and cold, there had 
 been no spring. Heavy frosts lasting until the 
 middle of the month gave sudden way to summer 
 heat, and the Indians on the upper-valley reserva- 
 tion began moving back into the hills. Then came 
 the rise. Creek after creek in the higher moun- 
 tains, ice-bound for six months, burst without warn- 
 ing into flood. Soft winds struck with the sun and 
 stripped the mountain walls of their snow. Rains 
 set in on the desert, and far in the high northwest 
 the Crawling Stone lifting its four-foot cap of ice 
 like a bed of feathers began rolling it end over 
 end down the valley. In the Box, forty feet of 
 water struck the canyon walls and ice-floes were 
 
 167 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 hurled like torpedoes against the granite spurs: 
 the Crawling Stone was starting after its own. 
 
 When the river rose, the earlier talk of Dun- 
 ning's men had been that the Crawling Stone 
 would put an end to the railroad pretensions by 
 washing the two hundred and fifty miles of track 
 back to the Peace River, where it had started. 
 This much in the beginning was easy to predict; 
 but the railroad men had turned out in force to 
 fight for their holdings, and while the ranchers 
 were laughing, the river was flowing over the bench 
 lands in the upper valley. 
 
 At the Dunning ranch the confidence of the 
 men in their own security gave way to confusion 
 as the river, spreading behind the ice-jams into 
 broad lakes and bursting in torrents through its 
 barriers, continued to rise. Treacherous in its 
 broad and yellow quiet, lifting its muddy head in 
 the stillness of the night, moving unheard over 
 broad sandy bottoms, backing noiselessly into for- 
 gotten channels, stealing through heavy alfalfa 
 pastures, eating a channel down a slender furrow 
 — then, with the soil melting from the root, the 
 plant has toppled at the head, the rivulet has grown 
 a stream; night falls, and in the morning where 
 yesterday smiling miles of green fields looked up 
 to the sun rolls a mad flood of waters: this 
 is the Crawling Stone. 
 
 i68 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE CRAWLING STONE RISE 
 
 SO sudden was the onset of the river that the 
 trained riders of the big ranch were taken 
 completely aback, and hundreds of head of Dun- 
 ning cattle were swept away before they could be 
 removed to points of safety. Fresh alarms came 
 with every hour of the day and night, and the tele- 
 phones up and down the valley rang incessantly 
 with appeals from neighbor to neighbor. Lance 
 Dunning, calling out the reserves of his vocabulary, 
 swore tremendously and directed the operations 
 against the river. These seemed, indeed, to con- 
 sist mainly of hard riding and hard language on 
 the part of everybody. Murray Sinclair, although 
 he had sold his ranch on the Crawling Stone and 
 was concentrating his holdings on the Frenchman, 
 was everywhere in evidence. He was the first at a 
 point of danger and the last to ride away from the 
 slipping acres where the muddy flood undercut ; but 
 no defiance seemed to disturb the Crawling Stone, 
 which kept alarmingly at work. 
 
 169 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Above the alfalfa lands on the long bench north 
 of the house the river, in changing its course many 
 years earlier, had left a depression known as Mud 
 Lake. It had become separated from the main 
 channel of the Crawling Stone by a high, narrow 
 barrier in the form of a bench deposited by the re- 
 ceding waters of some earlier flood, and added to 
 by sand-storms sweeping among the willows that 
 overspread it. Without an effective head or defi- 
 nite system of work the efforts of the men at the 
 Stone Ranch were of no more consequence than if 
 they had spent their time in waving blankets at the 
 river. Twenty men riding in together to tell Lance 
 Dunning that the river was washing out the tree 
 claims above Mud Lake made no perceptible differ- 
 ence in the event. Dicksie, though an inexperienced 
 girl, saw with helpless clearness the futility of it 
 all. The alarms and the continual failures of the 
 army of able-bodied men directed by Sinclair and 
 her cousin wore on her spirit. The river rose until 
 each succeeding inch became a menace to the life 
 and property of the ranch, and in the midst of it 
 came the word that the river was cutting into 
 the willows and heading for Mud Lake. All knew 
 what that meant. If the Crawling Stone should 
 take its old channel, not alone were the two square 
 miles of alfalfa doomed: it would sweep away 
 every vestige of the long stacks below the corrals, 
 
 170 
 
The Crawling Stone Rise 
 
 take the barns, and lap the slope in front of the 
 ranch-house itself. 
 
 Terror seized Dicksie. She telephoned in her 
 distress for Marion, begging her to come up be- 
 fore they should all be swept away; and Marion, 
 turning the shop over to Katie Dancing, got into 
 the ranch-wagon that Dicksie had sent and started 
 for the Crawling Stone. The confusion along the 
 river road as the wagon approached the ranch 
 showed Marion the seriousness of the situation. 
 Settlers driven from their homes in the upper valley 
 formed almost a procession of misery-stricken 
 people, making their way on horseback, on foot, 
 and in wagons toward Medicine Bend. With them 
 they were bringing all they had saved from the 
 flood — the little bunch of cows, the wagonload of 
 hogs, the household effects, the ponies — as if war 
 or pestilence had struck the valley. 
 
 At noon Marion arrived. The ranch-house was 
 deserted, and the men were all at the river. Puss 
 stuck her head out of the kitchen window, and 
 Dicksie ran out and threw herself into Marion's 
 arms. Late news from the front had been the 
 worst : the cutting above Mud Lake had weakened 
 the last barrier that held off the river, and every 
 available man jyas fighting the current at that 
 point. 
 
 Marion heard it all while eating a luncheon. 
 171 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Dicksle, beset with anxiety, could not stay in the 
 house. The man that had driven Marion over, 
 saddled horses in the afternoon and the two 
 women rode up above Mud Lake, now become 
 through rainfall and seepage from the river a 
 long, shallow lagoon. For an hour they watched 
 the shovelling and carrying of sand-bags, and rode 
 toward the river to the very edge of the disappear- 
 ing willows, where the bank was melting away be- 
 fore the undercut of the resistless current. They 
 rode away with a common feeling — a conviction 
 that the fight was a losing one, and that another 
 day would see the ruin complete. 
 
 " Dicksie," exclaimed Marion — they were rid- 
 ing to the house as she spoke — " I'll tell you 
 what we can do ! " She hesitated a moment. 
 " I will tell you what we can do 1 Are you 
 plucky?" 
 
 Dicksie looked at Marion pathetically. 
 
 " If you are plucky enough to do it, we can keep 
 the river- off yet. I have an idea. I will go, but 
 you must come along." 
 
 " Marion, what do you mean? Don't you think 
 I would go anywhere to save the ranch ? I should 
 like to know where you dare go in this country that 
 I dare not I " 
 
 " Then ride with me over to the railroad camp 
 by the new bridge. We will ask Mr. McCloud to 
 
 172 
 
The Crawling Stone Rise 
 
 bring some of his men over. He can stop the 
 river; he knows how." 
 
 Dicksie caught her breath. " Oh, Marion I that 
 would do no good, even if I could do it. Why, the 
 railroad has been all swept away in the lower 
 valley." 
 
 " How do you know? " 
 
 *' So every one says." 
 
 " Who is every one? " 
 
 " Cousin Lance, Mr. Sinclair — all the men. I 
 heard that a week ago." 
 
 " Dicksie, don't believe it. You don't know 
 these railroad men. They understand this kind of 
 thing; cattlemen, you know, don't. If you will go 
 with me we can get help. I feel just as sure that 
 those men can control the river as I do that I am 
 looking at you — that is, if anybody can. The 
 question is, do you want to make the effort? " 
 
 They talked until they left the horses and en- 
 tered the house. When they sat down, Dicksie put 
 her hands to her face. " Oh, I wish you had said 
 nothing about it I How can I go to him and ask 
 for help now — after Cousin Lance has gone into 
 court about the line and everything? And of 
 course my name is in it all." 
 
 " Dicksie, don't raise spectres that have nothing 
 to do with the case. If we go to him and ask him 
 for help he will give it to us if he can ; if he can't, 
 
 173 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 what harm is done ? He has been up and down 
 the river for three weeks, and he has an army of 
 men camped over by the bridge. I know that, 
 because Mr. Smith rpde in from there a few 
 days ago." 
 
 " What, Whispering Smith? Oh, if he is there 
 I would not go for worlds I " 
 
 " Pray, why not? " 
 
 " Why, he is such an awful man ! " 
 
 " That is absurd, Dicksie." 
 
 Dicksie looked grave. " Marion, no man in 
 this part of the country has a good word to say 
 for Whispering Smith." 
 
 " Perhaps you have forgotten, Dicksie, that you 
 live in a very rough part of the country," returned 
 Marion coolly. " No man that he has ever hunted 
 down would have anything pleasant to say about 
 him ; nor would the friends of such a man be likely 
 to say a good word of him. There are many on 
 the range, Dicksie, that have no respect for life 
 or law or anything else, and they naturally hate a 
 man like Whispering Smith " 
 
 " But, Marion, he killed " 
 
 " I know. He killed a man named Williams a 
 few years ago, while you were at school — one of 
 the worst men that ever infested this country. 
 Williams Cache is named after that man ; he made 
 the most beautiful spot in all these mountains a 
 
 174 
 
The Crawling Stone Rise 
 
 nest of thieves and murderers. But did you know 
 that Williams shot down Gordon Smith's only 
 brother, a trainmaster, in cold blood in front of the 
 Wickiup at Medicine Bend? No, you never heard 
 that in this part of the country, did you? They 
 had a cow-thief for sheriff then, and no officer 
 in Medicine Bend would go after the murderer. 
 He rode in and out of town as if he owned it, and 
 no one dared say a word, and, mind you, Gordon 
 Smith's brother had never seen the man in his life 
 until he walked up and shot him dead. Oh, this 
 was a peaceful country a few years ago 1 Gordon 
 Smith was right-of-way man in the mountains then. 
 He buried his brother, and asked the officers what 
 they were going to do about getting the murderer. 
 They laughed at him. He made no protest, except 
 to ask for a deputy United States marshal's com- 
 mission. When he got it he started for Williams 
 Cache after Williams in a buckboard — think of it, 
 Dicksie — and didn't they laugh at him! He did 
 not even know the trails, and imagine riding two 
 hundred miles in a buckboard to arrest a man in 
 the mountains ! He was gone six weeks, and came 
 back with Williams's body strapped to the buck- 
 board behind him. He never told the story; all 
 he said when he handed in his commission and 
 went back to his work was that the man was killed 
 in a fair fight. Hate him ! No wonder they hate 
 
 175 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 him — the Williams Cache gang and all their 
 friends on the range 1 Your cousin thinks it policy 
 to placate that element, hoping that they won't 
 steal your cattle if you are friendly with them. I 
 know nothing about that, but I do know something 
 about Whispering Smith. It will be a bad day for 
 Williams Cache when they start him up again. 
 But what has that to do with your trouble? He 
 will not eat you up If you go to the camp, Dicksie. 
 You are just raising bogles." 
 
 They had moved to the front porch and Marion 
 was sitting in the rocking-chair. Dicksie stood 
 with her back against one of the pillars and looked 
 at her. As Marlon finished Dicksie turned and, 
 with her hand on her forehead, looked In wretched- 
 ness of mind out on the valley. As far, in many 
 directions, as the eye could reach the waters spread 
 yellow in the flood of sunshine across the lowlands. 
 There was a moment of silence. Dicksie turned 
 her back on the alarming sight. " Marion, I can't 
 do It I" 
 
 "Oh, yes, you can If you want to, Dicksie! " 
 Dicksie looked at her with tearless eyes. " It is 
 only a question of being plucky enough," Insisted 
 Marion. 
 
 " Pluck has nothing to do with it I " exclaimed 
 Dicksie in fiery tones. " I should like to know why 
 you are always talking about my not having cour- 
 
 176 
 
The Crawling Stone Rise 
 
 age 1 This isn't a question of courage. How can 
 I go to a man that I talked to as I talked to him 
 in your house and ask for help? How can I go 
 to him after my cousin has threatened to kill him, 
 and gone into court to prevent his coming on our 
 land? Shouldn't I look beautiful asking help 
 from him ? " 
 
 Marion rocked with perfect composure. " No, 
 dear, you would not look beautiful asking help, 
 but you would look sensible. It is so easy to be 
 beautiful and so hard to be sensible." 
 
 " You are just as horrid as you can be, Marion 
 Sinclair! " 
 
 " I know that, too, dear. All I wanted to say is 
 that you would look very sensible just now in ask- 
 ing help from Mr. McCloud." 
 
 " I don't care — I won't do it. I will never do 
 it, not if every foot of the ranch tumbles into the 
 river. I hope it will! Nobody cares anything 
 about me. I have no friends but thieves and out- 
 laws." 
 
 " Dicksie ! " Marion rose. 
 
 " That is what yoji said." 
 
 " I did not. I am your friend. How dare you 
 call me names?" demanded Marion, taking the 
 petulant girl in her arms. " Don't you think I 
 care anything about you ? There are people in this 
 country that you have never seen who know you 
 
 177 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 and love you almost as much as I do. Don't let 
 any silly pride prevent your being sensible, dear." 
 Dicksie burst into tears. Marion drew her over to 
 the settee, and she had her cry out. When it was 
 over they changed the subject. Dicksie went to her 
 room. It was a long time before she came down 
 again, but Marion rocked in patience : she was re- 
 solved to let Dicksie fight it out herself. 
 
 When Dicksie came down, Marion stood at 
 the foot of the stairs. The young mistress of 
 Crawling Stone Ranch descended step by step very 
 slowly. " Marion," she said simply, " I will go 
 with you." 
 
 178 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 AT THE DIKE 
 
 MARION caught her closely to her heart. " I 
 knew you would go if I got you angry, 
 dear. But you are so slow to anger. Mr. Mc- 
 Cloud is just the same way. Mr. Smith says when 
 he does get angry he can do anything. He is very 
 like you in so many ways." 
 
 Dicksie was wiping her eyes. " Is he, Marion? 
 Well, what shall I wear? " 
 
 " Just your riding-clothes, dear, and a smile. 
 He won't know what you have on. It is you he 
 will want to see. But I've been thinking of some- 
 thing else. What will your Cousin Lance say? 
 Suppose he should object? " 
 
 "Object! I should like to see him object 
 after losing the fight himself." Marion laughed. 
 " Well, do you think you can find the way down 
 there for us ? " 
 
 ** I can find any way anywhere within a hundred 
 miles of here." 
 
 On the 20th of June McCloud did have some- 
 thing of an army of men in the Crawling Stone Val- 
 
 179 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 ley. Of these, two hundred and fifty were In the 
 vicinity of the bridge, the abutments and piers of 
 which were being put in just below the Dunning 
 ranch. Near at hand Bill Dancing, with a big 
 gang, had been for some time watching the ice and 
 dynamiting the jams. McCloud brought In more 
 men as the river continued to rise. The danger line 
 on the gauges was at length submerged, and for 
 three days the main-line construction camps had 
 been robbed of men to guard the soft grades above 
 and below the bridge. The new track up and down 
 the valley had become a highway of escape from the 
 flood, and the track patrols were met at every 
 curve by cattle, horses, deer, wolves, and coyotes 
 fleeing from the waste of waters that spread over 
 the bottoms. 
 
 Through the Dunning ranch the Crawling Stone 
 River makes a far bend across the valley to the 
 north and east. The extraordinary volume of 
 water now pouring through the Box Canyon ex- 
 posed ten thousand acres of the ranch to the 
 caprice of the river, and If at the point of its tre- 
 mendous sweep to the north it should cut back 
 into its old channel the change would wipe the 
 entire body of ranch alfalfa lands off the face of 
 the valley. With the heat of the lengthening June 
 days a vast steam rose from the chill waters of 
 the river, marking in ominous windings the chan- 
 . i8o 
 
At the Dike 
 
 nel of the main stream through a yellow sea which, 
 ignoring the usual landmarks of trees and dunes, 
 flanked the current broadly on either side. Late 
 in the afternoon of the day that Dicksie with Mar- 
 ion sought McCloud, a storm drifted down the 
 Topah Topah Hills, and heavy showers broke 
 across the valley. 
 
 At nightfall the rain had passed and the mist 
 lifted from the river. Above the bluffs rolling 
 patches of cloud obscured the face of the moon, 
 but the distant thunder had ceased, and at mid- 
 night the valley near the bridge lay in a stillness 
 broken only by the hoarse calls of the patrols and 
 far-off megaphones. From the bridge camp, which 
 lay on high ground near the grade, the distant 
 lamps of the track-walkers could be seen moving 
 dimly. 
 
 Before the camp-fire in front of McCloud's tent 
 a group of men, smoking and talking, sat or 
 lay sprawled on tarpaulins, drying themselves after 
 the long day. Among them were the weather- 
 beaten remnants of the old guard of the mountain- 
 river workers, men who had ridden in the ca- 
 boose the night that Hailey went to his death, 
 and had fought the Spider Water with Glover. 
 Bill Dancing, huge, lumbering, awkward as a bear 
 and as shifty, was talking, because with no appar- 
 ent effort he could talk all night, and was a valu- 
 
 i8i 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 able man at keeping the camp awake. Bill Dan- 
 cing talked and, after Sinclair's name had been 
 dropped from the roll, ate and drank more than 
 any two men on the division. A little apart, Mc- 
 Cloud lay on a leather caboose cushion trying to 
 get a nap. 
 
 " It was the day George McCloud came," con- 
 tinued Dancing, spinning a continuous story. 
 " Nobody was drinking — Murray Sinclair started 
 that yarn. I was getting fixed up a little for to 
 meet George McCloud, so I asked the barber for 
 some tonic, and he understood me for to say dye for 
 my whiskers, and he gets out the dye and begins 
 to dye my whiskers. My cigar went out whilst 
 he was shampooing me, and my whiskers was wet 
 up with the dye. He turned around to put down 
 th' bottle, and I started for to light my cigar with a 
 parlor-match, and, by gum ! away went my whisk- 
 ers on fire — ^burnt jus' like a tumbleweed. There 
 was the barbers all running around at once trying 
 for to choke me with towels, and running for wa- 
 ter, and me sitting there blazing like a tar-barrel. 
 That's all there was to that story. I went over 
 to Doc Torpy's and got bandaged up, and he 
 wanted me for to go to the hospit'l — ^but I was 
 going for to meet George McCloud." Bill raised 
 his voice a little and threw his tones carelessly over 
 toward the caboose cushion : " And I was the on'y 
 
 182 
 
At the Dike 
 
 man on the platform when his train pulled in. 
 His car was on the hind end. I walked back and 
 waited for some one to come out. It was about 
 seven o'clock in the evening and they was eating 
 dinner inside, so I set up on the fence for a min- 
 ute, and who do you think got out of the car? 
 That boy laying right over there. * Where's your 
 dad ? ' says I ; that's exactly what I said. ' Dead,' 
 says he. ' Dead I ' says I, surprlsed-like. ' Dead,' 
 says he, * for many years.' ' Where's the new su- 
 perintendent ? ' says I. ' I'm the new superintend- 
 ent,' says he. Well, sir, you could have blowed me 
 over with a air-hose. ' Go 'way,' I says. ' What's 
 the matter with your face, Bill ? ' he says, while 
 I was looking at him; now that's straight. That 
 was George McCloud, right over there, the first 
 time I ever set eyes on him or him on me." The 
 assertion was met with silence such as might be 
 termed marked. 
 
 " Bucks told him," continued Bill Dancing, in 
 corroborative detail, " that when he got to Medi- 
 cine Bend one man would be waiting for to meet 
 him. ' He met me,' says Bucks ; ' he's met every 
 superintendent since my time; he'll meet you. Go 
 right up and speak to him,' Bucks says ; ' it'll be 
 all right.' " 
 
 " Oh, hell. Bill !" protested an indignant chonis. 
 
 "Well, what's er matter with you fellows? 
 183 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 Didn't you ask me to tell the story?" demanded 
 Dancing angrily. " If you know it better than I 
 do, tell it! Give me some tobacco, Chris," said 
 Bill, honoring with the request the only man in the 
 circle who had shown no scepticism, because he 
 spoke English with difficulty. " And say, Chris, go 
 down and read the bridge gauge, will you? It's 
 close on twelve o'clock, and he's to be called when 
 It reaches twenty-eight feet. I said the boy could 
 never run the division without help from every 
 man on it, and that's what I'm giving him, and I 
 don't care who knows it," said Bill Dancing, rais- 
 ing his voice not too much. " Bucks says that 
 any man that c'n run this division c'n run any 
 railroad on earth. Shoo! now who's this coming 
 here on horseback? Clouding up again, too, by 
 gum!" 
 
 The man sent to the bridge had turned back, 
 and behind his lantern Dancing heard the tread 
 of horses. He stood at one side of the camp-fire 
 while two visitors rode up; they were women. 
 Dancing stood dumb as they advanced into the 
 firelight. The one ahead spoke : " Mr. Dancing, 
 don't you know me ? " As she stopped her horse 
 the light of the fire struck her face. " Why, Mis' 
 Sinclair!". 
 
 " Yes, and Miss Dunning is with me," returned 
 Marion. Bill staggered. " This is an awful 
 
 184 
 
At the Dike 
 
 place to get to ; we have been nearly drowned, and 
 we want to see Mr. McCloud." 
 
 McCloud, roused by Marion's voice, came for- 
 ward. " You were asleep," said she as he greeted 
 her. " I am so sorry we have disturbed you ! " 
 She looked careworn and a little forlorn, yet but 
 a little considering the struggle she and Dicksie had 
 made to reach the camp. 
 
 Light blazed from the camp-fire, where Dicksie 
 stood talking with Dancing about horses. 
 
 " They are in desperate straits up at the ranch," 
 Marion went on, when McCloud had assured her 
 of her welcome. " I don't see how they can save it. 
 The river is starting to flow into the old channel 
 and there's a big pond right in the alfalfa fields." 
 
 " It will play the deuce with things if it gets 
 through there," mused McCloud. " I wonder 
 how the river is? I've been asleep. O Bill! " he 
 called to Dancing, " what water have you got? " 
 
 " Twenty-eight six just now, sir. ^ She's a-rais- 
 Ing very, very slow, Mr. McCloud." 
 
 " So I am responsible for this invasion," con- 
 tinued Marion calmly. " I've been up with Dick- 
 sie at the ranch ; she sent for me. Just think of it 
 — no woman but old Puss within ten miles of the 
 poor child I And they have been trying everjrwhere 
 to get bags, and you have all the bags, and the 
 men have been buzzing around over there for a 
 
 185 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 week like bumblebees and doing just about as 
 much good. She and I talked it all over this after- 
 noon, and I told her I was coming over here to 
 see you, and we started out together — and merci- 
 ful goodness, such a time as we have had ! " 
 
 " But you started out together; where did you 
 leave her?" 
 
 " There she stands the other side of the fire. 
 O Dicksie ! " 
 
 " Why did you not tell me she was here ! " ex- 
 claimed McCloud. 
 
 Dicksie came into the light as he hastened over. 
 If she was uncertain in manner, he was not. He 
 met her, laughing just enough to relieve the tension 
 of which both for an instant were conscious. She 
 gave him her hand when he put his out, though he 
 felt that It trembled a little. " Such a ride as you 
 have had! Why did you not send me word? I 
 would have come to you ! " he exclaimed, throwing 
 reproach into the words. 
 
 Dicksie raised her eyes. " I wanted to ask you 
 whether you would sell us some grain-sacks, Mr. 
 McCloud, to use at the river, if you could spare 
 them?" 
 
 " Sacks? Why, of course, all you wantl But 
 how did you ever get here ? In all this water, and 
 two lone women! You have been in danger to- 
 night. Indeed you have — don't tell me ! And you 
 
 i86 
 
At the Dike 
 
 are both wet; I know it. Your feet must be wet. 
 Come to the fire. 6 Bill ! " he called to Dan- 
 cing, " what's the matter with your wood? Let us 
 have a fire, won't you ? — one worth while; and build 
 another in front of my tent. I can't believe you 
 have ridden here all the way from the ranch, two 
 of you alone 1 " exclaimed McCloud, hastening 
 boxes up to the fire for seats. 
 
 Marion laughed. " Dicksie can go anywhere ! 
 I couldn't have ridden from the house to the barns 
 alone." 
 
 "Then tell me how you could do it?" de- 
 manded McCloud, devouring Dicksie with his 
 eyes. 
 
 Dicksie looked at the fire. " I know all the 
 roads pretty well. We did get lost once," she con- 
 fessed in a low voice, " but we got out again." 
 
 " The roads are all underwater, though." 
 
 " What time is it, please? " 
 
 McCloud looked at his watch. " Two minutes 
 past twelve." 
 
 Dicksie started. " Past twelve? Oh, this is 
 dreadful 1 We must start right back, Marion. I 
 had no idea we had been five hours coming five 
 miles." 
 
 McCloud looked at her, as if still unable to com- 
 prehend what she had accomplished in crossing the 
 flooded bottoms. Her eyes fell back to the fire. 
 
 187 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " What a blaze! " she murmured as the driftwood 
 snapped and roared. " It's fine for to-night, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " I know you both must have been in the water," 
 he insisted, leaning forward in front of Dicksie to 
 feel Marion's skirt. 
 
 " I'm not wet I " declared Marion, drawing back. 
 
 "Nonsense, you are wet as a rat! Tell me," 
 he asked, looking at Dicksie, " about your trouble 
 up at the bend. I know something about it. 
 Are the men there to-night ? Given up, have they ? 
 Too badi Do open your jackets and try to dry 
 yourselves, both of you, and I'll take a look at the 
 
 river." 
 
 " Suppose — I only say suppose — ^you first take 
 a look at me." The voice came from behind 
 the group at the fire, and the three turned together. 
 
 " By Heaven, Gordon Smith ! " exclaimed Mc- 
 Cloud. " Where did you come from ? " 
 
 Whispering Smith stood in the gloom in pa- 
 tience. " Where do I look as if I had come from? 
 Why don't you ask me whether I'm wet? And 
 won't you introduce me — but this is Miss Dicksie 
 Dunning, I am sure." 
 
 Marion with laughter hastened the introduction. 
 
 "And you are wet, of course," said McCloud, 
 feeling Smith's shoulder. 
 
 " No, only soaked. I have fallen into the river 
 i88 
 
At the Dike 
 
 two or three times, and the last time a big rhinoc- 
 eros of yours down the grade, a section foreman 
 named Klein, was obliging enough to pull me out. 
 Oh, nol I was not looking for you," he ran on, 
 answering McCloud's question; "not when he 
 pulled me out. I was just looking for a farm or 
 a ladder or something. Klein, for a man named 
 Small, is the biggest Dutchman I ever saw. ' Tell 
 me, Klein,' I asked, after he had quit dragging 
 me out — he's a Hanoverian — ' where did you get 
 your pull? And how about your height? Did 
 your grandfather serve as a grenadier under old 
 Frederick William and was he kidnapped ? ' Bill, 
 don't feed my horse for a while. And Klein tried 
 to light a cigar I had just taken from my pocket 
 and given him — fancy I the Germans are a remark- 
 able people — and sat down to tell me his history, 
 when some friend down the line began bawling 
 through a megaphone, and all that poor Klein had 
 time to say was that he had had no supper, nor 
 dinner, nor yet breakfast, and would be obliged 
 for some by the boat he forwarded me in." And, 
 in closing, Whispering Smith looked cheerfully 
 around at Marion, at McCloud, and last and 
 longest of all at Dicksie Dunning. 
 
 " Did you come from across the river? " asked 
 Dicksie, adjusting her wet skirt meekly over her 
 knees. 
 
 189 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 " You are soaking wet," observed Whispering 
 Smith. " Across the river? " he echoed. " Well, 
 hardly, my dear Miss Dunning! Every bridge is 
 out down the valley except the railroad bridge and 
 there are a few things I don't tackle; one is the 
 Crawling Stone on a tear. No, this was across a 
 little break in this man McCloud's track. I came, 
 to be frank, from the Dunning Ranch to look up 
 two women who rode away from there at seven 
 o'clock to-night, and I want to say that they gave 
 me the ride of my life," and Whispering Smith 
 looked all around the circle and back again and 
 smiled. 
 
 Dicksie spoke in amazement. " How did you 
 know we rode away? You were not at the ranch 
 when we left." 
 
 " Oh, don't ask him ! " cried Marion. 
 
 " He knows everything," explained McCloud. 
 
 Whispering Smith turned to Dicksie. " I was 
 interested in knowing that they got safely to their 
 destination — whatever it might be, which was none 
 of my business. I happened to see a man that had 
 seen them start, that was all. You don't under- 
 stand? Well, if you want it in plain English, I 
 made it my business to see a man who made it 
 his business to see them. It's all very simple, but 
 these people like to make a mystery of it. Good 
 women are scarcer than riches, and more to be 
 
 190 
 
At the Dike 
 
 prized than fine gold — in my judgment — so I rode 
 after them." 
 
 Marlon put her hand for a moment on his coat 
 sleeve; he looked at Dicksie with another laugh 
 and spoke to her because he dared not look toward 
 Marion. " Going back to-night, do you say ? You 
 never are." 
 
 Dicksie answered quite in earnest : " Oh, but we 
 are. We must! " 
 
 " Why did you come, then ? It's taken half the 
 night to get here, and will take a night and a half 
 at least to get back." 
 
 " We came to ask Mr. McCIoud for some grain- 
 sacks — ^you know, they have nothing to work with 
 at the ranch," said Marion; "and he said we 
 might have some and we are to send for them in 
 the morning." 
 
 " I see. But we may as well talk plainly." 
 Smith looked at Dicksie. " You are as brave and 
 as game as a girl cap be, I know, or you couldn't 
 have done this. Sacks full of sand, with the boys 
 at the ranch to handle them, would do no more 
 good to-morrow at the bend than bladders. The 
 river is flowing into Squaw Lake above there now. 
 A hundred men that know the game might check 
 things yet if they're there by daylight. Nobody 
 else, and nothing else on God's earth, can." 
 
 There was silence before the fire. McCloud 
 191 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 broke it : "I can put the hundred men there at 
 daylight, Gordon, if Miss Dunning and her cousin 
 want them," said McCloud. 
 
 Marion sprang to her feet. " Oh, will you do 
 that, Mr. McCloud? " 
 
 McCloud looked at Dicksie. " If they are 
 wanted." 
 
 Dicksie tried to look at the fire. " We have 
 hardly deserved help from Mr. McCloud at the 
 ranch," she said at last. 
 
 He put out his hand. " I must object. The 
 first wreck I ever had on this division Miss Dunning 
 rode twenty miles to offer help. Isn't that true? 
 Why, I would walk a hundred miles to return the 
 offer to her. Perhaps your cousin would object," 
 he suggested, turning to Dicksie; " but no, I think 
 we can manage that. Now what are we going to 
 do? You two can't go bafck to-night, that 'is 
 certain." 
 
 " We must." 
 
 " Then you will have to go in boats," said Whis- 
 pering Smith. 
 
 "But the hill road?" 
 
 " There is five feet of water across it in half a 
 dozen places. I swam my horse through, so 
 I ought to know." 
 
 " It is all back-water, of course. Miss Dunning," 
 explained McCloud. " Not dangerous." 
 
 192 
 
At the Dike 
 
 " But moist," suggested Whispering Smith, 
 *' especially in the dark." 
 
 McCloud looked at Marion. " Then let's be 
 sensible," he said. " You and Miss Dunning can 
 have my tent as soon 'as we have supper." 
 
 "Supper!" 
 
 " Supper is served to all on duty at twelve 
 o'clock, and we're on duty, aren't we? They're 
 about ready to serve now; we eat in the tent," 
 he added, holding out his hand as he heard the 
 patter of raindrops. " Rain again I No matter, 
 we shall be dry under canvas." 
 
 Dicksie had never seen an engineers' field head- 
 quarters. Lanterns lighted the interior, and the 
 folding-table in the middle was strewn with papers 
 which McCloud swept off into a camp-chest. Two 
 double cots with an aisle between them stood at 
 the head of the tent, and, spread with bright Hud- 
 son Bay blankets, looked fresh and undisturbed. 
 A box-table near the head-pole held an alarm-clock, 
 a telegraph key, and a telephone, and the wires 
 ran up the pole behind it. Leather jackets and 
 sweaters lay on boxes under the tent-walls, and 
 heavy boots stood in disorderly array along the 
 foot of the cots. These McCloud, with apologies, 
 kicked into the corners. . 
 
 " Is this where you stay? " asked Dicksie. 
 
 " Four of us sleep in the cots, when we can, 
 193 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 and an indefinite number lie on the ground when 
 it rains." 
 
 Marion looked around her. " What do you do 
 when it thunders ? " 
 
 The two men were pulling boxes out for 
 seats; McCloud did not stop to look up. "I 
 crawl under the bed — the others don't seem to 
 mind it." 
 
 "Which is your bed?" 
 
 " Whichever I can crawl under quickest. I 
 usually sleep there." He pointed to the one on 
 the right. 
 
 " I thought so. It has the blanket folded back 
 so neatly, just as if there were sheets under it. I'll 
 bet there aren't any." 
 
 " Do you think this is a summer resort? 
 Knisely, my assistant, sleeps there, but of course 
 we are never both in bed at the same time; 
 he's down the river to-night. It's a sort of contin- 
 uous performance, you know." McCloud looked 
 at Dicksie. " Take off your coat, won't you, 
 please? " 
 
 Whispering Smith was trying to drag a chest 
 from the foot of the cot, and Marion stood watch- 
 ing. " What are you trying to do? " 
 
 " Get this over to the table for a seat." 
 
 " Silly man! why don't you move the table? " 
 
 Dicksie was taking off her coat. " How inviting 
 194 
 
At the Dike 
 
 it all is I " she smiled. " And this is where you 
 stay?" 
 
 " When it rains," answered McCloud. " Let 
 me have your hat, too." 
 
 " My hair is a sight, I know. We rode over 
 rocks and up gullies into the brush " 
 
 " And through lakes — oh, I know ! I can't con- 
 ceive how you ever got here at all. Your hair is 
 all right. This is camp, anyway. But if you want 
 a glass you can have one. Knisely is a great swell ; 
 he's just from school, and has no end of things. 
 I'll rob his bag." 
 
 " Don't disturb Mr. Knisely's bag for the 
 world!" 
 
 " But you are not taking off your hat. You 
 seem to have something on your mind." 
 
 " Help me to get it off my mind, will you, 
 please? " 
 
 " If you will let me." 
 
 " Tell me how to thank you for your generosity. 
 I came all the way over here to-night to ask you 
 for just the help you have offered, and I could 
 not — it stuck in my throat. But that wasn't what 
 was on my mind. Tell me what you thought when 
 I acted so dreadfully at Marion's." 
 
 " I didn't deserve anything better after placing 
 myself in such a fool position. Why don't you ask 
 me what I thought the day you acted so beautifully 
 
 195 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 at Crawling Stone Ranch? I thought that the 
 finest thing I ever saw." 
 
 " You were not to blame at Marion's." 
 " I seemed to be, which is just as bad. I am 
 going to start the 'phones going. It's up to me to 
 make good, you know, in about four hours with a 
 lot of men and material. Aren't you going to take 
 off your hat? — and your gloves are soaking wet." 
 McCloud took down the receiver, and Dicksic 
 put her h?.nds slowly to her head to unpin her hat. 
 It was a broad hat of scarlet felt rolled high above 
 her forehead, and an eagle's quill caught in the 
 black rosette swept across the front. As she stood 
 in her clinging riding-skirt and her severely plain 
 scarlet waist with only a black ascot falling over it, 
 Whispering Smith looked at her. His eyes did 
 not rest on the picture too long, but his glance was 
 searching. He spoke in an aside to Marion. 
 Marion laughed as she turned her head from 
 where Dicksie was talking again with McCloud. 
 " The best of it is," murmured Marion, " she 
 hasn't a suspicion of how lovely she really is." 
 
 196 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SUPPER IN CAMP 
 
 WILL you never be done with your tele- 
 phoning?" asked Marion. McCloud 
 was still planning the assembling of the men and 
 teams for the morning. Breakfast and transpor- 
 tation were to be arranged for, and the men and 
 teams and material were to be selected from where 
 they could best be spared. Dicksie, with the fingers 
 of one hand moving softly over the telegraph key, 
 sat on a box listening to McCloud's conferences and 
 orders. 
 
 " Cherry says everything is served. Isn't it. 
 Cherry?" Marion called to the Japanese boy. 
 
 Cherry laughed with a guttural joy. 
 
 " We are ready for it," announced McCloud, 
 rising. " How are we to sit? " 
 
 " You are to sit at the head of your own 
 table," said Marion. " I serve the coffee, so I 
 sit at the foot; and Mr. Smith may pass the 
 beans over there, and Dicksie, you are to pour the 
 condensed milk into the cups." 
 
 197 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Or into the river, just as you like," suggested 
 Whispering Smith. 
 
 McCloud looked at Marion Sinclair. " Really," 
 he exclaimed, " wherever you are it's fair weather ! 
 When I see you, no matter how tangled up things 
 are, I feel right away they are coming out. And 
 this man is another." 
 
 " Another what? " demanded Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 " Another care-killer." McCloud, speaking to 
 Dicksie, nodded toward his companion. " Troubles 
 slip from your shoulders when he swaggers in, 
 though he's not of the slightest use in the world. 
 I have only one thing against him. It is a physical 
 peculiarity, but an indefensible one. You may not 
 have noticed it, but he is bowlegged." 
 
 " From riding your scrub railroad horses. I feel 
 like a sailor ashore when I get off one. Are you 
 going to eat all the bacon, Mr. McCloud, or do we 
 draw a portion of it? I didn't start out with sup- 
 per to-night." 
 
 " Take it all. I suppose it would be useless to 
 ask where you have been to-day? " 
 
 " Not in the least, but it would be useless to 
 tell. I am violating no confidence, though, in say- 
 ing I'm hungry. I certainly shouldn't eat this stuff 
 if I weren't, should you. Miss Dunning? And I 
 don't believe you are eating, by the way. Where 
 
 198 
 
Supper in Camp 
 
 is your appetite ? Your ride ought to have sharp- 
 ened it. I'm afraid you are downcast. Oh, don't 
 deny it ; it is very plain : but your worry is unnec- 
 essary." 
 
 " If the rain would only stop," said Marion, 
 " everybody would cheer up. They haven't seen 
 the sun at the ranch for ten days." 
 
 " This rain doesn't count so far as the high 
 water is concerned," said McCloud. " It is the 
 weather two hundred and fifty miles above here 
 that is of more consequence to us, and there it is 
 clear to-night. As long as the tent doesn't leak I 
 rather like it. Sing your song about fair weather, 
 Gordon." 
 
 " But can the men work in such a downpour? " 
 ventured Dicksie. 
 
 The two men looked serious and Marion 
 laughed. 
 
 " In the morning you will see a hundred of them 
 marching forward with umbrellas, Mr. McCloud 
 leading. The Japs carry fans, of course." 
 
 " I wish I could forget we are in trouble at 
 home," said Dicksie, taking the badinage grace- 
 fully. " Worrying people are such a nuisance. 
 Don't protest, for every one knows they are." 
 
 " But we arc all in trouble," insisted Whisper- 
 ing Smith. " Trouble I Why, bless you, it really 
 is a blessing; pretty successfully disguised, I ad- 
 
 199 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 mit, sometimes, but still a blessing. I'm in trouble 
 all the time, right now, up to my neck in trouble, 
 and the water rising this minute. Look at this 
 man," he nodded toward McCloud. " He is in 
 trouble, and the five hundred under him, they are 
 in all kinds of trouble. I shouldn't know how to 
 sleep without trouble," continued Whispering 
 Smith, warming to the contention. " Without 
 trouble I lose my appetite. McCloud, don't be 
 tight; pass the bread." 
 
 " Never heard him do so well," declared Mc- 
 Cloud, looking at Marion. 
 
 " Seriously, now," Whispering Smith went on, 
 *' don't you know people who, if they were thor- 
 oughly prosperous, would be intolerable — simply 
 intolerable ? I know several such. All thoroughly 
 prosperous people are a nuisance. That is a gen- 
 eral proposition, and I stand by it. Go over your 
 list of acquaintances and you will admit it is true. 
 Here's to trouble 1 May it always chasten and 
 never overwhelm us : our greatest bugbear and our 
 best friend I It sifts our friends and unmasks our 
 enemies. Like a lovely woman, it woos us " 
 
 "Oh, never I " exclaimed Marion. "A lovely 
 woman doesn't woo, she is wooed ! " 
 
 " What are you looking for, perfection in rhe- 
 torical figure? This is extemporaneous." 
 
 " But it won't do ! " 
 
 200 
 
Supper in Camp 
 
 " And asks to be conquered," suggested Whis- 
 pering Smith. 
 
 " Asks I Oh, scandalous, Mr. Smith I " 
 
 "It is easy to see why he never could get any 
 one to marry him," declared McCloud over the 
 bacon. 
 
 " Hold on, then! Like lovely woman, it does 
 not seek us, we seek it," persisted the orator. 
 " That at least is so, isn't it? " 
 
 " It is better," assented Marion. 
 
 " And it waits to be conquered. How is that? " 
 
 Marion turned to Dicksie. " You are not help- 
 ing a bit. What do you think ? " 
 
 " I don't think woman and trouble ought to be 
 associated even in figure ; and I think ' waits ' is 
 horrid," and Dicksie looked gravely at Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 McCloud, too, looked at him. " You're in 
 trouble now yourself." 
 
 " And I brought it on myself. So we do seek 
 it, don't we? And trouble, I must hold, is like 
 woman. ' Waits ' I strike out as unpleasantly sug- 
 gestive ; let it go. So, then, trouble is like a lovely 
 woman, loveliest when conquered. Now, Miss 
 Dunning, if you have a spark of human kind- 
 ness you won't turn me down on that proposition. 
 By the way, I have something put down about 
 trouble." 
 
 20I 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 He was laughing. Dicksie asked herself if this 
 could be the man about whom floated so many 
 accusations of coldness and cruelty and death. He 
 drew a note-book from a waistcoat pocket. 
 
 "Oh, it's in the note-book 1 There comes the 
 black note-book," exclaimed McCloud. 
 
 " Don't make fun of my note-book! " 
 
 " I shouldn't dare." McCloud pointed to it as 
 he spoke to Dicksie. " You should see what is in 
 that note-book : the record, I suppose, of every man 
 in the mountains and of a great many outside." 
 
 " And countless other things," added Marion. 
 
 " Such as what? " asked Dicksie. 
 
 " Such as you, for example," said Marion. 
 
 " Am I a thing? " 
 
 " A sweet thing, of course," said Marion ironi- 
 cally. " Yes, you ; with color of eyes, hair, length 
 of index finger of the right hand, curvature of 
 thumb, disposition — whether peaceable or other- 
 wise, and prison record, if any." 
 
 " And number of your watch," added McCloud. 
 
 "How dreadful I" 
 
 Whispering Smith eyed Dicksie benignly. 
 " They are talking this nonsense to distract us, of 
 course, but I am bound to read you what I have 
 here, if you will graciously submit." 
 
 " Submit? I wait to hear it," laughed Dicksie. 
 
 " My training in prosody is the slightest, as 
 
 202 
 
Supper in Camp 
 
 will appear," he continued, " and synecdoche and 
 Schenectady were always on the verge of getting 
 mixed when I went to school. My sentiment may 
 be termed obvious, but I want to offer a slight apol- 
 ogy on behalf of trouble; it is abused too much. 
 I submit this 
 
 "SONG TO TROUBLE 
 
 " Here's to the measure of every man's worth, 
 Though when men are wanting it grieves us. 
 Hearts that are hollow we're better without. 
 Hearts that are loyal it leaves us. 
 
 " Trouble's the dowry of every man's birth, 
 A nettle adversity flings us ; 
 It yields to the grip of the masterful hand, 
 When we play coward it stings us. 
 
 " Chorus." 
 
 " Don't say chorus; that's common." 
 " I have to say chorus. My verses don't speak 
 for themselves, and no one would know it was a 
 chorus if I didn't explain. Besides, I'm short a 
 line in the chorus, and that is what I'm waiting for 
 to finish the song. 
 
 " Chorus : 
 
 " Then here's to the bumper that proves every friend! 
 And though in the drinking it wrings us, 
 Here's to the cup that we drain to the end. 
 And here's to — 
 
 There I stick. I can't work out the last line." 
 
 203 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 ' "And here's to the hearts that It brings us! " 
 exclaimed Dicksie. 
 
 "Fine I" cried McCloud. "'Here's to the 
 hearts that -it brings us! ' " 
 
 Dicksie threw back her head and laughed with 
 the others. Then Whispering Smith looked grave. 
 " There is a difficulty," said he, knitting his brows. 
 " You have spoiled my song." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Smith, I hope not ! Have I ? " 
 
 " Your line is so much better than what I have 
 that it makes my stuff sound cheap." 
 
 " Oh, no, Gordon I " interposed McCloud. 
 " You don't see that one reason why Miss Dun- 
 ning's line sounds better than yours is owing to 
 the differences in your voices. If she will repeat 
 the chorus, finishing with her line, you will see the 
 difference." 
 
 " Miss Dunning, take the note-book," begged 
 Whispering Smith. 
 
 " And rise, of course," suggested McCloud. 
 
 " Oh, the note-book ! I shall be afraid to hold it. 
 Where are the verses, Mr. Smith? Is this fine 
 handwriting yours ? 
 
 Then here's to the bumper that proves every friend! 
 
 Isn't that true ? 
 
 And though when we drink it it wrings us, 
 
 — athd it does sbmetimes ! 
 
 204 
 
Supper in Camp 
 
 Here's to the cup that we drain to the ead, 
 
 Even women have to be plucky, don't they, Mar- 
 ion? 
 
 And here's to the hearts that it brings us! " 
 
 Whispering Smith rose before the applause sub- 
 sided. " I ask you to drink this, standing, in con- 
 densed milk." 
 
 "Have we enough to stand in?" interposed 
 Dicksie. 
 
 " If we stand together in trouble, that ought to 
 be enough," observed McCloud. 
 
 " We're doing that without rising, aren't we? " 
 asked Marion. " If we hadn't been in trouble we 
 shouldn't have ventured to this camp to-night." 
 
 " And if you had not put me to the trouble of 
 following you — and it was a lot of trouble! — / 
 shouldn't have been in camp to-night," said Whis- 
 pering Smith. 
 
 " And if / had not been in trouble this camp 
 wouldn't have been here to-night," declared Mc- 
 Cloud. " What have we to thank for it all but 
 trouble?" 
 
 A voice called the superintendent's name through 
 the tent door. " Mr. McCloud? " 
 
 " And there is more trouble," added McCloud. 
 "What is it, Bill?" 
 
 205 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Twenty-eight and nine tenths on the gauge, 
 
 sir." 
 
 McCloud looked at his companions. " I told 
 you so. Up three tenths. Thank you, Bill; I'll 
 be with you in a minute. Tell Cherry to come and 
 take away the supper things, will you? That is 
 about all the water we shall get to-night, I think. 
 It's all we want," added McCloud, glancing at his 
 watch. " I'm going to take a look at the river. 
 We shall be quiet now around here until half-past 
 three, and if you, Marion, and Miss Dunning will 
 take the tent, you can have two hours' rest before 
 we start. Bill Dancing will guard you against in- 
 trusion, and if you want ice-water ring twice." 
 
 206 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A TALK WITH WHISPERING SMITH 
 
 WHEN Whispering Smith had followed Mc- 
 Cloud from the tent, Dicksie turned to 
 Marion and caught her hand. " Is this the terrible 
 man I have heard about? " she murmured. " And 
 I thought him ferocious I But is he as pitiless as 
 they say, Marion? " 
 
 Marion laughed — a troubled little laugh of sur- 
 prise and sadness. " Dear, he isn't pitiless at all. 
 He has unpleasant things to do, and does them. 
 He is the man on whom the railroad relies to re- 
 press the lawlessness that breaks out in the moun- 
 tains at times and interferes with the oper- 
 ating of the road. It frightens people away, and 
 prevents others from coming in to settle. Rail- 
 roads want law and order. Robbery and murders 
 don't make business for railroads. They depend 
 on settlers foV developing a country, don't you 
 know; otherwise they would have no traffic, not 
 to speak of wanting their trains and men let alone. 
 When Mr. Bucks undertook to open up this coun- 
 try to settlers, he needed a man of patience and 
 
 207 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 endurance and with courage and skill in dealing 
 with lawless men, and no man has ever succeeded 
 so well as this terrible man you have heard about. 
 He is terrible, my dear, to lawless men, not to any 
 one else. He is terrible in resource and in daring, 
 but not in anything else I know of, and I knew him 
 when he was a boy and wore a big pink worsted 
 scarf when he went skating." 
 
 " I should like to have seen that scarf," said 
 Dicksie reflectively. She rose and looked around 
 the tent. In a few minutes she made Marion lie 
 down on one of the cots. Then she walked to the 
 front of the tent, opened the flap^ and looked out. 
 
 Whispering Smith was sitting before the fire. 
 Rain was falling, but Dicksie put on her close- 
 fitting black coat, raised the door-flap, and walked 
 noiselessly from the tent and up behind him. 
 " Alone in the rain? " she asked. 
 
 She had expected to see him start at her voice, 
 but he did not, though he rose and turned around. 
 " Not now," he answered as he offered her his box 
 with a smile. 
 
 " Are you taking your hat off for me in the rain? 
 Put it on again ! " she insisted with a little tone of 
 command, and she was conscious of gratification 
 when he obeyed amiably. 
 
 " I won't take your box unless you can find an- 
 other! " she said. "Oh, you have another! I 
 
 208 
 
A Talk with Whispering Smith 
 
 came out to tell you what a dreadful man I thought 
 you were, and to apologize." 
 
 " Never mind apologizing. Lots of people 
 think, worse than that of me and don't apologize. 
 I'm sorry I have no shelter to offer you, except to 
 sit on this side and take the rain." 
 
 " Why should you take the rain for me ? " 
 
 " You are a woman." 
 
 " Biit a stranger to you." 
 
 " Only in a way." 
 
 Dicksie gazed for a moment at the fire. " You 
 won't think me abrupt, will you? " she said, turn- 
 ing to him, " but, as truly as I live, I cannot account 
 for you, Mr. Smith. I guess at the ranch we don't 
 know what goes on in the world. Everything I 
 see of you contradicts everything I have heard 
 of you." 
 
 " You haven't seen much of me yet, you know, 
 and you may have heard much better accounts of 
 me than I deserve. Still, it isn't surprising you 
 can't account for me ; in fact, it would be surprising 
 if you could. Nobody pretends to do that. You 
 must not be shocked if I can't even account for my- 
 self. Do you know what a derelict is ? A ship that 
 has been abandoned but never wholly sinks." 
 
 " Please don't make fun of me ! How did you 
 happen to come into the mountains ? I do want to 
 understand things better." 
 
 209 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 "Why, you are in real earnest, aren't you? 
 But I am not making fun of you. Do you know 
 President Bucks? No? Too bad! He's a very 
 handsome old bachelor. And he is one of those 
 men who get all sorts of men to do all sorts of 
 things for them. You know, building and oper- 
 ating railroads in this part of the country is no 
 joke. The mountains are filled with men that 
 don't care for God, man, or the devil. Sometimes 
 they furnish their own ammunition to fight with 
 and don't bother the railroad for years; at such 
 times the railroad leaves them alone. For my 
 part, I never quarrel with a man that doesn't 
 quarrel with the road. Then comes a time 
 when they get after us, shooting our men or rob- 
 bing our agents or stopping our trains. Of course 
 we have to get busy then. A few years ago they 
 worried Bucks till they nearly turned his hair gray. 
 At that unfortunate time I happened into his 
 office with a letter of introduction from his closest 
 Chicago friend, Willis Howard, prince of good 
 men, the man that made the Palmer House famous 
 — ^yes. Now I had come out here, Miss Dunning 
 — I almost said Miss Dicksie, because I hear it so 
 much " 
 
 " I should be greatly set up to hear you call 
 mc Dicksie. And I have wondered a thousand 
 times about your name. Dare I ask — why do 
 
 2IO 
 
A Talk with Whispering Smith 
 
 they call you Whispering Smith? You don't ^ 
 whisper." 
 
 He laughed with abundance of good-humor. 
 *' That is a ridiculous accident, and it all came 
 about when I lived in Chicago. Do you know any- 
 thing about the infernal climate there? Well, in 
 Chicago I used to lose my voice whenever I caught 
 a cold — sometimes for weeks together. So they 
 began calling me Whispering Smith, and I've never 
 been able to shake the name. Odd, isn't it? But 
 I came out to go into the real-estate business. I 
 was looking for some gold-bearing farm lands 
 where I could raise quartz, don't you know, and 
 such things — yes. I don't mind telling you this, 
 though I wouldn't tell it to everybody " 
 
 " Certainly not," assented Dicksie, drawing her 
 skirt around to sit in closer confidence. 
 
 " I wanted to get rich quick," murmured Whis- 
 pering Smith, confidentially. 
 
 " Almost criminal, wasn't it? " 
 
 " I wanted to have evening clothes." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And for once in my life two pairs of suspend- 
 ers — a modest ambition, but a gnawing one. 
 Would you believe it? Before I left Bucks's office 
 he had hired me for a railroad man. When he 
 asked me what I could do, and I admitted a little 
 experience in handling real estate, he brought his 
 
 211 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 fist down on the table and swore I should be his 
 right-of-way man." 
 
 " How about the mining? " 
 
 Whispering Smith waved his hand in something 
 of the proud manner in which Bucks could wave 
 his presidential hand. " My business, Bucks said, 
 need not interfere with that, not in the least; he 
 said that I could do all the mining I wanted to, and 
 I have done all the mining I wanted to. But here 
 is the singular thing that happened: I opened up 
 my office and had nothing to do ; they didn't seem 
 to want any right of way just then. I kept getting 
 my check every month, and wasn't doing a hand's 
 turn but riding over the country and shooting jack- 
 rabbits. But, Lord, I love this country ! Did you 
 know I used to be a cowboy in the mountains years 
 ago? Indeed I did. I know it almost as well as 
 you do. I mined more or less in the meantime. 
 Occasionally I would go to Bucks — ^you say you 
 don't know him? — too bad! — and tell him can- 
 didlv I wasn't doing a thing to earn my salary. At 
 such times he would only ask me how I liked the 
 job," and Whispering Smith's heavy eyebrows rose 
 in mild surprise at the recollection. " One day 
 when I was talking with him he handed me a tele- 
 gram from the desert saying that a night operator 
 at a lonely station had been shot and a switch mis- 
 placed and a train nearly wrecked. He asked me 
 
 212 
 
A Talk with Whispering Smith 
 
 what I thought of it. I discovered that the poor 
 fellow had shot himself, and in the end we had to 
 put him in the insane asylum to save him from 
 the penitentiary — but that was where my trouble 
 began. 
 
 " It ended in my having to organize the special 
 service on the whole road to look after a thousand 
 and one things that nobody else had — well, let us 
 say time or inclination to look after: fraud and 
 theft and violence and all that sort of disagreeable 
 thing. Then one day the cat crawled out of the 
 bag. What do you think ? That man who is now 
 president of this road had somewhere seen a highly 
 colored story about me in a magazine, a ten-cent 
 magazine, you know. He had spotted me the first 
 time I walked into his office, and told me a long 
 time afterward it was just like seeing a man walk 
 out of a book, and that he had hard work to keep 
 from falling on my neck. He knew what he wanted 
 me for; it was just this thing. I left Chicago to get 
 away from it, and this is the result. It is not all 
 that kind of thing, oh, no I When they want to 
 cross a reservation I have a winter in Washington 
 with our attorneys and dine with old friends in 
 the White House, and the next winter I may be 
 on snowshoes chasing a band of rustlers. I swore 
 long ago I would do no more of it — that I couldn't 
 and wouldn't. But it is Bucks. I can't go back 
 
 213 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 on him. He is amiable and I am soft. He says 
 he is going to have a crown and harp for me some 
 day, but I fancy — that is, I have an intimation — 
 that there will be a red-hot protest at the bar of 
 Heaven," he lowered his tone, " from a certain un- 
 mentionable quarter when I undertake to put the 
 vestments on. By the way, I hear you are inter- 
 ested in chickens. Oh, yes, I've heard a lot about 
 you! Bob Johnson, over at Orovllle, has some 
 pretty bantams I want to tell you about." 
 
 Whether he talked railroad or chickens, it was 
 all one: Dicksie sat spellbound; and when he an- 
 nounced it was half-past three o'clock and time to 
 rouse Marion, she was amazed. 
 
 Dawn showed in the east. The men eating 
 breakfast in tents were to be sent on a work-train 
 up a piece of Y-track that led as near as they could 
 be taken to where they were needed. The train 
 had pulled out when Dicksie, Marion, McCloud, 
 ' and Whispering Smith took horses to get across to 
 the hills and through to the ranch-house. They 
 had ridden slowly for some distance when Mc- 
 Cloud was called back. The party returned and 
 rode together into the mists that hung below the 
 bridge. They came out upon a little party of men 
 standing with lanterns on a piece of track where 
 the river had taken the entire grade and raced furi- 
 ously through the gap. Fog shrouded the light of 
 
 214 
 
A Talk with Whispering Smith 
 
 the lanterns and lent gloom to the silence, but the 
 women could see the group that McCloud had 
 joined. Standing above his companions on a pile 
 of ties, a tall young man holding a megaphone 
 waited. Out of the darkness there came presently 
 a loud calling. The tall young man at intervals 
 bawled vigorously into the fog in answer. Far 
 away could be heard, in the intervals of silence, 
 the faint clang of the work-train engine-bell. 
 Again the voice came out of the fog. McCloud 
 took the megaphone and called repeatedly. Two 
 men rowed a boat out of the back-water behind 
 the grade, and when McCloud stepped into it, it 
 was released on a line while the oarsmen guided it 
 across the flood until it disappeared. The two 
 megaphone voices could still be heard. After a 
 time the boat was pulled back again, and McCloud 
 stepped out of it. He spoke a moment with the 
 men, rejoined his party, and climbed into the sad- 
 dle. " Now we are off," said he. 
 
 "What was it all about?" asked Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 " Your friend Klein is over there. Nobody 
 could understand what he said except that he 
 wanted me. When I got here I couldn't make out 
 what he was talking about, so they let us out in 
 the boat on a line. Half-way across the break I 
 made out what was troubling him. He said he 
 
 215 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 was going to lose three hundred feet of track, and 
 wanted to know what to do." 
 
 " And you told him, of course? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What did you tell him?" 
 
 " I told him to lose it." 
 
 " I could have done that myself." 
 
 "Why didn't you?" 
 
 216 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AT THE RIVER 
 
 THEY found the ranch-house as Marion and 
 Dicksle had left it, deserted. Puss told 
 them every one was at the river. McCloud did 
 not approve Dicksie's plan of going down to 
 see her cousin first. " Why not let me ride down 
 and manage it without bringing you into it at all ? " 
 he suggested. " It can be done." And after fur- 
 ther discussion it was so arranged. 
 
 McCloud and Smith had been joined by Dancing 
 on horseback, and they made their way around 
 Squaw Lake and across the fields. The fog was 
 rolling up from the willows at the bend. Men were 
 chopping in the brush, and McCloud and his com- 
 panion soon met Lance Dunning riding up the nar- 
 row strip of sand that held the river off the ranch. 
 
 McCloud greeted Dunning, regardless of his 
 amazement, as if he had parted from him the day 
 before. " How are you making it over here? " 
 he asked. " We are in pretty good shape at the 
 moment down below, and I thought I would ride 
 over to see if we could do anything for you. This 
 
 217 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 is what you call pretty fair water for this part of 
 the valley, isn't it?" 
 
 Lance swallowed his astonishment. " This isn'f 
 water, McCloud; this is hell." He took off his hat 
 and wiped his forehead. " Well, I call this white, 
 anyway, and no mistake — I do indeed, sir! This 
 is Whispering Smith, isn't it? Glad to see you at 
 Crawling Stone, sir." Which served not only to 
 surprise but to please Whispering Smith. 
 
 "Some of my men were, free," continued Mc- 
 Cloud; "I switched some mattresses and sacks 
 around the Y, thinking they might come in play 
 here for you at the bend. They are at your service 
 if you think you need them." 
 
 " Need them I " Lance swore fiercely and from 
 the bottom of his heart. He was glad to get help 
 from any quarter and made no bones about it. 
 Moreover, McCloud lessened the embarrassment 
 by explaining that he had a personal interest in 
 holding the channel where it ran, lest a change 
 above might threaten the approaches already built 
 to the bridge ; and Whispering Smith, who would 
 have been on terms with the catfish if he had been 
 flung into the middle of the Crawling Stone, con- 
 " tributed at once, like a reenforced spring, to the ease 
 of the situation. 
 
 Lance again took off his hat and wiped the sweat 
 of anxiety from his dripping forehead. " What- 
 
 218 
 
At the River 
 
 ever differences of opinion I may have with your 
 damned company, I have no lack of esteem per- 
 sonally, McCloud, for you, sir, by Heaven I How 
 many men did you bring? " 
 
 " And whatever wheels you Crawling Stone 
 ranchers may have in your heads on the subject of 
 irrigation," returned McCloud evenly, " I have no 
 lack of esteem personally, Mr. Dunning, for you. 
 I brought a hundred." 
 
 " Do you want to take charge here ? I'm frank, 
 sir; you understand this game and I don't." 
 
 " Suppose we look the situation over; meantime, 
 all our supplies have to be brought across from the 
 y. What should you think, Mr. Dunning, of put- 
 ting all the teams you can at that end of the 
 work?" 
 
 " Every man that can be spared from the river 
 shall go at it. Come over here and look at our 
 work and judge for yourself." 
 
 They rode to where the forces assembled by 
 Lance were throwing up embankments and riprap- 
 ping. There was hurried running to and fro, a 
 violent dragging about of willows, and a good deal 
 of shouting. 
 
 Dunning, with some excitement, watched Mc- 
 Cloud's face to note the effect of the activity on 
 him, but McCloud's expression, naturally reserved, 
 reflected nothing of his views on the subject. Dun- 
 
 219 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 ning waved his hand at the lively scene. " They've 
 been at it all night. How many would you take 
 away, sir? " 
 
 " You might take them all away, as far as the 
 river is concerned," said McCloud after a moment. 
 
 "What? Hell! All?" 
 
 " They are not doing anything, are they, but 
 running around in a circle ? And those fellows over 
 there might as well be making mud pies as rip- 
 rapping at that point. What we need there is 
 a mattress and sandbags — and plenty of them. 
 Bill," directed McCloud in an even tone of busi- 
 ness as he turned to Dancing, " see how quick you 
 can get your gangs over here with what sacks they 
 can carry and walk fast. If you will put your men 
 on horses, Mr. Dunning, they can help like every- 
 thing. That bank won't last a great while the 
 way the river is getting under it now." Dancing 
 wheeled like an elephant on his bronco and clat- 
 tered away through the mud. Lance Dunning, re- 
 covering from his surprise, started his men back for 
 the wagons, and McCloud, dismounting, walked 
 with him to the water's edge to plan the fight for 
 what was left of the strip in front of the alfalfa 
 fields. 
 
 When Whispering Smith got back to the house 
 he was in good-humor. He joined Dicksie and 
 Marion in the dining-room, where they were drink- 
 
 220 
 
At the River 
 
 ing coffee. Afterward Dicksie ordered horses 
 saddled and the three rode to the river. Up and 
 down the bank as far as they could see in the misty 
 rain, men were moving slowly about — more men, 
 it seemed to Dicksie, than she had ever seen to- 
 gether in her life. The confusion and the noise 
 had disappeared. No one appeared to hurry, but 
 every one had something to do, and, from the 
 gangs who with sledges were sinking " dead-men " 
 among the trees to hold the cables of the mattress 
 that was about to be sunk, and the Japs who were 
 diligently preparing to float and load it, to the men 
 that were filling and wheeling the sandbags, no 
 one appeared excited. McCloud joined the visi- 
 tors for a few moments and then went back to 
 where Dancing and his men on life-lines were 
 guiding the mattress to its resting-place. In spite 
 of the gloom of the rain, which Whispering Smith 
 said was breaking, Dicksie rode back to the house 
 in much better spirits with her two guests ; and when 
 they came from luncheon the sun, as Smith had pre- 
 dicted, was shining. 
 
 " Oh, come out 1 " cried Dicksie, at the door. 
 Marion had a letter to write and went upstairs, 
 but Whispering Smith followed Dicksie. " Does 
 everything you say come true? " she demanded as 
 she stood in the sunshine. 
 
 She was demure with light-heartedness and he 
 
 221 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 looked at her approvingly. " I hope nothing I may 
 say ever will come true unless it makes you happy," 
 he answered lightly. " It would be a shame if it 
 did anything else." 
 
 She pointed two accusing fingers at him. " Do 
 you know what you promised last night? You 
 have forgotten already 1 You said you would tell 
 me why my leghorns are eating their feathers off." 
 
 " Let me talk with them." 
 
 " Just what I should like. Come on 1 " said Dick- 
 sie, leading the way to the chicken-yard. " I want 
 you to see my bantams too. I have three of the 
 dearest little things. One is setting. They are over 
 the way. Come see them first. And, oh, you must 
 see my new game chickens. Truly, you never saw 
 anything as handsome as Caesar — he's the rooster; 
 and I have six pullets. Cassar is perfectly superb." 
 
 When the two reached the chicken-houses Dlck- 
 sle examined the nest where she was setting the ban- 
 tam hen. " This miserable hen will not set," she 
 exclaimed in despair. " See here, Mr. Smith, she 
 has left her nest again and is scratching around on 
 the ground. Isn't it a shame? I've tied a cord 
 around her leg so she couldn't run away, and she 
 is hobbling around like a scrub pony." 
 
 " Perhaps the eggs are too warm," suggested 
 her companion. " I have had great success in 
 cases like this with powdered ice — not using too 
 
 222 
 
At the River 
 
 much, of course; just shave the ice gently and rub 
 it over the eggs one at a time; it will often result 
 in refreshing the attention of the hen." 
 
 Dicksie looked grave. " Aren't you ashamed 
 to make fun of me? " 
 
 Whispering Smith seemed taken aback. " Is it 
 really serious business?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Very good. Let me watch this hen for a few 
 minutes and diagnose her. You go on to your 
 other chickens. I'll stay here and think." 
 
 Dicksie went down through the yards. When 
 she came back, Whispering Smith was sitting on a 
 cracker-box watching the bantam. The chicken 
 was making desperate efforts to get off Dick- 
 sie's cord and join its companions in the runway. 
 Smith was eying the bantam critically when Dick- 
 sie rejoined him. " Do you usually," he asked, 
 looking suddenly up, " have success in setting 
 roosters? " 
 
 " Now you are having fun with me again." 
 
 " No, by Heaven ! I am not." 
 
 " Have you diagnosed the case ? " 
 
 " I have, and I have diagnosed it as a case of 
 mistaken identity." 
 
 "Identity?" 
 
 " And misapplied energy. Miss Dicksie, you 
 have tied up the wrong bird. This is not a ban- 
 
 223 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 tam hen at all ; this is a bantam rooster. Now that 
 is my judgment. Compare him with the others. 
 Notice how much darker his plumage is — it's 
 the rooster," declared Whispering Smith, wiping 
 the perplexity from his brow. " Don't feel bad, 
 not at all. Cut him loose. Miss Dicksie — don't 
 hesitate; do it on my responsibility. Now let's 
 look at the cannibal leghorns — and great Casar." 
 
 224 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 BETWEEN GIRLHOOD AND WOMANHOOD 
 
 ABOUT nine o'clock that night Puss ushered 
 McCloud in from the river. Dicksie came 
 running downstairs to meet him. " Your cousin 
 insisted I should come up to the house for some 
 supper," said McCloud dryly. " I could have 
 taken camp fare with the men. Gordon stayed 
 there with him." 
 
 Dicksie held his hat in her hand, and her eyes 
 were bright in the firelight. Puss must have 
 thought the two made a handsome couple, for she 
 lingered, as she started for the kitchen, to look 
 back. 
 
 " Puss," exclaimed her mistress, " fry a chicken 
 right away I A big one, Puss I Mr. McCloud is 
 very hungry, I know. And be quick, dol Oh, 
 how is the river, Mr. McCloud? " 
 
 " Behaving like a lamb. It hasn't fallen much, 
 but the pressure seems to be off the bank, if you 
 know what that means? " 
 
 " You must be a magician I Things changed the 
 minute you camel " 
 
 225 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 "The last doctor usually gets credit for the 
 cure, you know." 
 
 " Oh, I know all about that. Don't you want 
 to freshen up ? Should you mind coming right to 
 my room? Marion is in hers," explained Dicksie, 
 " and I am never sure of Cousin Lance's, — he has 
 so many boots." 
 
 When she had disposed of McCloud she flew 
 to the kitchen. Puss was starting after a chicken. 
 *' Take a lantern. Puss 1 " whispered Dicksie vehe- 
 mently. 
 
 "No, indeed; dis nigger don' need no lantern 
 fo' chickens. Miss Dicksie." 
 
 " But get a good one. Puss, and make haste, 
 do! Mr. McCloud must be starved! Where is 
 the baking powder? I'll get the biscuits started." 
 
 Puss turned fiercely. " Now look-a heah, yo' 
 can't make biscuits! Yo' jes' go se' down wif dat 
 young gen'm'n! Jes' lemme lone, ef yo' please! 
 Dis ain't de firs' time I killed chickens. Miss Dick- 
 sie, an' made biscuits. Jes' clair out an' se' down ! 
 Place f'r young ladies is in de parlor! Ol' Puss 
 can cook supper f'r one man yet — ef she has to 1 " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Puss, certainly, I know, of course ; 
 only, get a nice chicken ! " and with the parting 
 admonition Dicksie, smoothing her hair wildly, 
 hastened back to the living-room. 
 
 But the harm was done. Puss, more excited 
 226 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 than her mistress, lost her head when she got to 
 the chicken-yard, and with sufficiently bad results. 
 When Dicksie ran out a few moments afterward 
 for a glass of water for McCloud, Puss was calmly 
 wiping her hands, and in the sink lay the quivering 
 form of young Caesar, Dicksie caught her favor- 
 ite; up by the legs and suppressed a cry. There 
 could be no mistake. She cast a burning look on 
 Puss. It would do no good to storm now. Dick- 
 sie only wrung her hands and returned to Mc- 
 Cloud. 
 
 He rose in the happiest mood. He could not 
 see what a torment Dicksie was in, and took the 
 water without asking himself why it trembled in 
 her hand. Her restrained manner did not worry 
 him, for he felt that his fight at the river was won, 
 and the prospect of fried chicken composed him. 
 Even the long hour before Puss, calm and inviting 
 in a white cap and apron, appeared to announce 
 supper, passed like a dream. When Dicksie rose 
 to lead the way to the dining-room, McCloud 
 walked on air; the high color about her eyes in- 
 toxicated him. Not till half the fried chicken, 
 with many compliments from McCloud, had dis- 
 appeared, and the plate had gone out for the 
 second dozen biscuits, did he notice Dicksic's 
 abstraction. 
 
 " I'm sure you need worry no longer about the 
 227 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 water," he observed reassuringly. " I think the 
 worst of the danger is past." 
 
 Dicksie looked at the table-cloth with wide-open 
 eyes. " I feel sure that it is. I am no longer 
 worrying about that." 
 
 '* It's nothing I can do or leave undone, is it? " 
 asked McCloud, laughing a little as he implied in 
 his tone that she must be worrying about something. 
 
 Dicksie made a gesture of alarm. " Oh, no, no ; 
 nothing! " 
 
 " It's a pretty good plan not to worry about 
 anything." 
 
 " Do you think so? " 
 
 " Why, we all thought so last night. Heav- 
 ens I " McCloud drew back in his chair. " I 
 never offered you a piece of chicken ! What have 
 I been thinking of?" 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't eat it anyway! " cried Dicksie. 
 
 "You wouldn't? It is delicious. Do have a 
 plate and a wing at least." 
 
 " Really, I could not bear to think of it," she 
 said pathetically. 
 
 He spoke lower. " Something is troubling you. 
 I have no right to a confidence, I know," he added, 
 taking a biscuit. 
 
 Her eyes fell to the floor. " It is nothing. Pray, 
 don't mind me. May I fill your cup ? " she asked, 
 looking up. " I am afraid I worry too much over 
 
 228 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 what has happened and can't be helped. Do you 
 never do that? " 
 
 McCloud, laughing wretchedly, tore Cssar's 
 last leg from his body. " No indeed. I never 
 worry over what can't be helped." 
 
 They left the dining-room. Marion came down. 
 But they had hardly seated themselves before the 
 living-room fire when a messenger arrived with 
 word that McCloud was wanted at the river. His 
 chagrin at being dragged away was so apparent 
 that Marion and Dicksie sympathized with him 
 and laughed at him. " ' I never worry about 
 what can't be helped,' " Dicksie murmured. 
 
 He looked at Marion. " That's a shot at me. 
 You don't want to go down, do you ? " he asked 
 ironically, looking from one to the other. 
 
 " Why, of course I'll go down," responded 
 Dicksie promptly. " Marion caught cold last 
 night, I guess, so you will excuse her, I know. I 
 will be back in an hour, Marion, and you can 
 toast your cold while I'm gone." 
 
 " But you mustn't go alone 1 " protested Mc- 
 Cloud. 
 
 Dicksie lifted her chin the least bit. " I shall 
 be going with you, shall I not? And if the mes- 
 senger has gone back I shall have to guide you. 
 You never could find your way alone." 
 
 " But I can go," interposed Marion, rising. 
 229 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 " Not at all; you can not go I " announced Dick- 
 sie. " I can protect both Mr. McCloud and my- 
 self. If he should arrive down there under the 
 wing of two women he would never hear the last 
 of it. I am mistress here still, I think; and I 
 sha'n't be leaving home, you know, to make the 
 trip I " 
 
 McCloud looked at Marion. " I never worry 
 over what can't be helped — though it is dollars to 
 cents that those fellows don't need me down there 
 any more than a cat needs two tails. And how 
 will you get back? " he asked, turning to Dicksie. 
 
 " I will ride back I " returned Dicksie loftily. 
 " But you may, if you like, help me get my horse 
 up." 
 
 " Are you sure you can find your way back? " 
 persisted McCloud. 
 
 Dicksie looked at him in surprise. " Find my 
 way back? " she echoed softly. " I could not 
 lose it. I can ride over any part of this country 
 at noon or at midnight, asleep or awake, with a 
 saddle or without, with a bridle or without, with 
 a trail or without. I've ridden every horse that 
 has ever come on the Crawling Stone Ranch. I 
 could ride when I was three years old. Find my 
 way back? " 
 
 The messenger had gone when the two rode 
 from the house. The sky was heavily overcast, 
 
 230 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 and the wind blew such a gale from the south and 
 west that one could hardly hear what the other 
 said. McCloud could not have ridden from the 
 house to the barn in the utter darkness, but his 
 horse followed Dicksie's. She halted frequently 
 on the trail for him to come up with her, and after 
 they had crossed the alfalfa fields McCloud did 
 not care whether they ever found the path again or 
 not. " It's great, isn't it? " he exclaimed, coming 
 up to her after opening a gate in the dark. 
 " Where are you? " 
 
 " This way," laughed Dicksie. " Look out for 
 the trail here. Give me your hand and let your 
 horse have his head. If he slips, drop off quick on 
 this side." McCloud caught her hand. They 
 rode for a moment in silence, the horses stepping 
 cautiously. " All right now," said Dicksie; " you 
 may let go." But McCloud kept his horse up 
 close and clung to the warm hand. " The camp 
 is just around the hill," murmured Dicksie, trying 
 to pull away. " But of course if you would like 
 to ride in holding my hand you may ! " 
 
 " No," said McCloud, " of course not — not for 
 worlds I But, Miss Dicksie, couldn't we ride back 
 to the house and ride around the other way into 
 camp ? I think the other way into the camp — say, 
 around by the railroad bridge — ^would be prettier, 
 don't you? " 
 
 231 
 
Whisperijig Smith 
 
 For answer she touched Jim lightly with her 
 lines and his spring released her hand very effec- 
 tively. As she did so the trail turned, and the 
 camp-fire, whipped In the high wind, blazed be- 
 fore them. 
 
 Whispering Smith and Lance Dunning were 
 sitting together as the two galloped up. Smith 
 helped Dicksle to alight. She was conscious of her 
 color and that her eyes were now unduly bright. 
 Moreover, Whispering Smith's glance rested so 
 calmly on both McCloud's face and her own that 
 Dicksle felt as if he saw quite through her and 
 knew everything that had happened since they left 
 the house. 
 
 Lance was talking to McCloud. " Don't abuse 
 the wind," McCloud was saying. " It's our best 
 friend to-night, Mr. Dunning. It is blowing the 
 water off-shore. Where is the trouble?" For 
 answer Dunning led McCloud off toward the 
 Bend, and Dicksle was left alone with Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 He made a seat for her on the windward side 
 of the big fire. When she had seated herself she 
 looked up in great contentment to ask if he was 
 not going to sit down beside her. The brown 
 coat, the high black hat, and the big eyes of Whis- 
 pering Smith had already become a part of her 
 mental store. She saw that he seemed preoccu- 
 
 232 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 pied, and sought to draw him out of his abstrac- 
 tion. 
 
 " I am so glad you and Mr. McCloud are get- 
 ting acquainted with Cousin Lance," she said. 
 " And do you mind my giving you a confidence, 
 Mr. Smith? Lance has been so unreasonable 
 about this matter of the railroad's coming up 
 the valley and powwowing so much with lawyers 
 and ranchers that he has been forgetting about 
 everything at home. He is so much older than I 
 am that he ought to be the sensible one of the fam- 
 ily, don't you think so? It frightens me to have 
 him losing at cards and drinking. I am afraid he 
 will get into some shooting affair. I don't under- 
 stand what has come over him, and I worry about 
 it. I believe you could influence him if you knew 
 him." 
 
 "What makes you think that?" asked Whis- 
 pering Smith, but his eyes were on the fire. 
 
 " Because these men he spends his time with in 
 town — the men who fight and shoot so much — are 
 afraid of you. Pon't laugh at me. I know it is 
 quite true in spite of their talk. I was afraid of 
 you myself until " 
 
 " Until we made verse together." 
 
 " Until you made verse and I spoiled it. But 
 I think it is because I don't understand things 
 that I am so afraid. I am not naturally a coward. 
 
 233 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 I'm sure I could not be afraid of you if I under- 
 stood things better. And there is Marion. She 
 puzzles me. She will never speak of her husband 
 — I don't know why. And I don't know why Mr. 
 McCloud is so hard on Mr. Sinclair — Mr. Sin- 
 clair seems so kind and good-natured." 
 
 Whispering Smith looked from the fire into 
 Dicksie's eyes. " What should you say if I gave 
 you a confidence? " 
 
 She opened her heart to his searching gaze. 
 " Would you trust me with a confidence? " 
 
 He answered without hesitation. " You shall 
 see. Now, I have many things I can't talk about, 
 you understand. But if I had to give you a secret 
 this instant that carried my life, I shouldn't fear to 
 do it — so much for trusting you. Only this, too, 
 as to what I say: don't ever quote me or let it 
 appear that you any more than know me. Can you 
 manage that? Really? Very good; you will 
 understand why in a minute. The man that is 
 stirring up all this trouble with your Cousin Lance 
 and in this whole country is your kind and good- 
 natured neighbor, Mr. Sinclair. I am prejudiced 
 against him; let us admit that on the start, and 
 remember it in estimating what I say. But Sin- 
 clair is the man who has turned your cousin's head, 
 as well as made things in other ways unpleasant 
 for several of us. Sinclair — I tell you so you will 
 
 234 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 understand everything, more than your cousin, 
 Mr. McCloud, or Marion Sinclair understand — 
 Sinclair is a train-wrecker and a murderer. That 
 makes you breathe hard, doesn't it? but it is 
 so. Sinclair is fairly educated and highly intel- 
 ligent, capable in every way, daring to the limit, 
 and, in a way, fascinating ; it is no wonder he has a 
 following. But his following is divided into two 
 classes : the men that know all the secrets, and the 
 men that don't — men like Rebstock and Du Sang, 
 and men like your cousin and a hundred or so 
 sports in Medicine Bend, who see only the glam- 
 our of Sinclair's pace. Your cousin sympathizes 
 with Sinclair when he doesn't actually side with 
 him. All this has helped to turn Sinclair's head, 
 and this Is exactly the situation you and McCloud 
 and I and a lot of others are up against. They 
 don't know all this, but I know it, and now you 
 know it. Let me tell you something that comes 
 close to home. You have a cowboy on the ranch 
 named Karg — he Is called Flat Nose. Karg was a 
 railroad man. He Is a cattle-thief, a train-robber, 
 a murderer, and a spy. I should not tell you this 
 if you were not game to the last drop of your 
 blood. But I think I know you better than you 
 know yourself, though you never saw me until 
 last night. Karg is Sinclair's spy at your ranch, 
 and you must never feel it or know It; but he is 
 
 235 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 there to keep your cousin's sympathy with Sinclair, 
 and to lure your cousin his way. And Karg will 
 try to kill George McCloud every time he sets foot 
 on this ranch, remember that." 
 
 " Then Mr. McCloud ought not to be here. I 
 don't want him to stay if he is in danger I " ex- 
 claimed Dicksie. 
 
 " But I do want him to come here as if it mat- 
 tered nothing, and I shall try to take care of him. 
 I have a man among your own men, a cowboy 
 named Wickwire, who will be watching Karg, and 
 who is just as quick, and Karg, not knowing he was 
 watched, would be taken unawares. If Wickwire 
 goes elsewhere to work some one else will take his 
 place here. Karg is not on the ranch now; he 
 is up North, hunting up some of your steers that 
 were run off last month by his own cronies. Now 
 do you think I am giving you confidence ? " 
 
 She looked at him steadily. " If I can only de- 
 serve it all." In the distance she heard the calling 
 of the men at the river borne on the wind. The 
 shock of what had been told her, the strangeness 
 of the night and of the scene, left her calm. Fear 
 had given way to responsibility and Dicksie seemed 
 to know herself. 
 
 " You have nothing whatever to do to deserve 
 it but keep your own counsel. But listen a moment 
 longer — for this is what I have been leading up 
 
 236 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 to," he said. " Marion will get a message to- 
 morrow, a message from Sinclair, asking her to 
 come to see him at his ranch-house before she goes 
 back. I don't know what he wants — ^but she is 
 his wife. He has treated her infamously; that is 
 why she will not live with him and does not speak 
 of him. But you know how strange a woman is — 
 or perhaps you don't: she doesn't always cease to 
 care for a man when she ceases to trust him. I 
 am not in Marion's confidence. Miss Dicksie. She 
 is another man's wife. I cannot tell how she feels 
 toward him ; I know she has often tried to reclaim 
 him from his deviltry. She may try again, that is, 
 she may, for one reason or another, go to him as 
 he asks. I could not interfere, if I would. I have 
 no right to if I could, and I will not. Now this is 
 what I'm trying to get up the courage to ask you. 
 Should you dare to go with her to Sinclair's ranch 
 if she decides to go to him ? " 
 
 " Certainly I should dare." 
 
 " After all you know? " 
 
 " After all I know — ^why not? " 
 
 " Then in case she does go and you go with her, 
 you will know nothing whatever about anything, of 
 course, unless you get the story from her. What I 
 fear is that which possibly may come of their in- 
 terview. He may try to kill her — don't be fright- 
 ened. He will not succeed if you can only make 
 
 237 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 sure he doesn't lead her away on horseback from 
 the ranch-house or get her alone in a room. She 
 has few friends. I respect and honor her because 
 she -and I grew up as children together in the 
 same little town in Wisconsin. I know her folks, 
 all of them, and I've promised them — ^you know 
 — to have a kind of care of her." 
 
 " I think I know." 
 
 He looked self-conscious even at her tone of 
 understanding. "I need not try to deceive you; 
 your instinct would be poor if it did not tell you 
 more than I ought to. He came along and turned 
 her head. You need fear nothing for yourself in 
 going with her, and nothing for her if you can 
 cover just those two points — can you remember? 
 Not to let her go away with him on horseback, and 
 not to leave her where she will be alone with him 
 in the house ? " 
 
 " I can and will. I think as much of Marion as 
 you do. I am proud to be able to do something 
 for you. How little I have known you! I 
 thought you were everything I didn't want to 
 know." 
 
 " It's nothing," he returned easily, " except that 
 Sinclair has stirred up your cousin and the ranch- 
 ers as well as the Williams Cache gang, and that 
 makes talk about me. I have to do what I can to 
 make this a peaceable country to live in. The 
 
 238 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 railroad wants decent people here and doesn't want 
 the other kind, and it falls on me, unfortunately, 
 to keep the other kind moving. I don't like it, 
 but we can none of us do quite what we please in 
 making a living. Let me tell you this" — he turned 
 to fix his eyes seriously on hers : " Believe any- 
 thing you hear of me except that I have ever taken 
 human life willingly or save in discharge of my 
 duty. But this kind of work makes my own life an 
 uncertainty, as you can see. I do almost literally 
 carry my life in my hand, for if my hand is not 
 quicker every time than a man's eye, I am done 
 for then and there." 
 
 " It is dreadful to think of." 
 
 " Not exactly that, but it is something I can't 
 afford to forget." 
 
 " What would become of the lives of the friends 
 you protect if you were killed? " 
 
 " You say you care for Marion Sinclair. I 
 should like to think if anything should happen to 
 me you wouldn't forget her? " 
 
 " I never will." 
 
 He smiled. " Then I put her in charge of the 
 man closest to me) George McCloud, and the 
 woman she thinks the most of in the world — -ex- 
 cept her mother. What is this, are they back? 
 Yonder they come." 
 
 " We found nothing serious," McCloud said; 
 239 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 answering their questions as he approached with 
 Lance Dunning. " The current is really swinging 
 away, but the bank is caving in where it was un- 
 dermined last night." He stopped before Dicksie. 
 " I am trying to get your cousin to go to the house 
 and go to bed. I am going to stay all night, but 
 there is no necessity for his staying." 
 
 " Damn it, McCloud, it's not right," protested 
 Lance, taking off his hat and wiping his forehead. 
 " You need the sleep more than I do. I say he is 
 the one to go to bed to-night," continued Lance, 
 putting it up to Whispering Smith. " And I insist, 
 by the Almighty, that you two take him back to 
 the house with you now ! " 
 
 Whispering Smith raised his hand. " If this is 
 merely a family quarrel about who shall go to bed, 
 let us compromise. You two stay up all night and 
 let me go to bed." 
 
 Lance, however, was obdurate. 
 
 " It seems to be a family characteristic of the 
 'Dunnings to have their own way," ventured Mc- 
 Cloud, after some further dispute. " If you will 
 have it so, Mr. Dunning, you may stand watch 
 to-night and I will go to the house." 
 
 Riding back with McCloud, Dicksie and Whis- 
 pering Smith discussed the flood. McCloud dis- 
 claimed credit for the improvement in the situation. 
 "If the current had held against us as it did yes- 
 
 240 
 
Between Girlhood and Womanhood 
 
 terday, nothing I could have done would have 
 turned it," he said. 
 
 " Honesty is the best policy, of course," observed 
 Whispering Smith. " I like to see a modest man 
 — and you want to remind him of all this when he 
 sends in his bill," he suggested, speaking to Dick- 
 sie in the dark. " But," he added, turning to 
 McCloud, " admitting that you are right, don't 
 take the trouble to advertise your view of it 
 around here. It would be only decent strategy for 
 us in the valley just now to take a little of the 
 credit due to the wind." 
 
 241 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE MAN ON THE FRENCHMAN 
 
 SINCLAIR'S place on the Frenchman backed 
 up on a sharp rise against the foothills of 
 the Bridger range, and the ranch buildings were 
 strung along the creek. The ranch-house stood 
 on ground high enough to command the country 
 for miles up and down the valley. 
 
 Only two roads lead from Medicine Bend and 
 the south into the Frenchman country: one a 
 wagon-road following Smoky Creek and running 
 through Dale Canyon; the other a pack-road, 
 known as the Gridley trail, crossing the Topah 
 Topah Hills and making a short cut from the Dun- 
 ning ranch on the Crawling Stone to the French- 
 man. The entire valley is, in fact, so difficult of 
 access, save by the long and roundabout wagon- 
 road, that the sight of a complete outfit of build- 
 ings such as that put up by Sinclair always came 
 as a surprise to the traveller who, reaching the 
 crest of the hills, looked suddenly down a thousand 
 feet on his well-ordered sheds and bams and cor- 
 rals. 
 
 The rider who reaches the Topah Topah crest 
 242 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 on the Gridley trail now sees in the valley below 
 only traces of what was so laboriously planned and 
 perfectly maintained a few years ago. But even 
 the ruins left on the Frenchman show the her- 
 culean labor undertaken by the man in setting up 
 a comfortable and even an elaborate establishment 
 in so inaccessible a spot. His defiance of all ordi- 
 nary means of doing things was shown in his pref- 
 erence for bringing much of his building-material 
 over the trail instead of around by the Smoky 
 Creek road; A good part of the lumber that went 
 into his house was packed over the Gridley trail. 
 His piano was brought through the canyon on a 
 wagon, but the mechanical player for the piano 
 and his wagons themselves were packed over the 
 trail on the backs of mules. A heavy steel range 
 for the kitchen had been brought over the same 
 way. For Sinclair no work was hard enough, 
 none went fast enough, and revelry never rose high 
 enough. During the time of his activity in the 
 Frenchman Valley Sinclair had the best-appointed 
 place between Williams Cache and the Crawling 
 Stone, and in the Crawling Stone only the Dun- 
 ning ranch would bear comparison with his own. 
 On the Frenchman Sinclair kept an establishment 
 the fame of which is still foremost in mountain 
 story. Here his cows ranged the canyons and the 
 hills for miles, and his horses were known from 
 
 243 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 Medicine Bend to Fort Tracy. Here he rallied 
 his men, laid snares for his enemies, dispensed a 
 reckless hospitality, ruled his men with an oath and 
 a blow, and carried a six-shooter to explain orders 
 and answer questions with. 
 
 Over the Gridley trail from the Crawling Stone 
 Marion and Dicksie Dunning rode early in the 
 morning the day after McCloud and his men left 
 the Stone Ranch with their work done. The trail 
 is a good three hours long, and they reached Sin- 
 clair's place at about ten o'clock. He was wait- 
 ing for Marion — she had sent word she should 
 come — and he came out of the front door into the 
 sunshine with a smile of welcome when he saw 
 Dicksie with her. Dicksie, long an admirer of Sin- 
 clair's, as women usually were, had recast some- 
 what violently her opinions of him. She faced him 
 now with a criminal consciousness that she knew 
 too much. The weight of the dreadful secret 
 weighed on her, and her responsibility in the issue 
 of the day ahead did not help to make her greet- 
 ing an easy one. One thing only was fixed in her 
 mind and reflected in the tension of her lips and 
 her eyes: the resolve to keep at every cost the 
 promise she had given. For Dicksie had fallen 
 under the spell of a man even more compelling 
 than Sinclair, , and felt strangely bounden to what 
 she had said. 
 
 244 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 Sinclair, however, had spirit enough to smooth 
 quite away every embarrassment. " Bachelor's 
 quarters," he explained roughly and pleasantly, as 
 he led the two women toward the house. " Cow- 
 men make poor housekeepers, But you must feel at 
 home." And when Dicksie, looking at his Indian 
 rugs on the floors, the walls, and the couches, said 
 she thought he had little to apologize for, Sinclair 
 looked gratified and took off his hat again. " Just 
 a moment," he said, standing at the side of the 
 door. " I've never been able to get Marion over 
 here before, so it happens that a woman's foot has 
 never entered the new house. I want to watch 
 one of you cross the threshold for the first time." 
 
 Dicksie, moving ahead, retreated with a laugh. 
 •' You first, then, Marion." 
 
 " No, Dicksie, you." 
 
 " Never! you first." So Marion, quite red and 
 wretchedly ill at ease, walked into the ranch-house 
 first. 
 
 Sinclair shone nowhere better than as a host. 
 When he had placed his guests comfortably in the 
 living-room he told them the story of the build- 
 ing of the house. Then he made a cicerone of 
 himself, and explained, with running comments, 
 each feature of his plan as he showed how it had 
 been carried out through the various rooms. Sur- 
 prised at the attractiveness of things, Dicksie found 
 
 245 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 herself making mental notes for her own use, 
 and began asking questions. Sinclair was superb 
 in answering, but the danger of admiring things 
 became at once apparent, for when Dicksie ex- 
 claimed over a handsome bearskin, a rich dark- 
 brown grizzly-skin of unusual size, Sinclair told 
 the story of the killing, bared his tremendous fore- 
 arm to show where the polished claws had ripped 
 him, and, disregarding Dicksie's protests, insisted 
 on sending the skin over to Crawling Stone Ranch 
 as a souvenir of her visit. 
 
 " I live a great deal alone over here," he said, 
 waving Dicksie's continued refusal magnificently 
 aside as he moved into the next room. " I've got 
 a few good dogs, and I hunt just enough to keep 
 my hand in with a rifle." Dicksie quailed a little 
 at the smile that went with the words. " The 
 men, at least the kind I mix with, don't care for 
 grizzly-skins, and to enjoy anything you've got 
 to have sympathetic company — don't you know 
 that?" he asked, looking admiringly at Dicksie. 
 "I've got another skin for you — a silver-tip," he 
 added in deep, gentle tones, addressing Marlon. 
 " It has a fine head, as fine as I ever saw in the 
 Smithsonian. It is down at Medicine Bend now, 
 being dressed and mounted. By the way, I've for- 
 gotten to ask you. Miss Dicksie, about the high 
 water. How did you get through at the ranch ? " 
 
 246 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 Dicksie, sitting on the piano-bench, looked up 
 with resolution. "Bravely!" she exclaimed. 
 " Mr. McCloud came to our rescue with bags and 
 mattresses and a hundred men, and he has put in 
 a revetement a thousand feet long. Oh, we are 
 regular river experts at our house now I Had you 
 any trouble here, Mr. Sinclair? " 
 
 " No, the Frenchman behaves pretty well in the 
 rock. We had forty feet of water here one day, 
 though; forty feet, that's right. McCloud, yes; 
 able fellow, I guess, too, though he and I don't hit 
 it off." Sinclair sat back in his chair, and as he 
 spoke he spoke magnanimously. " He doesn't like 
 me, but that is no fault of his; railroad men, and 
 good ones, too, sometimes get started wrong with 
 one another. Well, I'm glad he took care of you. 
 Try that piano. Miss Dicksie, will you? I don't 
 know much about pianos, but that ought to be a 
 good one. I would wheel the player over for you, 
 but any one that plays as beautifully as you do 
 ought not to be allowed to use a player. Mar- 
 ion, I want to talk a few minutes with you, 
 may I ? Do you mind going out under the cotton- 
 wood? " 
 
 Dicksie's heart jumped. " Don't be gone long, 
 Marion," she exclaimed impulsively, " for you 
 know, Mr. Sinclair, we must get back by two 
 o'clock." And Dicksie, pale with apprehension, 
 
 247 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 looked at them both. Marion, quite composed, 
 nodded reassuringly and followed Sinclair out of 
 doors into the sunshine. 
 
 For a few minutes Dicksie fingered wildly on 
 the piano at some half-forgotten air, and in a fever 
 of excitement walked out on the porch to see where 
 they were. To her relief, she saw Marion sitting 
 near Sinclair under the big tree in front of the 
 house, where the horses stood. Dicksie, with her 
 hands on her girdle, walked forlornly back and 
 forth, hummed a tune, sat down in a rocking-chair, 
 fanned herself, rose, walked back and forth again, 
 and reflected that she was perfectly helpless, and 
 that Sinclair might kill Marion a hundred times 
 before she could reach her. And the thought that 
 Marion was perhaps wholly unconscious of danger 
 increased her anxiety. 
 
 She sat down in despair. How could Whisper- 
 ing Smith have allowed any one he had a care for 
 to be exposed in this dreadful way? Trying to 
 think what to do, Dicksie hurried back into the 
 living-room, walked to the piano, took the pile of 
 sheet-music from the top, and sat down to thumb 
 it over. She threw song after song on the chair 
 beside her. They were sheets of gaudy coon songs 
 and ragtime with flaring covers, and they seemed 
 to give off odors of cheap perfume. Dicksie hardly 
 saw the titles as she passed them over, but, of a 
 
 248 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 sudden she stopped. Between two sheets of the 
 music lay a small handkerchief. It was mussed, 
 and in the corner of it " Nellie " was written con- 
 spicuously in a laundry mark. The odor of musk 
 became in an instant sickening. Dicksie threw the 
 music disdainfully aside, and sprang up with a 
 flushed face to leave the room. Sinclair's remark 
 about the first woman to cross his threshold came 
 back to her. From that moment Dicksie hated 
 him. But no sooner had she seated herself on 
 the porch than she remembered she had left her 
 hat in the house, and rose to go in after it. She 
 was resolved not to leave it under the roof another 
 moment, and she had resolved to go over and wait 
 where her horse was tied. As she reentered the 
 doorway she stopped. In the room she had just 
 left a cowboy sat at the table, taking apart a re- 
 volver to clean it. The revolver was spread in its 
 parts before him, but across the table lay a rifle. 
 The man had not been in the room when she left 
 it a moment before. 
 
 Dicksie passed behind him. He paid no atten- 
 tion to her; he had not looked up when she entered 
 the room. Passing behind him once more to go 
 out, Dicksie looked through the open window be- 
 fore which he sat. Sinclair and Marion sitting 
 under the cottonwood tree were In plain sight, and 
 the muzzle of the rifle where it lay covered them. 
 
 249 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 Dicksie thrilled, but the man was busy with his 
 work. Breathing deeply, she walked out on the 
 porch again. Sinclair, she thought, was looking 
 straight at her, and in her anxiety to appear uncon- 
 scious she turned, walked to the end of the house, 
 and at the corner almost ran into a man sitting 
 out of doors in the shade mending a saddle. He 
 had removed his belt to work, and his revolver lay 
 in the holster on the bench, its grip just within 
 reach of his hand. Dicksie walked in front of him, 
 but he did not look up. She turned as if chang- 
 ing her mind, and with a little flirt of her riding- 
 skirt sat down in the porch chair, feeling a faint 
 moisture upon her forehead. 
 
 " I am going to leave this country, Marion," 
 Sinclair was saying. " There's nothing here for 
 me; I can see that. What's the use of my eating 
 my heart out over the way I've been treated ? I've 
 given the best years of my life to this railroad, 
 and now they turn me down with a kick and a 
 curse. It's the old story of the Indian and his 
 dog, only I don't propose to let them make soup 
 of me. I'm going to the coast, Marion. I'm 
 going to California, where I wanted to go when 
 we were married, and I wish to God we had gone 
 there then. All our troubles might never have 
 been if I had got in with a different crowd from 
 
 250 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 these cow-boozers on the start. And, Marion, I 
 want to know whether you'll give me another 
 chance and go with me." 
 
 Sinclair, on the bench and leaning against the 
 tree, sat with folded arms looking at his wife. 
 Marion in a hickory chair faced him. 
 
 " No one would like to see you be all you ought 
 to be more than I, Murray; but you are the only 
 one in the world that can ever give yourself an- 
 other chance to be that." 
 
 " The fellows in the saddle here now have de- 
 nied me every chance to make a man of myself 
 again on the railroad — ^you know that, Marion. 
 In fact, they never did give me the show I was 
 entitled to. I ought to have had Hailey's place. 
 Bucks never treated me right in that; he never 
 pushed me in the way he pushed other men that 
 were just as bad as I ever was. It discouraged me ; 
 that's the reason I went to pieces." 
 
 " It could be no reason for treating me as you 
 treated me : for bringing drunken men and drunken 
 women into our house, and driving me out of it 
 unless I would be what you were and what they 
 were." 
 
 " I know I haven't treated you right; I've 
 treated you shamefully. I will do anything on 
 earth you say to square it. I will! Recollect, I 
 had lived among men and in the same country 
 
 251 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 with women like that for years before I knew you. 
 I didn't know how to treat you ; I admit it. Give 
 me another chance, Marion. " 
 
 " I gave you all that I had when I married you, 
 Murray. I haven't anything more to give to any 
 man. You would be disappointed in me if I could 
 ever live with you again, and I could not do that 
 without living a lie every day." 
 
 He bent forward, looking at the ground. He 
 talked of their first meeting in Wisconsin; of the 
 happiness of their little courtship; he brought up 
 California again, and the Northwest coast, where, 
 he told her, a great railroad was to be built and 
 he should find the chance he needed to make a 
 record for himself — it had been promised him — 
 a chance to be the man his abilities entitled him to 
 be in railroading. " And I've got a customer for 
 the ranch and the cows, Marion. I don't care for 
 this business — damn the cows! let somebody else 
 chase after 'em through the sleet. I've done well; 
 I've made money — a lot of money — the last two 
 years in my cattle deals, and I've got it put away, 
 Marion; you need never lift your hand to work 
 in our house again. We can live in California, 
 and live well, under our own orange trees, whether 
 I work or not. All I want to know is, will you go 
 with me? " 
 
 " No 1 I will not go with you, Murray." 
 252 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 He moved in his seat and threw his head up 
 appealingly. "Why not?" 
 
 " I will never be dishonest with you; I never 
 have been and I never will be. I have nothing in 
 my heart to give you, and I will not live upon your 
 money. I am earning my own living. I am as 
 content as I ever can be, and I shall stay where I 
 am and do what Tarn doing till I die, probably. 
 And this is why I came when you asked me to; 
 to tell you the exact truth. I am not a girl any 
 longer — I never can be again. I am a woman. 
 What I was before I married you I never can be 
 again, and you have no right to ask me to be a 
 hypocrite and say I can love you — for that is what 
 it all comes to — when I have no such thing in my 
 heart or life for you. It is dead and gone, and I 
 cannot help it." 
 
 " That sounds pretty hard, Marion." 
 
 " It is only the truth. It sounded fearfully 
 hard to me when you told me that woman was 
 your friend — that you knew her before you knew 
 me and would know her after I was dead; that 
 she was as good as I, and that if I didn't enter- 
 tain her you would. But it was the truth; you 
 told me the truth, and it was better that you told 
 it — as it is better now that I tell it to you." 
 
 " I was drunk. I didn't tell you the truth. A 
 man is a pretty tough animal sometimes, but you 
 
 253 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 are a woman and a pure one, and I care more for 
 you than for all the other women in the world, and 
 it is not your nature to be unforgiving." 
 
 " It is to be honest." 
 
 He looked suddenly up at her and spoke 
 sharply: " Marion, I know why you won't go." 
 
 " I have honestly told you." 
 
 " No ; you have not honestly told me. The real 
 reason is Gordon Smith." 
 
 " If he were I should not hesitate to tell you, 
 Murray, but he is not," she said coldly. 
 
 Sinclair spoke harshly: " Do you think you can 
 fool me? Don't you suppose I know he spends 
 his time loafing around your shop? " 
 
 Marion flushed indignantly. " It is not true ! " 
 
 " Don't you suppose I know he writes letters 
 back to Wisconsin to your folks ? " 
 
 " What have I to do with that ? Why shouldn't 
 he write to my mother? Who has a better right? " 
 
 "Don't drive me too far. By God! if I go 
 away alone I'll never leave you here to run off with 
 Whispering Smith — remember that ! " She sat in 
 silence. His rage left her perfectly quiet, and her 
 unmoved expression shamed and in part silenced 
 him. " Don't drive me too far," he muttered 
 sullenly. "If you do you will be responsible, 
 Marion." 
 
 She did not move her eyes from the blue hills 
 254 
 
The Man on the Frenchman 
 
 on the horizon. " I expect you to kill me some- 
 time ; I feel sure you will. And that you may do." 
 Then she bent her look on him. " You may do 
 it now If you want to." 
 
 His face turned heavy with rage. " Marion," 
 he cried, with an oath, " do you know how close 
 you are to death at this moment ? " 
 
 " You may do it now." 
 
 He clinched the bench-rail and rose slowly to 
 his feet. Marion sat motionless in the hickory 
 chair; the sun was shining in her face and her 
 hands were folded in her lap. Dicksie rocked on 
 the porch. In the shadow of the house the man 
 was mending the saddle. 
 
 2SS 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 TOWER W 
 
 AT the end of a long and neglected hall on the 
 second floor of the old bank block in Hill 
 Street, Whispering Smith had a room in which he 
 made headquarters at Medicine Bend; it was in 
 effect Whispering Smith's home. A man's room is 
 usually a forlorn affair in spite of any effort to 
 make it home-like. If he neglects his room it looks 
 barren, and if he ornaments it it looks fussy. Boys 
 can do something with a den because they are not 
 yet men, and some tincture of woman's nature still 
 clings to a boy. Girls are born to the deftness that 
 is to become all theirs in the touch of a woman's 
 hand; but men, if they walk alone, pay the penalty 
 of loneliness. 
 
 Whispering Smith, being logical, made no effort 
 to decorate his domestic poverty. All his belong- 
 ings were of a simple sort and his room was as 
 bare as a Jesuit's. Moreover, his affairs, being at 
 times highly particular, did not admit of the pres- 
 ence of a janitor in his quarters, and he was of 
 necessity his own janitor. His iron bed was spread 
 
 2i:,6 
 
Tower W 
 
 with a pair of Pullman blankets, his toilet arrange- 
 ments included nothing more elaborate than a 
 shaving outfit, and the mirror above his washstand 
 was only large enough to make a hurried shave, 
 with much neck-stretching, possible. The table 
 was littered with letters, but it filled up one corner 
 of the room, and a rocking-chair and a trunk filled 
 up another. The floor was spread with a Navajo 
 blanket, and near the head of the bed stood an 
 old-fashioned wardrobe. This served not to ward 
 Whispering Smith's robes, which hung for the most 
 part on his back, but to accommodate his rifles, 
 of which it contained an array that only a prac- 
 tised man could understand. The wardrobe was 
 more, however, than an armory. Beside the guns 
 that stood racked in precision along the inner wall, 
 McCloud had once, to his surprise, seen a violin. 
 It appeared out of keeping in such an atmosphere 
 and rather the antithesis of force and violence than 
 a complement for it. And again, though the rifles 
 were disquietingly bright and effective-looking, the 
 violin was old and shabby, hanging obscurely in 
 its corner, as if, whatever it might have in com- 
 mon with its master, it had nothing in common 
 with its surroundings. 
 
 The door of the room in the course of many 
 years had been mutilated with keyholes and reen- 
 forced with locks until it appeared difficult to 
 
 257 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 choose an opening that would really afford en- 
 trance; but two men besides Whispering Smith 
 carried keys to the room — Kennedy and George 
 McCloud. They had right of way into it at all 
 hours, and knew how to get in. 
 
 McCloud had left the bridge camp on the river 
 for Medicine Bend on the Saturday that Marion 
 Sinclair — whose husband had finally told her he 
 would give her one more chance to think it over — 
 returned with Dicksie safely from their trip to the 
 Frenchman ranch. 
 
 Whispering Smith, who had been with Bucks 
 and Morris Blood, got back to town the same day. 
 The president and general manager were at the 
 Wickiup during the afternoon, and left for the 
 East at nine o'clock in the evening, when their car 
 was attached to an east-bound passenger train. 
 McCloud took supper afterward with Whispering 
 Smith at a Front Street chop-house, and the two 
 men separated at eleven o'clock. It was three 
 hours later when McCloud tapped on the door 
 of Smith's room, and in a moment opened it. 
 "Awake, Gordon?" 
 
 " Sure: come in. What is it? " 
 
 " The second section of the passenger train — 
 Number Three, with the express cars — ^was stopped 
 at Tower W to-night. Oliver Sollers was pulling; 
 he is badly shot up, and one of the messengers was 
 
 258 
 
Tower W 
 
 shot all to pieces. They cracked the through safe, 
 emptied it, and made a clean get-away." 
 
 " Tower W — two hundred and seventy-six miles. 
 Have you ordered up an engine ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Where's Kennedy?" 
 
 A second voice answered : " Right here." 
 
 " Strike a light, Farrell. What about the 
 horses? " 
 
 " They're being loaded." 
 
 " Is the line clear?" 
 
 " Rooney Lee is clearing it." 
 
 " Spike it, George, and leave every west-bound 
 train in siding, with the engine cut loose and plenty 
 of steam, till we get by. It's now or never this 
 time. Two hundred and seventy-six miles ; they're 
 giving us our money's worth. Who's going with 
 us, Farrell ? " 
 
 " Bob Scott, Reed Young, and Brill, if Reed can 
 get him at Sleepy Cat. Dancing is loading the 
 horses." 
 
 " I want Ed Banks to lead a posse straight from 
 here for Williams Cache; Dancing can go with 
 him. And telephone Gene and Bob Johnson to sit 
 down in Canadian Pass till they grow to the rocks, 
 but not to let anybody through if they want to live 
 after I see them. They've got all the instructions ; 
 all they need is the word. It's a long chance, 
 
 259 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 but I think these are our friends. You can head 
 Banks off by telephone somewhere if we change 
 our minds when we get a trail. Start Brill Young 
 and a good man from Sleepy Cat ahead of us, 
 George, if you can, in a baggage car with any 
 horses that they can get there. They can be at 
 Tower W by daybreak and perhaps pick up a trail 
 before we reach there, and we shall have fresh 
 horses for them. I'm ready, I guess; let's go. 
 Slam the door, George ! " In the hall Whispering 
 Smith threw a pocket-light on his watch. " I want 
 you to put us there by seven o'clock." 
 
 " Charlie SoUers is going to pull you," answered 
 McCloud. "Have you got everything? Then 
 we're off." The three men tiptoed down the dark 
 hall, down the stairs, and across the street on a 
 noiseless run for the railroad yard. 
 
 The air was chill and the sky clear, with a moon 
 more than half to the full. " Lord, what a night 
 to ride ! " exclaimed Whispering Smith, looking 
 mournfully at the stars. " Well planned, well 
 planned, I must admit." 
 
 The men hastened toward the yard, where Ian 
 terns were moving about the car of the train, 
 guards near the Blue Front stables. The load, 
 ing board had been lowered, and the horses were 
 being carefully led into the car. From a switch 
 engine behind the car a shrill cloud of steam bil- 
 
 260 
 
Tower W 
 
 lowed into the air. Across the yard a great pas- 
 senger engine, its huge white side-rod rising and 
 falling slowly in the still light of the moon — one 
 of the mountain racers, thick-necked like an ath- 
 lete and deep-chested — ^was backing down for the 
 run with the single car almost across the west end 
 of the division. Trainmen were running to and 
 from the Wickiup platform. By the time the 
 horses were loaded the conductor had orders. 
 Until the last minute, Whispering Smith was in 
 consultation with McCloud, and giving Dancing 
 precise instructions for the posse into the Cache 
 country. They were still talking at the side door 
 of the car, McCloud and Dancing on the ground 
 and Whispering Smith squatting on his haunches 
 inside the moving car, when the engine signalled 
 and the special drew away from the chute, pounded 
 up the long run of the ladder switch, and moved 
 with gathering speed into the canyon. In the cab 
 Charlie SoUers, crushing in his hand the tissue that 
 had brought the news of his brother's death, sat 
 at the throttle. He had no speed orders. They 
 had only told him he had a clear track. 
 
 261 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 PURSUIT 
 
 BRILL YOUNG picked up a trail Sunday 
 morning at Tower W before the special 
 from Medicine Bend reached there. The wrecked 
 express car, which had been set out, had no sto;ry to 
 tell. " The only story," said Whispering Smith, as 
 the men climbed into their saddles, "is in the one 
 from the hoofs, and the sooner we get after it the 
 better." 
 
 The country around Tower W, which is itself 
 an operating 'point on the western end of the di- 
 vision, a mere speck on the desert, lies high and 
 rolling. To the south, sixty miles away, rise the 
 Grosse Terre Mountains, and to the north and 
 west lie the solitudes of the Heart range, while in 
 the northeast are seen the three white Saddle peaks 
 of the Missions. The cool, bright sunshine of a 
 far and lonely horizon greets the traveller here, 
 and ten miles away from the railroad, in any di- 
 rection, a man on horseback and unacquainted with 
 the country would wish himself — mountain men 
 
 262 
 
Pursuit 
 
 will tell you — in hell, because it would be easier to 
 ride out of. 
 
 To the railroad men the country offered no un- 
 usual difficulties. The Youngs were as much at 
 home on a horse as on a hand car. Kennedy, 
 though a large and powerful man, was inured to 
 hard riding, and Bob Scott and Whispering Smith 
 in the saddle were merely a part — though an im- 
 portant part — of their horses ; without killing their 
 mounts, they could get out of them every mile in 
 their legs. The five men covered twenty miles on 
 a trail that read like print. One after another of 
 the railroad party commented on the carelessness 
 with which it had been left. But twenty miles south 
 of the railroad, in an open and comparatively easy 
 country, it was swallowed completely up in the 
 tracks of a hundred horses. The railroad men 
 circled far and wide, only to find the herd tracks 
 everywhere ahead of them. 
 
 " This is a beautiful job," murmured Whisper- 
 ing Smith as the party rode together along the 
 edge of a creek-bottom. " Now who is their friend 
 down in this country? What man would get out 
 a bunch of horses like this and work them this 
 hard so early in the morning? Let's hunt that 
 man up. I like to meet a man that is a friend in 
 need." 
 
 Bob Scott spoke: "I saw a man with some 
 263 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 horses in a canyon across the creek a few minutes 
 ago, and I saw a ranch-house behind those buttcs 
 when I rode around them." 
 
 " Stop I Here's a man riding right into our 
 jaws," muttered Kennedy. " Divide up among the 
 rocks." A horseman from the south came gallop- 
 ing up the creek, and Kennedy rode out with an 
 ivory smile to meet him. The two men parleyed 
 for a moment, disputed each other sharply, and 
 rode together back to the railroad party. 
 
 " Haven't seen any men looking for horses this 
 morning, have you ? " asked Whispering Smith, 
 eying the stranger, a squat, square-jawed fellow 
 with a cataract eye. 
 
 " I'm looking for horses myself. I ain't seen 
 anybody else. What are you looking for? " 
 
 " Is this your bunch of horses that got loose 
 here? " asked Smith. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I thought," said Kennedy, smiling, " you said 
 a minute ago they were." 
 
 The stranger fixed his cataract on him like a 
 flash-light. " I changed my mind." 
 
 Whispering Smith's brows rose protestlngly, but 
 he spoke with perfect amiability as he raised his 
 finger to bring the good eye his way. " You ought 
 to change your hat when you change your mind. 
 I saw you driving a bunch of horses up that canyon 
 
 264 
 
Pursuit 
 
 a few minutes ago. Now, Rockstro, do you still 
 drag your left leg? " 
 
 The rancher looked steadily at his new inquisi- 
 tor, but blinked like a gopher at the sudden on- 
 slaught. " Which of you fellows is Whispering 
 Smith ? " he demanded. 
 
 " The man with the dough is Whispering Smith 
 every time," was the answer from Smith himself. 
 " You have about seven years to serve, Rockstro, 
 haven't you ? Seven, I think. Now what have I 
 ever done to you that you should turn a trick like 
 this on me ? I knew you were here, and you knew 
 I knew you were here, and I call this a pretty coun- 
 try; a little smooth right around here, like the 
 people, but pretty. Have I ever bothered you? 
 Now tell me one thing — what did you get for cov- 
 ering this trail? I stand to give you two dollars 
 for every one you got last night for the job, if 
 you'll put us right on the game. Which way did 
 they go ? " 
 
 " What are you talking about? " 
 
 " Get off your horse a minute," suggested Whis- 
 pering Smith, dismounting, " and step over here 
 toward the creek." The man, afraid to refuse and 
 unwilling to go, walked haltingly after Smith. 
 
 " What is it, Rockstro? " asked his tormentor. 
 " Don't you like this country? What do you want 
 to go back to the penitentiary for? Aren't you 
 
 265 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 happy here? Now tell me one thing — will you 
 give up the trail?" 
 
 " I don't know the trail." 
 
 " I believe you ; we shouldn't follow it any- 
 way. Were you paid last night or this morning? " 
 
 " I ain't seen a man hereabouts for a week." 
 
 " Then you can't tell me whether there were five 
 men or six? " 
 
 " You've got one eye as good as mine, and one 
 a whole lot better." 
 
 " So it was fixed up for cash a week ago? " 
 
 " Everything is cash in this country." 
 
 " Well, Rockstro, I'm sorry, but we'll have to 
 take you back with us." 
 
 The rancher whipped out a revolver. Whisper- 
 ing Smith caught his wrist. The struggle lasted 
 only an instant. Rockstro writhed, and the pistol 
 fell to the ground. 
 
 " Now, shall I break your arm? " asked Smith, 
 as the man cursed and resisted. " Or will you 
 behave ? We are going right back and you'll have 
 to come with us. We'll send some one down to 
 round up your horses and sell them, and you can 
 serve out your time — with allowances, of course, 
 for good conduct, which will cut it down. If I had 
 ever done you a mean turn I would not say a word. 
 If you could name a friend of yours I had ever 
 done a mean turn to I would not say a word. 
 
 266 
 
Pursuit 
 
 Can you name one? I guess not. I have left you 
 as free as the wind here, making only the rule I 
 make for everybody — to let the railroad alone. 
 This is my thanks. Now, I'll ask you just one 
 question. I haven't killed you, as I had a perfect 
 right to when you pulled; I haven't broken your 
 arm, as I would have done if there had been a 
 doctor within twenty-five miles; and I haven't 
 started you for the pen — not yet. Now I ask you 
 one fair question only : Did you need the money ? " 
 
 " Yes, I did need it." 
 
 Whispering Smith dropped the man's wrist. 
 " Then I don't say a word. If you needed the 
 money, I'm not going to send you back — not for 
 mine." 
 
 " How can a man make a living in this coun- 
 try," asked the rancher, with a bitter oath, " un- 
 less he picks up everything that's going? " 
 
 " Pick up your gun, man! I'm not saying any- 
 thing, am I ? " 
 
 " But I'm damned if I can give a double-cross to 
 any man," added Rockstro, stooping for his re- 
 volver. 
 
 " I should think less of you, Rockstro, If you 
 did. You don't need money anyway now, but 
 sometime you may need a friend. I'm going to 
 leave you here. You'll hear no more of this, and 
 I'm going to ask you a question : Why did you go 
 
 267 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 against this when you knew you'd have to square 
 yourself with me? " 
 
 " They told me you'd be taken care of before it 
 was pulled off." 
 
 "They lied to you, didn't they? No matter, 
 you've got their stuff. Now I am going to ask you 
 one question that I don't know the answer to ; it's 
 a fair question, too. Was Du Sang in the peniten- 
 tiary with you at Fort City? Answer fair." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Thank you. Behave yourself and keep your 
 mouth shut. I say nothing this time. Hereafter 
 leave railroad matters alone, and if the woman 
 should fall sick or you have to have a little money, 
 come and see me. " Smith led the way back to the 
 horses. 
 
 "Look here I" muttered Rockstro, following, 
 with his good eye glued on his companion. " I 
 pulled on you too quick, I guess — quicker'n I'd 
 ought to." 
 
 " Don't mention it. You didn't pull quick 
 enough; it is humiliating to have a man that's as 
 slow as you are pull on me. People that pull on 
 me usually pull and shoot at the same time. Two 
 distinct movements, Rockstro, should be avoided; 
 they are fatal to success. Come down to the Bend 
 ^ sometime, and I'll get you a decent gun and give 
 you a few lessons." 
 
 268 
 
Pursuit 
 
 Whispering Smith drew his handkerchief as the 
 one-eyed man rode away and he rejoined his com- 
 panions. He was resigned, after a sickly fashion. 
 " I hke to play blind-man's-buff," he said, wiping 
 his forehead, " but not so far from good water. 
 They have pulled us half-way to the Grosse Terre 
 Mountains on a beautiful trail, too beautiful to be 
 true, Farrell — too beautiful to be true. They have 
 been having fun with us, and they've doubled back 
 through the Topah Topahs toward the Mission 
 Mountains and Williams Cache — that is my judg- 
 ment. And aren't we five able-bodied jays, gentle- 
 men? Five strong-arm suckers? It is an inele- 
 gant word; it is an inelegant feeling. No matter, 
 we know a few things. There are five good men 
 and a led horse ; we can get out of here by Goose 
 River, find out when we cross the railroad how 
 much they got, and pick them up somewhere 
 around the Saddle peaks, if they've gone north. 
 That's only a guess, and every man's guess is good 
 now. What do you think, all of you ? " 
 
 "If it's the crowd we think it is, would they go 
 straight home ? That doesn't look reasonable, does 
 it?" asked Brill Young. 
 
 " If they could put one day between them and 
 pursuit, wouldn't they be safer at home than any- 
 where else ? And haven't they laid out one day's 
 work for us, good and plenty ? Farrell, remember 
 
 269 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 one thing: there is sometimes a disadvantage in 
 knowing too much about the men you are after. 
 We'll try Goose River." 
 
 It was noon when they struck the railroad. 
 They halted long enough to stop a freight train, 
 send some telegrams, and ask for news. They got 
 orders from Rooney Lee, had an empty box car 
 set behind the engine for a special, and, loading 
 their horses at the chute, made a helter-skelter run 
 for Sleepy Cat. At three o'clock they struck north 
 for the Mission Mountains. 
 
 270 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE SUNDAY MURDER 
 
 BANKS'S posse, leaving Medicine Bend before 
 daybreak, headed northwest. Their instruc- 
 tions were explicit: to scatter after crossing the 
 Frenchman, watch the trails from the Goose River 
 country and through the Mission Mountains, and 
 intercept everybody riding north until the posse 
 from Sleepy Cat or Whispering Smith should 
 communicate with them from the southwest. Nine 
 men rode in the party that crossed the Crawl- 
 ing Stone Sunday morning at sunrise with Ed 
 Banks. 
 
 After leaving the river the three white-capped 
 Saddles of the Mission range afford a landmark 
 for more than a hundred miles, and toward these 
 the party pressed steadily all day. The southern 
 pass of the Missions opens on the north slope of 
 the range into a pretty valley known as Mission 
 Springs Valley, and the springs are the head-wa- 
 ters of Deep Creek. The posse did not quite obey 
 the instructions, and following a natural instinct of 
 safety five of them, after Banks and his three depu- 
 
 271 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 ties had scattered, bunched again, and at dark 
 crossed Deep Creek at some distance below the 
 springs. It was afterward known that these five 
 men had been seen entering the valley from the 
 east at sundown just as four of the men they 
 wanted rode down South Mission Pass toward the 
 springs. That they knew they would soon be cut 
 off, or must cut their way through the line 
 which Ed Banks, ahead of them, was posting at 
 every gateway to Williams Cache, was probably 
 clear to them. Four men rode that evening from 
 Tower W through the south pass; the fifth man 
 had already left the party. The four men were 
 headed for Williams Cache and had reason to be- 
 lieve, until they sighted Banks's men, that their 
 path was open. 
 
 They halted to take counsel on the suspicious- 
 looking posse far below them, and while their cru- 
 elly exhausted horses rested, Du Sang, always in 
 Sinclair's absence the brains of the gang, planned 
 the escape over Deep Creek at Baggs's crossing. 
 At dusk they divided: two men lurking in the 
 brush along the creek rode as close as they could, 
 unobserved, toward the crossing, while Du Sang 
 and the cowboy Karg, known as Flat Nose, rode 
 down to Baggs's ranch at the foot of the pass. 
 
 At that point Dan Baggs, an old locomotive 
 engineer, had taken a homestead, got together a 
 
 272 
 
The Sunday Murder 
 
 little bunch of cattle, and was living alone with his 
 son, a boy of ten years. It was a hard country and 
 too close to Williams Cache for comfort, but Dan 
 got on with everybody because the toughest man 
 in the Cache country could get a meal, a feed for 
 his horse, and a place to sleep at Baggs's, without 
 charge, when he needed it. 
 
 Ed Banks, by hard riding, got to the crossing at 
 five o'clock, and told Baggs of the hold-up and the 
 shooting of Oliver Sellers. The news stirred the 
 old engineman, and his excitement threw him off 
 his guard. Banks rode straight on for the middle 
 pass, leaving word that two of his men would be 
 along within half an hour to watch the pass and 
 the ranch crossing, and asking Baggs to put up 
 some kind of a fight for the crossing until more of 
 the posse came up — at the least, to make sure that 
 nobody got any fresh horses. 
 
 The boy was cooking supper in the kitchen, and 
 Baggs had done his milking and gone back to the 
 corral, when two men rode around the corner of 
 the barn and asked if they could get something to 
 eat. Poor Baggs sold his life in six words : " Why, 
 yes; be you Banks's men? " 
 
 Du Sang answered : " No ; we're from Sheriff 
 Coon's office at Oroville, looking up a bunch of 
 Duck Bar steers that's been run somewhere up 
 Deep Creek. Can we stay here all night? " 
 
 273 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 They dismounted and disarmed Baggs's suspi- 
 cions, though the condition of their horses might 
 have warned him had he had his senses. The un- 
 fortunate man had probably fixed it in his mind 
 that a ride from Tower W to Deep Creek in six- 
 teen hours was a physical impossibility. 
 
 " Stay here? Sure! I want you to stay," said 
 Baggs bluffly. " Looks to me like I seen you 
 down at Crawling Stone, ain't I ? " he asked of 
 Karg. 
 
 Karg was lighting a cigarette. " I used to mark 
 at the Dunning ranch," he answered, throwing 
 away his match. 
 
 "That's hit. Good! The boy's cooking sup- 
 per. Step up to the kitchen and tell him to cut ham 
 for four more." 
 
 "Four?" 
 
 " Two of Ed Banks's men will be here by six 
 o'clock. Heard about the hold-up ? They stopped 
 Number Three at Tower W last night and shot 
 Ollie Sollers, as white a boy as ever pulled a throt- 
 tle. Boys, a man that'll kill a locomotive engineer 
 is worse'n an Indian; I'd help skin him." 
 
 "The hell you would!" cried Du Sang. 
 "Well, don't you want to start in on me? I 
 killed Sollers. Look at me; ain't I handsome? 
 What you going to do about it? " 
 
 Before Baggs could think Du Sang was shooting 
 274 
 
The Sunday Murder 
 
 him down. It was wanton. Du Sang stood in no 
 need of the butchery; the escape could have been 
 made without it. His victim had pulled an engine 
 throttle too long to show the white feather, but 
 he was dying by the time he had dragged a re- 
 volver from his pocket. Du Sang did the killing 
 alone. At least, Flat Nose, who alone saw all of 
 the murder, afterward maintained that he did not 
 draw because he had no occasion to, and that 
 Baggs was dead before he, Karg, had finished his 
 cigarette. With his right arm broken and two bul- 
 lets through his chest, Baggs fell on his face. 
 That, however, did not check his murderer. Ris- 
 ing to his knees, Baggs begged for his life. " For 
 God's sakel I'm helpless, gentlemen! I'm help- 
 less. Don't kill me like a dog! " But Du Sang, 
 emptying his pistol, threw his rifle to his shoulder 
 and sent bullet after bullet crashing through the 
 shapeless form writhing and twitching before him 
 until he had beaten it In the dust soft and flat and 
 still. 
 
 Banks's men came up within an hour to find the 
 ranch-house deserted. They saw a lantern Ip the 
 yard below, and near the corral gate they found 
 the little boy in the darkness, screaming beside his 
 father's body. The sheriff's men carried the old 
 englneman to the house ; others of the posse crossed 
 the creek during the evening, and at eleven o'clock 
 
 275 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Whispering Smith rode down from the south pass 
 to find that four of the men they were after had 
 taken fresh horses, after killing Baggs, and passed 
 safely through the cordon Banks had drawn around 
 the pass and along Deep Creek. Bill Dancing, who 
 had ridden with Banks's men, was at the house 
 when Whispering Smith arrived. He found some 
 supper in the kitchen, and the tired man and the 
 giant ate together. 
 
 Whispering Smith was too experienced a cam- 
 paigner to complain. His party had struck a trail 
 fifty miles north of Sleepy Cat and followed it to 
 the Missions. He knew now who he was after, 
 and knew that they were bottled up in the Cache 
 for the night. The sheriff's men were sleeping 
 on the floor of the living-room when Smith came 
 in from the kitchen. He sat down before the fire. 
 At Intervals sobs came from the bedroom where 
 the body lay, and after listening a moment, Whis- 
 pering Smith got stifily up, and, tiptoeing to still 
 the jingle of his spurs, took the candle from the 
 table, pushed aside the curtain, and entered the 
 bedroom. 
 
 The little boy was lying on his face, with his 
 arm around his father's neck, talking to him. 
 Whispering Smith bent a moment over the bed, 
 and, setting the candle on the table, put his hand 
 on the boy's shoulder. He disengaged the hand 
 
 276 
 
The Sunday Murder 
 
 from the cold neck, and sitting down took it in 
 his, own. Talking low to the little fellow, he got 
 his attention after much patient effort and got him 
 to speak. He made him, though struggling with 
 terror, to understand that he had come to be his 
 friend, and after the child had sobbed his grief 
 into a strange heart he ceased to tremble, and told 
 his name and his story, and described the two 
 horsemen and the horses they had left. Smith 
 listened quietly. " Have you had any supper, 
 Dannie ? No ? You must have something to eat. 
 Can't you eat anything? But there is a nice pan 
 of fresh milk in the kitchen." 
 
 A burst of tears interrupted him. " Daddie just 
 brought in the milk, and I was frying the ham, and 
 I heard them shooting." 
 
 " See how he took care of you till the last min- 
 ute, and left something for you after he was gone. 
 Suppose he could speak now, don't you think he 
 would want you to do as I say? I am your next 
 friend now, for you are going to be a railroad man 
 and have a big engine." 
 
 Dannie looked up. " Dad wasn't afraid of 
 those men." 
 
 "Wasn't he, Dannie?" 
 
 " He said we would be all right and not to be 
 afraid." 
 
 "Did he?" 
 
 277 . 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " He said Whispering Smith was coming." 
 
 " My poor boy." 
 
 " He is coming, don't be afraid. Do you know 
 Whispering Smith? He is coming. The men 
 to-night all said he was coming." 
 
 The little fellow for a long time could not be 
 coaxed away from his father, but his companion 
 at length got him to the kitchen. When they came 
 back to the bedroom the strange man was talk- 
 ing to him once more about his father. " We 
 must try to think how he would like things done 
 now, mustn't we? All of us felt so bad when we 
 rode in and had so much to do we couldn't attend 
 to taking care of your father. Did you know there 
 are two men out at the crossing now, guarding 
 it with rifles? But if you and I keep real quiet 
 we can do something for him while the men are 
 asleep ; they have to ride all day to-morrow. We 
 must wash his face and hands, don't you think so ? 
 And brush his hair and his beard. If you could 
 just find the basin and some water and a towel — 
 you couldn't find a brush, could you ? Could you, 
 honestly ? Well ! I call that a good boy — ^we shall 
 have to have you on the railroad, sure. We must 
 try to find some fresh clothes — these are cut and 
 stained; then I will change his clothes, and we 
 shall all feel better. Don't disturb the men; they 
 are tired." 
 
 278 
 
The Sunday Murder 
 
 They worked together by the candle-light. 
 When they had done, the boy had a violent crying 
 spell, but Whispering Smith got him to lie down 
 beside him on a blanket spread on the floor, where 
 Smith got his back against the sod wall and took 
 the boy's head in his arm. He waited patiently 
 for the boy to go to sleep, but Dan was afraid the 
 murderers would come back. Once he lifted his 
 head in a confidence. " Did you know my daddy 
 used to run an engine? " 
 
 " No, I did not; but in the morning you must 
 tell me all about it." 
 
 Whenever there was a noise in the next room 
 the child roused. After some time a new voice was 
 heard; Kennedy had come and was asking ques- 
 tions. "Wake up here, somebody! Where is 
 Whispering Smith? " 
 
 Dancing answered : " He's right there in the 
 bedroom, Farrell, staying with the boy." 
 
 There was some stirring. Kennedy talked a 
 little and at length stretched himself on the floor. 
 When all was still again, Dannie's hand crept 
 slowly from the breast of his companion up to his 
 chin, and the little hand, feeling softly every feat- 
 ure, stole over the strange face. 
 
 "What is it, Dannie?" 
 
 " Are you Whispering Smith ? " 
 
 " Yes, Dannie. Shut your eyes." 
 279 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 At three o'clock, when Kennedy lighted a candle 
 and looked in, Smith was sitting with his back 
 against the wall. The boy lay on his arm. Both 
 were fast asleep. On the bed the dead man lay 
 with a handkerchief over his face. 
 
 280 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 WILLIAMS CACHE 
 
 ED BANKS had been recalled before daybreak 
 from the middle pass. Two of the men 
 wanted were now known to have crossed the creek, 
 which meant they must work out of the country 
 through Williams Cache. 
 
 " If you will take your best two men, Ed," said 
 Whispering Smith, sitting down with Banks at 
 breakfast, " and strike straight for Canadian Pass 
 to help Gene and Bob Johnson, I'll undertake to 
 ride in and talk to Rebstock while Kennedy and 
 Bob Scott watch Deep Creek. The boy gives a 
 good description, and the two men that did the job 
 here are Du Sang and Flat Nose. Did I tell you 
 how we picked up the trail yesterday? Magpies. 
 They shot a scrub horse that gave out on them and 
 skinned the brand. It hastened the banquet, but 
 we got there before the birds were all seated. 
 Great luck, wasn't it? And it gave us a beautiful 
 trail. One of the party crossed the Goose River 
 at American Fork, and Brill Young and Reed fol- 
 
 281 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 lowed him. Four came through the Mission 
 Mountains; that is a cinch and they are in the 
 Cache — and if they get out it is our fault person- 
 ally, Ed, and not the Lord's." 
 
 Williams Cache lies in the form of a great horn,, 
 with a narrow entrance at the lower end known as 
 the Door, and a rock fissure at the upper end lead- 
 ing into Canadian Pass ; but this fissure is so narrow 
 that a man with a rifle could withstand a regiment. 
 For a hundred miles east and west rise the granite 
 walls of the Mission range, broken nowhere save 
 by the formation known as the Cache. Even this 
 does not penetrate the range; it is a pocket, and) 
 runs not over half-way into it and out again. But 
 no man really knows the Cache ; the most that may 
 be said is that the main valley is known, and it is: 
 known as the roughest mountain fissure between 
 the Spanish Sinks and the Mantrap country. Will- 
 iams Cache lies between walls two thousand feet 
 high, and within it is a small labyrinth of canyons.. 
 A generation ago, when Medicine Bend for one 
 winter was the terminus of the overland railroad, 
 vigilantes mercilessly cleaned out the town, and 
 the few outlaws that escaped the shotgun and the 
 noose at Medicine Bend found refuge in a far- 
 away and unknown mountain gorge once named 
 by French trappers the Cache. Years after these 
 outcasts had come to infest it came one desperado 
 
 282 
 
Williams Cache 
 
 more ferocious than all that had gone before. He 
 made a frontier retreat of the Cache, and left to 
 it the legacy of his evil name, Williams. Since his 
 day it has served, as it served before, for the haunt 
 of outlawed men. No honest man lives in Will- 
 iams Cache, and few men of any sort live there 
 long, since their lives are lives of violence ; neither 
 the law nor a woman crosses Deep Creek. But 
 from the day of Williams to this day the Cache 
 has had its ruler, and when Whispering Smith 
 rode with a little party through the Door into the 
 Cache the morning after the murder in Mission 
 Valley he sent an envoy to Rebstock, whose suc- 
 cess as a cattle-thief had brought its inevitable pen- 
 alty. It had made Rebstock a man of consequence 
 and of property and a man subject to the anxieties 
 and annoyances of such responsibility. 
 
 Sitting once in the Three Horses at Medicine 
 Bend, Rebstock had talked with Whispering Smith. 
 " I used to have a good time," he growled. 
 " When I was rustling a little bunch of steers, just 
 a small bunch all by myself, and hadn't a cent in 
 the world, no place to sleep and nothing to eat, 
 I had a good time. Now I have to keep my 
 money in the bank ; that ain't pleasant — ^you know 
 that. Every man that brings a bunch of cattle 
 across Deep Creek has stole 'em, and expects me 
 to buy 'em or lend him money. I'm busy with in- 
 
 283 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 spectors all the time, deviling with brands, stand- 
 ing off the Stock Association and all kinds of 
 trouble. I've got too many cows, too much money. 
 I'm afraid somebody will shoot me if I go to sleep, 
 or poison me if I take a drink. Whispering Smith, 
 I'd like to give you a half-interest in my business. 
 That's on the square. You're a young man, and 
 handy; It wouldn't cost you a cent, and you can 
 have half of the whole shooting-match if you'll 
 cross Deep Creek and help me run the gang." 
 Such was Rebstock free from anxiety and in a con- 
 fidential moment. Under pressure he was, like 
 all men, different. 
 
 Whispering Smith had acquaintance even in the 
 Cache, and after a little careful reconnoitring he 
 found a crippled-up thief, driving a milch cow 
 down the Cache, who was willing to take a message 
 to the boss. 
 
 Whispering Smith gave his instructions explic- 
 itly, facing the messenger, as the two sat in their 
 saddles, with an importunate eye. " Say to Reb- 
 stock exactly these words," he insisted. " This is 
 from Whispering Smith: I want Du Sang. He 
 killed a friend of mine last night at Mission 
 Springs. I happened to be near there and know 
 he rode in last night. He can't get out ; the Cana- 
 dian is plugged. I won't stand for the killing, 
 and it is Dii Sang or a clean-up in the Cache all 
 
 284 
 
Williams Cache 
 
 around, and then I'll get Du Sang anyway. Re- 
 gards." 
 
 Riding circumspectly in and about the entrance 
 to the Cache, the party waited an hour for an an- 
 swer. When the answer came, it was unsatisfac- 
 tory. Rebstock declined to appear upon so trivial 
 a matter, and Whispering Smith refused to specify 
 a further grievance. More parley and stronger 
 messages were necessary to stir the Deep Creek 
 monarch, but at last he sent word asking Whisper- 
 ing Smith to come to his cabin accompanied only 
 by Kennedy. 
 
 The two railroad men rode up the canyon to- 
 gether. " And now I will show you a lean and 
 hungry thief grown monstrous and miserly, Far- 
 rell," said Whispering Smith. 
 
 At the head of a short pocket between two sheer 
 granite walls they saw Rebstock's weather-beaten 
 cabin, and he stood in front of it smoking. He 
 looked moodily at his visitors out of eyes buried 
 between rolls of fat. Whispering Smith was a 
 little harsh as the two shook hands, but he dis- 
 mounted and followed Rebstock into the house. 
 
 "What are you so high and mighty about?" 
 he demanded, throwing his hat on the table near 
 which Rebstock had seated himself. " Why don't 
 you come out when I send a man to you, or 
 send word what you will do? What have you 
 
 285 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 got to kick about? Haven't you been treated 
 right?" 
 
 Being in no position to complain, but shrewdly 
 aware that much unpleasantness was in the wind, 
 Rebstock beat about the bush. He had had 
 rheumatism; he couldn't ride; he had been in bed 
 three weeks and hadn't seen Du Sang for three 
 months. " You ain't chasing up here after Du 
 Sang because he killed a man at Mission Springs. 
 I know better than that. That ain't the first man 
 he's killed, and it ain't a' goin' to be the last." 
 
 Whispering Smith lifted his finger and for the 
 first time smiled. " Now there you err, Rebstock 
 ' — it is ' a goin' to be ' the last. So you think I'm 
 after you, do you ? Well, if I were, what are you 
 going to do about it? Rebstock, do you think, if 
 I wanted you, I would send a message for you to 
 come out and meet me ? Not on your life ! When 
 I want you I'll come to your shack and drag you 
 out by the hair of the head. Sit down ! " roared 
 Whispering Smith. 
 
 Rebstock, who weighed at least two hundred 
 and seventy-five pounds, had lifted himself up to 
 glare and swear freely. Now he dropped angrily 
 back into his chair. " Well, who do you want? " 
 he bellowed in kind. 
 
 A smile softened the asperity of the railroad 
 man's face. " That's a fair question and I give 
 
 286 
 
Williams Cache 
 
 you a straight answer. I'm not bluffing: I want 
 Du Sang." 
 
 Rebstock squirmed. He swore with shortened 
 breath that he knew nothing about Du Sang ; that 
 Du Sang had stolen his cattle; that hanging was 
 too good for him ; that he would join any posse in 
 searching for him; and that he had not seen him 
 for three months. 
 
 " Likely enough," assented Whispering Smith, 
 " but this is wasting time. He rode in here last 
 night after killing old Dan Baggs. Your esti- 
 mable nephew Barney is with him, and Karg is 
 with him, and I want them; but, in especial and 
 particular, I want Du Sang." 
 
 Rebstock , denied, protested, wheezed, and 
 stormed, but Whispering Smith was immovable. 
 He would not stir from the Cache upon any prom- 
 ises. Rebstock offered to surrender any one else 
 in the Cache — hinted strongly at two different men 
 for whom handsome rewards were out; but every 
 compromise suggested was met with the same 
 good-natured words: " I want Du Sang." 
 
 At last the smile changed on Whispering Smith's 
 face. It lighted his eyes still, but with a different 
 expression. " See here, Rebstock, you and I have 
 always got along, haven't we? I've no desire to 
 crowd any man to the wall that is a man. Now 
 I am going to tell you the simple truth. Du Sang 
 
 287 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 has got you scared to death. That man is a faker, 
 Rebstock. Because he kills men right and left 
 without any provocation, you think he is danger- 
 ous. He isn't; there are a dozen men in the Cache 
 just as good with a gun as Du Sang is. Don't 
 shake your head. I know what I'm talking about. 
 He is a jay with a gun, and you may tell him I 
 said so; do you hear? Tell him to come out if he 
 wants me to demonstrate it. He has got every- 
 body, including you, scared to death. Now, I say, 
 don't be silly. I want Du Sang." 
 
 Rebstock'Yose to his feet solemnly and pointed 
 his finger at Whispering Smith. " Whispering 
 Smith, you know me — " 
 
 " I know you for a fat rascal." 
 
 " That's all right. You know me, and, just as 
 you say, we always get along because we both got 
 sense." 
 
 " You're hiding yours to-day, Rebstock." 
 
 " No matter; I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give 
 you all the horseflesh you can kill and all the men 
 you can hire to go after him, and I'll bury your 
 dead myself. You think he can't shoot? I give 
 you a tip on the square." Whispering Smith 
 snorted. " He'll shoot the four buttons off your 
 coat in four shots." Smith kicked Rebstock's dog 
 contemptuously. " And do it while you are fall- 
 ing down. I've seen him do it," persisted Reb- 
 
 288 
 
Williams Cache 
 
 stock, moist with perspiration. " I'm not looking 
 for a chance to go against a sure thing ; I wash my 
 hands of the job." 
 
 Whispering Smith rose. " It was no trick to 
 see he had you scared to death. You are losing 
 your wits, old man. The albino is a faker, and I 
 tell you I am going to run him out of the coun- 
 try." Whispering Smith reached for his hat. 
 " Our treaty ends right here. You promised to 
 harbor no man in your sink that ever went against 
 our road. You know as well as I do that this 
 man, with four others, held up our train night be- 
 fore last at Tower W, shot our engineman to 
 death for ibiere delight, killed a messenger, took 
 sixty-five thousand dollars out of the through safe, 
 and made his good get-away. Now, don't lie ; you 
 know every word of it, and you thought you could 
 pull it out of me by a bluff. I track him to your 
 door. He is inside the Cache this minute. You 
 know every curve and canyon and pocket and wash- 
 out in it, and every cut-throat and jail-bird in it, 
 and they pay you blood-money and hush-money 
 every month; and when I ask you not to give up 
 a dozen men the company is entitled to, but merely 
 to send this pink-eyed lobster out with his guns to 
 talk with me, you wash your hands of the job, do 
 you ? Now listen. If you don't send Du Sang in- 
 to the open before noon to-morrow, I'll run every 
 
 289 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 living steer and every living man out of Williams 
 Cache before I cross the Crawling Stone again, so 
 help me God! And I'll send for cowboys within 
 thirty minutes to begin the job. I'll scrape your 
 Deep Creek canyons till the rattlesnakes squeal. 
 I'll make Williams Cache so wild that a timber- 
 wolf can't follow his own trail through it. You'll 
 break with me, will you, Rebstock? Then wind 
 up your bank account; before I finish with you 
 I'll put you in stripes and feed buzzards off your 
 table." 
 
 Rebstock's face was apoplectic. He choked with 
 a torrent of oaths. Whispering Smith, paying 
 no attention, walked out to where Kennedy was 
 waiting. He swung into the saddle, ignoring 
 Rebstock's abjurations, and with Kennedy rode 
 away. 
 
 "It is hard to do anything with a man that Is 
 scared to death," said Smith to his companion. 
 " Then, too, Rebstock's nephew is probably in 
 this. In any case, when Du Sang has got Reb- 
 stock scared, he is a dangerous man to be abroad. 
 We have got to smoke him out, Farrell. Lance 
 Dunning insisted the other day he wanted to do 
 me a favor. I'll see if he'll lend me Stormy Gor- 
 man and some of his cowpunchers for a round-up. 
 We've got to smoke Du Sang out. A round-up is 
 the thing. But, by Heaven, if that round-up is 
 
 290 
 
Williams Cache 
 
 actually pulled off it will be a classic when you and 
 I are gone." 
 
 Thirty minutes afterward, messengers had taken 
 the Frenchman trail for Lance Dunning's cow- 
 boys. 
 
 291 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE FIGHT IN THE CACHE 
 
 A CLEAR night and a good moon made a 
 long ride possible, and the Crawling Stone 
 contingent, headed by Stormy Gorman, began com- 
 ing into the railroad camp by three o'clock the 
 next morning. With them rode the two Youngs, 
 who had lost the trail they followed across Goose 
 River and joined the cowboys on the road to the 
 north. 
 
 The party divided under Kennedy and Smith, 
 who rode through the Door Into the Cache just 
 before daybreak. 
 
 " I don't know what I am steering you against 
 this morning, Farrell," said Whispering Smith. 
 " Certainly I should hate to run you into Du Sang, 
 but we can't tell where we shall strike him. If 
 we have laid out the work right I ought to see 
 him as soon as anybody does. Accidents do hap- 
 pen, but remember he will never be any more dan- 
 gerous than he is at the first moment. Get him 
 to talk. He gets nervous if he can't shoot right 
 away. When you pull, get a bullet into his stom- 
 
 292 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 ach at the start, if you possibly can, to spoil his 
 aim. We mustn't make the mistake of underes- 
 timating him. Rebstock is right: he is a fright 
 with a revolver, and Sinclair and Seagrue are the 
 only men in the mountains that can handle a rifle 
 with him. Now we split here; and good luckl " 
 
 " Don't you want to take Brill Young with 
 you?" 
 
 " You take both the Youngs, Farrell. We shall 
 be among rocks, and if he trifes to rush us there 
 is cover." 
 
 Stormy Gorman with four Crawling Stone cow- 
 boys followed Whispering Smith. Every rider on 
 the range had a grievance against Williams Cache, 
 and any of them would have been glad to under- 
 take reprisals against the rustlers under the wing of 
 Whispering Smith. 
 
 Just how in the mountains — without telegraph, 
 newspapers, and all ordinary means of publicity 
 — news travels so fast may not certainly be said. 
 The scattered lines of telephone wires help, but 
 news outstrips the wires. Moreover, there are no 
 telephones in the Mission Mountains. But on 
 the morning that the round-up party rode into the 
 Cache it was known in the streets of Medicine 
 Bend that the Tower W men had been tracked 
 into the north country; that some, if not all, of 
 them were in Williams Cache; that an ultimatum 
 
 293 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 had been given, and that Whispering Smith and 
 Kennedy had already ridden in with their men to 
 make it good. 
 
 Whispering Smith, with the cowboys, took the 
 rough country to the left, and Kennedy and his 
 party took the south prong of the Cache Creek. 
 The instructions were to make a clean sweep as 
 the line advanced. Behind the centre rode three 
 men to take stock driven in from the wings. Word 
 that was brief but reasonable had been sent every- 
 where ahead. Every man, it was promised, that 
 could prove property should have a chance to do 
 so at the Door that day and the next; but any 
 brands that showed stolen cattle, or that had been 
 skinned or tampered with in any way, were to be 
 turned over to the Stock Association for the bene- 
 fit of owners. 
 
 The very first pocket raided started a row and 
 uncovered eighty head of five-year-old steers bear- 
 ing a mutilated Duck Bar brand. It was like pok- 
 ing at rattlesnakes to undertake to clean out the 
 grassy retreats of the Cache, but the work was 
 pushed on in spite of protests, threats, and resist- 
 ance. Every man that rode out openly to make a 
 protest was referred calmly to Rebstock, and be- 
 fore very long Rebstock's cabin had more men 
 around it than had been seen together in the Cache 
 for years. The impression that the whole jig was 
 
 294 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 up, and that the refugees had been sold out by their 
 own boss, was one that no railroad man undertook 
 to discourage. The cowboys insisted on the cattle, 
 with the assurance that Rebstock could explain 
 everything. By noon the Cache was in an uproar. 
 The cowboys were riding carefully, and their 
 guards, rifles in hand, were watching the corners. 
 Ahead of the slowly moving line with the grow- 
 ing bunch of cattle behind it, flourished as it were 
 rather conspicuously, fugitive riders dashed back 
 and forth with curses and yells across the narrow 
 valley. If It had been Whispering Smith's inten- 
 tion to raise a large-sized row it was apparent 
 that he had been successful. Rebstock, driven to 
 desperation, held council after council to determine 
 what to do. Sorties were discussed, ambushes con- 
 sidered, and a pitched battle was planned. But, 
 while ideas were plentiful, no one aspired to lead 
 an attack on Whispering Smith. 
 
 Moreover, Williams Cache, it was conceded, 
 would in the end be worsted if the company and 
 the cowmen together seriously undertook with men 
 and unlimited money to clean it out. Whispering 
 Smith's party had no explanation to offer for the 
 round-up, but when Rebstock made it known that 
 the fight was over sending out Du Sang, the rage 
 of the rustlers turned on Du Sang. Again, how- 
 ever, no man wanted to take up personally with 
 
 29s 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Du Sang the question of the reasonableness of 
 Whispering Smith's demand. Instead of doing 
 so, they fell on Rebstock and demanded that 
 if he were boss he make good and send Du Sang 
 out. 
 
 Of all this commotion the railroad men saw only 
 the outward indications. As the excitement grew 
 on both sides there was perhaps a little more of 
 display in the way the cattle were run in, especially 
 when some long-lost bunch was brought to light 
 and welcomed with yells from the centre. A steer 
 was killed at noon, everybody fed, and the line 
 moved forward. The wind, which had slept in the 
 sunshine of the morning, rose in the afternoon, and 
 the dust whirled in little clouds where men or 
 animals moved. From the centre two men had 
 gone back with the cattle gathered up to that time, 
 and Bill Dancing, with Smith, Stormy Gorman, 
 and two of the cowboys, were heading a draw to 
 cross to the north side of the Cache, when three 
 men rode out into the road five hundred yards 
 ahead, and halted. 
 
 Whispering Smith spoke : " There come our 
 men ; stop here. This ground in front of us looks 
 good to me ; they may have chosen something over 
 there that suits them better. Feel your guns and 
 we'll start forward slowly; don't take your eyes 
 off the bunch, whatever you do. Bill, you go bac'c 
 
 296 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 and help the men with the cattle; there will be 
 four of us against three then." 
 
 " Not for mine ! " said Bill Dancing bluntly. 
 " You may need help from an old fool yet. I'll 
 see you through this and look after the cattle 
 afterward." 
 
 " Then, Stormy, one or two of you go back," 
 urged Whispering Smith, speaking to the cowboy 
 foreman without turning his eyes. " There's no 
 need of five of us in this." 
 
 But Stormy swore violently, " You go back 
 yourself," exclaimed Stormy, when he could con- 
 trol his feelings. " We'll bring them fellows in 
 for you in ten minutes with their hands in 
 the air." 
 
 " I know you would; I know it. But I'm paid 
 for this sort of thing and you are not, and I ad- 
 vise no man to take unnecessary chances. If you 
 all want to stay, why, stay; but don't ride ahead 
 of the line, and let me do all the talking. See that 
 your guns are loose — ^you'll never have but one 
 chance to pull, and don't pull till you're ready. 
 The albino is riding in the middle now, isn't he? 
 And a little back, playing for a quick drop. Watch 
 him. Who is that on the right? Can it be 
 George Seagrue? Well, this Is a bunch. And I 
 guess Karg is with them." 
 
 Holding their horses to a slow walk, the two 
 297 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 parties gingerly approached each other. When 
 the Cache riders halted the railroad riders halted; 
 and when the three rode the five rode: but the 
 three rode with absolute alignment and acted as 
 one, while Whispering Smith had trouble in hold- 
 ing his men back until the two lines were fifty feet 
 apart. 
 
 By this time the youngest of the cowboys had 
 steadied and was thinking hard. Whispering 
 Smith halted. In perfect order and sitting their 
 horses as if they were riding parade, the horses 
 ambling at a snail's pace, the Cache riders ad- 
 vanced in the sunshine like one man. When Du 
 Sang and his companions reined up, less than 
 twelve feet separated the two lines. 
 
 In his tan shirt, Du Sang, with his yellow hair, 
 his white eyelashes, and his narrow face, was the 
 least impressive of the three men. The Norwegian, 
 Seagrue, rode on the right, his florid blood show- 
 ing under the tan on his neck and arms. He spoke 
 to the cowboys from the ranch, and on the left the 
 young fellow Karg, with the broken nose, black- 
 eyed and alert, looked the men over in front of 
 him and nodded to Dancing. Du Sang and his 
 companions wore short-armed shirts; rifles were 
 slung at their pommels, and revolvers stuck in their 
 hip-scabbards. Whispering Smith, in his dusty 
 suit of khaki, was the only man in either line who 
 
 298 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 showed no revolver, but a hammerless or muley 
 Savage rifle hung beside his pommel. 
 
 Du Sang, blinking, spoke first: " Which of you 
 fellows is heading this round-up ? " -„_■■, 
 
 " I am heading the round-up," said Whispering 
 Smith. "Why? Have we got some of your 
 cattle?" 
 
 The two men spoke as quietly as school-teach- 
 ers. Whispering Smith's expression in no way 
 changed, except that as he spoke he lifted his eye- 
 brows a little more than usual. 
 
 Du Sang looked at him closely as he went on: 
 "What kind of a way is this to treat anybody? 
 To ride into a valley like this and drive a man's 
 cows away from his door without notice or papers ? 
 Is your name Smith? " 
 
 " My name is Smith; yours is Du Sang. Yes, 
 I'll tell you, Du Sang. I carry an inspector's card 
 from the Mountain Stock Association — do you 
 want to see it? When we get these cattle to the 
 Door, any man in the Cache may come forward 
 and prove his property. I shall leave instructions 
 to that effect when we go, for I want you to go to 
 Medicine Bend with me, Du Sang, as soon as con- 
 venient, and the men that are with me will finish 
 the round-up." 
 
 " What do you want me for? There's no pa- 
 pers out against me, is there ? " 
 
 299 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " No, but I'm an officer, Du Sang. I'll see to 
 the papers ; I want you for murder." 
 
 " So they tell me. Well, you're after the wrong 
 man. But I'll go with you; I don't care about 
 that." 
 
 " Neither do I, Du Sang; and as you have some 
 friends along, I won't break up the party. They 
 may come, too." 
 
 " What for? " 
 
 " For stopping a train at Tower W Saturday 
 night." 
 
 The three men looked at one another and 
 laughed. 
 
 Du Sang with an oath spoke again : " The men 
 you want are in Canada by this time. I can't 
 speak for my friends ; I don't know whether they 
 want to go or not. As far as I am concerned, I 
 haven't killed anybody that I know of. I suppose 
 you'll pay my expenses back? " 
 
 " Why, yes, Du Sang, if you were coming back 
 I would pay your expenses ; but you are not coming 
 back. You are riding down Williams Cache for 
 the last time; you've ridden down it too many 
 times already. This round-up is especially for 
 you. Don't deceive yourself; when you ride with 
 me this time out of the Cache, you won't come 
 back." 
 
 Du Sang laughed, but his blinking eyes were as 
 300 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 steady as a cat's. It did not escape Whispering 
 Smith's notice that the mettlesome horses ridden 
 by the outlaws were continually working around 
 to the right of his party. He spoke amiably to 
 Karg : ." If you can't manage that horse, Karg, I 
 can. Play fair. It looks to me as if you and Du 
 Sang were getting ready to run for it, and leave 
 George Seagrue to shoot his way through alone." 
 
 Du Sang, with some annoyance, intervened: 
 "That's all right; I'll go with you. I'd rather 
 see your papers, but if you're Whispering Smith 
 it's all right. I'm due to shoot out a little game 
 sometime with you at Medicine Bend, anyway." 
 
 " Any time, Du Sang; only don't let your hand 
 wabble next time. It's too close to your gun now 
 to pull right." 
 
 " Well, I told you I was going to come, didn't 
 I ? And I'm coming — now I " 
 
 With the last word he whipped out his gun. 
 There was a crash of bullets. Questioned once 
 by McCloud and reproached for taking chances. 
 Whispering Smith answered simply. " I have to 
 take chances," he said. " All I ask is an even 
 break." 
 
 But Kennedy had said there was no such thing 
 as an even break with Whispering Smith. A few 
 men in a generation amuse, baffle, and mystify 
 other men with an art based on the principle that 
 
 301 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 the action of the hand is quicker than the action 
 of the eye. With Whispering Smith the drawing 
 of a revolver and the art of throwing his shots 
 instantly from wherever his hand rested was pure 
 sleight-of-hand. To a dexterity so fatal he added 
 a judgment that had not failed when confronted 
 with deceit. From the moment that Du Sang first 
 spoke, Smith, convinced that he meant to shoot his 
 way through the line, waited only for the moment 
 to come. When Du Sang's hand moved like a 
 flash of light. Whispering Smith, who was holding 
 his coat lapels in his hands, struck his pistol from 
 the scabbard over his heart and threw a bullet at 
 him before he could fire, as a conjurer throws a 
 vanishing coin into the air. Spurring his horse 
 fearfully as he did so, he dashed at Du Sang and 
 Karg, leaped his horse through their line and, 
 wheeling at arm's length, shot again. Bill Dan- 
 cing jumped in his saddle, swayed, and toppled to 
 the ground. Stormy Gorman gave a single whoop 
 at the spectacle and, with his two cowboys at his 
 heels, fled for life. 
 
 More serious than all. Smith found himself 
 among three fast revolvers, working from an un- 
 manageable horse. The beast tried to follow the 
 fleeing cowboys, and when faced sharply about 
 showed temper. The trained horses of the out- 
 laws stood like statues, but Smith had to fight with 
 
 302 
 
Wheeling at arm's length, shot again. 
 
The Fight in the Cache 
 
 his horse bucking at every shot. He threw his 
 bullets as best he could first over one shoulder and 
 then over the other, and used the last cartridge in 
 his revolver with Du Sang, Seagrue, and Karg 
 shooting at him every time they could fire without 
 hitting one another. 
 
 It was not the first time the Williams Cache 
 gang had sworn to get him and had worked to- 
 gether to do it, but for the first time it looked as 
 if they might do it. A single chance was left to 
 Whispering Smith for his life, and with his coat 
 slashed with bullets, he took it. For an instant 
 his life hung on the success of a trick so appal- 
 lingly awkward that a cleverer man might have 
 failed in turning it. If his rifle should play free 
 in the scabbard as he reached for it, he could 
 fall to the ground, releasing it as he plunged from 
 the saddle, and make a fight on his feet. If the 
 rifle failed to release he was a dead man. To 
 so narrow an issue are the cleverest combinations 
 sometimes brought by chance. He dropped his 
 empty revolver, ducked like a mud-hen on his 
 horse's neck, threw back his leg, and, with all the 
 precision he could summon, caught the grip of his 
 muley in both hands. He made his fall heavily to 
 the ground, landing on his shoulder. But as he 
 keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled 
 over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was 
 
 303 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, 
 on horseback, was already bending over him, re- 
 volver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A 
 thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked the 
 gun into the air and tore every knuckle from 
 Karg's hand. Du Sang spurred in from the right. 
 A rifle-slug like an axe at the root caught him 
 through the middle. His fingers stiffened. His 
 six-shooter fell to the ground and he clutched his 
 side. Seagrue, ducking low, put spurs to his horse, 
 and Whispering Smith, covered with dust, rose on 
 the battle-field alone. 
 
 Hats, revolvers, and coats lay about him. Face 
 downward, the huge bulk of Bill Dancing was 
 stretched motionless in the road. Karg, crouching 
 beside his fallen horse, held up the bloody stump 
 of his gun hand, and Du Sang, fifty yards away, 
 reeling like a drunken man in his saddle, spurred 
 his hotse in an aimless circle. Whispering Smith, 
 running softly to the side of his own trembling 
 animal, threw himself into the saddle, and, ad- 
 justing his rifle sights as the beast plunged down 
 the draw, gave chase to Seagrue. 
 
 304 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE DEATH OF DU SANG 
 
 WHISPERING SMITH, with his horse in a 
 lather, rode slowly back twenty minutes 
 later with Seagrue disarmed ahead of him. The 
 deserted battle-ground was alive with men. 
 Stormy Gorman, hot for blood, had come back, 
 captured Karg, and begun swearing all over again, 
 and Smith listened with amiable surprise while he 
 explained that seeing Dancing killed, and not be- 
 ing able to tell from Whispering Smith's peculiar 
 tactics which side he was shooting at, Gorman 
 and his companions had gone for help. While 
 they angrily surrounded Karg and Seagrue, Smith 
 slipped from his horse where Bill Dancing lay, 
 lifted the huge head from the dust, and tried to 
 turn the giant over. A groan greeted the attempt. 
 " Bill, open your eyes ! Why would you not 
 do as I wanted you to? " he murmured bitterly to 
 himself. A second groan answered him. Smith 
 called for water, and from a canteen drenched the 
 pallid forehead, talking softly meanwhile; but his 
 efforts to restore consciousness were unavailing. 
 
 30s 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 He turned to where two of the cowboys had 
 dragged Karg to the ground and three others had 
 their old companion Seagrue in hand. While two 
 held huge revolvers within six inches of his head, 
 the third was adjusting a rope-knot under his ear. 
 
 Whispering Smith became interested. " Hold 
 on ! " said he mildly, " what is loose ? What are 
 you going to do ? " 
 
 " We're going to hang these fellows," answered 
 Stormy, with a volley of hair-raising imprecations. 
 
 " Oh, no I Just put them on horses under 
 guard." 
 
 " That's what we're going to do," exclaimed the 
 foreman. " Only we're going to run 'em over to 
 those cottonwoods and drive the horses out from 
 under 'em. Stand still, you tow-headed cow- 
 thief I " he cried, slipping the noose up tight on 
 George Seagrue's neck. 
 
 " See here," returned Whispering Smith, show- 
 ing some annoyance, " you may be joking, but I 
 am not. Either do as I tell you or release those 
 men." 
 
 " Well, I guess we are not joking very much. 
 You heard me, didn't you ? " demanded Stormy 
 angrily. " We are going to string these damned 
 critters up right here in the draw on the first tree." 
 
 Whispering Smith drew a pocket-knife and 
 walked to Flat Nose, slit the rope around his neck, 
 
 306 
 
The Death of Du Sang 
 
 pushed him out of the circle, and stood in front of 
 him. " You can't play horse with my prisoners," 
 he said curtly. " Get over here, Karg. Come, 
 now, who is going to walk in first? You act like 
 a school-boy, Gorman.'' 
 
 Hard words and a wrangle followed, but Smith 
 did not change expression, and there was a back- 
 down. " Have you fellows let Du Sang get away 
 while you were playing fool here? " he asked. 
 
 " Du Sang's ever the hill there on his horse, and 
 full of fight yet," exclaimed one. 
 
 " Then we will look him up," suggested Smith. 
 " Come, Seagrue." 
 
 " Don't go over there. He'll get you if you 
 do," cried Gorman. 
 
 " Let us see about that. Seagrue, you and Karg 
 walk ahead. Don't duck or run, either of you. 
 Go on." 
 
 Just over the brow of the hill near which the 
 fight had taken place, a man lay below a ledge of 
 granite. The horse from which he had fallen was 
 grazing close by, but the man had dragged him- 
 self out of the blinding sun to the shade of the 
 sagebrush above the rock — the trail of it all lay 
 very plain on the hard ground. Watching him 
 narrowly. Smith, with his prisoners ahead and the 
 cowboys riding in a circle behind, approached. 
 
 "DuSang?" 
 
 307 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 The man in the sagebrush turned his head. 
 
 Smith walked to him and bent down. " Are 
 you suffering much, Du Sang? " 
 
 The wounded man, sinking with shock and in- 
 ternal hemorrhage, uttered a string of oaths. 
 
 Smith listened quietly till he had done; then he 
 knelt beside him and put his hand on Du Sang's 
 hand. " Tell me where you are hit, Du Sang. 
 Put your hand to it. Is it the stomach? Let me 
 turn you on your side. Easy. Does your belt 
 hurt? Just a minute, now; I can loosen that." 
 
 " I know you," muttered Du Sang thickly. 
 Then his eyes — terrible, rolling, pink eyes — ^bright- 
 ened and he swore violently. 
 
 " Du Sang, you are not bleeding much, but I'm 
 afraid you are badly hit," said Whispering Smith. 
 " Is there anything I can do for you ? " 
 
 " Get me some water." 
 
 A creek flowed at no great distance below the 
 hill, but the cowboys refused to go for water. 
 Whispering Smith would have gone with Sea- 
 grue and Karg, but Du Sang begged him not 
 to leave him alone lest Gorman should kill him. 
 Smith canvassed the situation a moment. " I'll put 
 you on my horse," said he at length, " and take 
 you down to the creek." 
 
 He turned to the cowboys and asked them to 
 help, but they refused to touch Du Sang, 
 
 308 
 
The Death of Du Sang 
 
 Whispering Smith kept his patience. " Karg, 
 take that horse's head," said he. " Come here, 
 Seagrue ; help me lift Du Sang on the horse. The 
 boys seem to be afraid of getting blood on their 
 hands." 
 
 With Whispering Smith and Seagrue support- 
 ing Du Sang in the saddle and Karg leading the 
 horse, the cavalcade moved slowly down to the 
 creek, where a tiny stream purled among the rocks. 
 The water revived the injured man for a moment ; 
 he had even strength enough, with some help, to 
 ride again ; and, moving in the same halting order, 
 they took him to Rebstock's cabin. Rebstock, 
 at the door, refused to let the sinking man be 
 brought into the house. He cursed Du Sang as 
 the cause of all the trouble. But Du Sang cursed 
 him with usury, and, while Whispering Smith lis- 
 tened, told Rebstock with bitter oaths that if he 
 had given the boy Barney anything but a scrub 
 horse they never would have been trailed. More 
 than this concerning the affair Du Sang would not 
 say, and never said. The procession turned from 
 the door. Seagrue led the way to Rebstock's 
 stable, and they laid Du Sang on some hay. 
 
 Afterward they got a cot under him. With 
 surprising vitality he talked a long time to Whis- 
 pering Smith, but at last fell into a stupor. At 
 nine o'clock that night he sat up. Ed Banks and 
 
 309 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Kennedy were standing beside the cot. Du Sang 
 became delirious, and in his delirium called the 
 name of Whispering Smith; but Smith was at 
 Baggs's cabin with Bill Dancing. In a spasm of 
 pain, Du Sang, opening his eyes, suddenly threw 
 himself back. The cot broke, and the dying man 
 rolled under the feet of the frightened horses. In 
 the light of the lanterns they lifted him back, but 
 he was bleeding slowly at the mouth, quite dead. 
 
 The surgeon, afterward, found two fatal wounds 
 upon him. The first shot, passing through the 
 stomach, explained Du Sang's failure to kill at a 
 distance in which, uninjured, he could have placed 
 five shots within the compass of a silver dollar. 
 Firing for Whispering Smith's heart, he had, de- 
 spite the fearful shock, put four bullets through 
 his coat before the rifle-ball from the ground, 
 tearing at right angles across the path of the 
 first bullet, had cut down his life to a question 
 of hours. 
 
 Bill Dancing, who had been hit in the head and 
 stunned, had been moved back to the cabin at Mis- 
 sion Spring, and lay in the little bedroom. A doc- 
 tor at Oroville had been sent for, but had not come. 
 At midnight of the second day, Smith, who was 
 beside his bed, saw him rouse up, and noted the 
 brightness of his eyes as he looked around. 
 " Bill," he declared hopefully, as he sat beside the 
 
 310 
 
The Death of Du Sang 
 
 bed, "you are better, hang itl I know you are. 
 How do you feel? " 
 
 " Ain't that blamed doctor here yet ? Then give 
 me my boots. I'm going back to Medicine Bend 
 to Doc Torpy." 
 
 In the morning Whispering Smith, who had 
 cleansed and dressed the wound and felt sure the 
 bullet had not penetrated the skull, offered no ob- 
 jection to the proposal beyond cautioning him to 
 ride slowly. " You can go down part way with 
 the prisoners. Bill," suggested Whispering Smith. 
 " Brill Young is going to take them to Oroville, 
 and you can act as chairman of the guard." 
 
 Before the party started, Smith called Seagrue 
 to him. " George, you saved my life once. Do 
 you remember — in the Pan Handle ? Well, I gave 
 you yours twice in the Cache day before yesterday. 
 I don't know how badly you are into this thing. 
 If you kept clear of the killing at Tower W I will 
 do what I can for you. Don't talk to anybody." 
 
 3" 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 McLOUD AND DICKSIE 
 
 NEWS of the fight in Williams Cache reached 
 Medicine Bend in the night. Horsemen, 
 filling in the gaps between telephones leading to 
 the north country, made the circuit complete, but 
 the accounts, confused and colored in the repeat- 
 ing, came in a cloud of conflicting rumors. In the 
 streets, little groups of men discussed the frag- 
 mentary reports as they came from the railroad 
 offices. Toward morning, Sleepy Cat, nearer the 
 scene of the fight, began sending in telegraphic 
 reports in which truth and rumor were strangely 
 mixed. McCloud waited at the wires all night, 
 hoping for trustworthy advices as to the result, 
 but received none. Even during the morning noth- 
 ing came, and the silence seemed more ominous 
 than the bad news of the early night. Routine 
 business was almost suspended and McCloud and 
 Rooney Lee kept the wires warm with inquiries, 
 but neither the telephone nor the telegraph would 
 yield any definite word as to what had actually 
 
 312 
 
McCloud and Dicksie 
 
 happened in the Williams Cache fight. It was 
 ^sy to fear the worst. 
 
 At the noon hour McCloud was signing letters 
 when Dicksie Dunning walked hurriedly up the 
 hall and hesitated in the passageway before the 
 open door of his office. He gave an exclamation 
 as he pushed back his chair. She was in her rid- 
 ing-suit just as she had slipped from her saddle. 
 " Oh, Mr. McCloud, have you heard the awful 
 news? Whispering Smith was killed yesterday in 
 Williams Cache by Du Sang." 
 
 McCloud stiffened a little. " I hope that can't 
 be true. We have had nothing here but rumors; 
 perhaps it is these that you have heard." 
 
 " No, no ! Blake, one of our men, was in the 
 fight and got back at the ranch at nine o'clock this 
 morning. I heard the story myself, and I rode 
 right in to — to see Marion, and my courage failed 
 me — I came here first. Does she know, do you 
 think? Blake saw him fall from the saddle after 
 he was shot, and everybody ran away, and Du 
 Sang and two other men were firing at him as 
 he lay on the ground. He could not possibly 
 have escaped with his life, Blake said; he must 
 have been riddled with bullets. Isn't it terri- 
 ble?" She sobbed suddenly, and McCloud, 
 stunned at her words, led her to his chair and 
 bent over her. 
 
 313 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " If his death means this to you, think of what 
 it means to me! " 
 
 A flood of sympathy bore them together. The 
 moment was hardly one for interruption, but the 
 despatcher's door opened and Rooney Lee halted, 
 thunderstruck, on the threshold. 
 
 Dicksie's hand disappeared in her handker- 
 chief. McCloud had been in wrecks before, and 
 gathered himself together unmoved. " What is 
 it, Rooney? " 
 
 The very calmness of the two at the table dis- 
 concerted the despatcher. He held the message in 
 his hand and shuffled his feet. " Give me your 
 despatch," said McCloud impatiently. 
 
 Quite unable to take his hollow eyes off Dicksie, 
 poor Rooney advanced, handed the telegram to 
 McCloud, and beat an awkward retreat. 
 
 McCloud devoured the words of the message 
 at a glance. 
 
 " Ah! " he cried, " this is from Gordon himself, 
 sent from Sleepy Cat. He must be safe and un- 
 hurt ! Listen : 
 
 "Three of the Tower W men trailed into Williams Cache. 
 In resisting arrest this morning, Du Sang was wounded and is 
 dying to-night. Two prisoners, Karg and Seagrue. G. S. 
 
 "Those are Gordon's initials; it is the signa- 
 ture over which he telegraphs me. You see, this 
 
 3H 
 
McCloud and Dicksie 
 
 was sent last night long after Blake left. He is 
 safe; I will stake my life on it." 
 
 Dicksie sank back while McCloud re-read the 
 message. "Oh, isn't that a relief?" she ex- 
 claimed. " But how can it be? I can't understand 
 it at all; but he is safe, isn't he? I was heart- 
 broken when I heard he was killed. Marion ought 
 to know of this," she said, rising. " I am going 
 to tell her." 
 
 " And may I come over after I tell Rooney Lee 
 to repeat this to headquarters? " 
 
 " Why, of course, if you want to." 
 
 When McCloud reached the cottage Dicksie 
 met him. " Katie Dancing's mother is sick, and 
 she has gone home. Poor Marion is all alone this 
 morning, and half dead with a sick headache," 
 said Dicksie. " But I told her, and she said she 
 shouldn't mind the headache now at all." 
 
 " But what are you going to do? " 
 
 " I am going to get dinner; do you want to 
 help?" 
 
 " I'm going to help." 
 
 " Oh, you are ? That would be very funny." 
 
 " Funny or not, I'm going to help." 
 
 " You would only be in the way." 
 
 " You don't know whether I should or not." 
 
 " I know / should do much better if you would 
 go back and run the railroad a few minutes." 
 
 315 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " The railroad be hanged. I am for dinner." 
 
 " But I will get dinner for you." 
 
 " You need not. I can get it for myself." 
 
 " You are perfectly absurd, and if we stand here 
 disputing, Marion won't have anything to eat." 
 
 They went into the kitchen disputing about what 
 should be cooked. At the end of an hour they 
 had two fires going — one in the stove and one in 
 Dicksie's cheeks. By that time it had been decided 
 to have a luncheon instead of a dinner. Dicksie 
 attempted some soup, and McCloud found a strip 
 of bacon, and after he had cooked it, Dicksie, 
 with her riding-skirt pinned up and her sleeves de- 
 lightfully rolled back, began frying eggs. When 
 Marion, unable longer to withstand the excitement, 
 appeared, the engineer, flushed with endeavor, was 
 making toast. 
 
 The three sat down at table together. They 
 found they had forgotten the coffee, but Marion 
 was not allowed to move from her chair. When 
 the coffee was made ready the bacon had been 
 eaten and more had to be fried. McCloud proved 
 able for any part of the programme, and when they 
 rose it was four o'clock and too late, McCloud 
 declared, to go back to the office that afternoon. 
 
 Marion and Dicksie, after a time, attempted 
 jointly to get rid of him, but they found they could 
 not, so the three talked about Whispering Smith. 
 
 316 
 
McCloud and Dicksie 
 
 When the women tried to discourage McCloud by 
 talking hats he played the wheezy piano, and when 
 Dicksie spoke about going home he declared he 
 would ride home with her. But Dicksie had no 
 mind that he should, and when he asked to know 
 why, without realizing what a flush lingered in his 
 face, she said only, no; if she had reasons she 
 would give none. McCloud persisted, because 
 under the flush about his eyes was the resolve that 
 he would take one long ride that evening, in any 
 event. He had made up his mind for that ride — 
 a longer one than he had ever taken before or ex- 
 pected ever to take again — and would not be 
 balked. 
 
 Dicksie, insisting upon going home, went so 
 far as to have her horse brought from the stable. 
 To her surprise, a horse for McCloud came over 
 with it. Quiet to the verge of solemnity, but with 
 McCloud following, Dicksie walked with admi- 
 rable firmness out of the shop to the curb. Mc- 
 Cloud gave her rein to her, and with a smile stood 
 waiting to help her mount. 
 
 She was drawing on her second glove. " You 
 are not going with me." 
 
 " You'll let me ride the same road, won't you 
 — even if I can't keep up ? " 
 
 Dicksie looked at his mount. " It would be dif- 
 ficult to keep up, with that horse." 
 
 317 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Would you ride away from me just because 
 you have a better horse ? " 
 
 " No, not just because I have a better horse." 
 
 He looked steadily at her without speaking. 
 
 " Why must you ride home with me when I 
 don't want you to?" she asked reproachfully. 
 Fear had come upon her and she did not know 
 what she was saying. She saw only the expression 
 of his eyes and looked away, but she knew that his 
 eyes followed her. The sun had set. The de- 
 serted street lay in the white half-light of a moun- 
 tain evening, and the day's radiance was dying in 
 the sky. In lower tones he spoke again, and she 
 turned deadly white. 
 
 " I've wanted so long to say this, Dicksie, that 
 I might as well be dead as to try to keep it back 
 any longer. That's why I want to ride home with 
 you if you are going to let me." He turned to 
 stroke her horse's head. Dicksie stood seemingly 
 helpless. McCloud slipped his finger into his 
 waistcoat pocket and held something out in his 
 hand. " This shell pin fell from your hair that 
 night you were at camp by the bridge — do you re- 
 member? I couldn't bear to give it back." 
 
 Dicksie's eyes opened wide. " Let me see it. I 
 don't think that is mine." 
 
 " Great Heaven ! Have I been carrying Mar- 
 ion Sinclair's pin for a month?" exclaimed Mc- 
 
 318 
 
McCloud and Dicksie 
 
 Cloud. " Well, I won't lose any time in returning 
 it to her, at any rate." 
 
 "'Where are you going? " Dicksie's voice was 
 faint. 
 
 " I'm going to give Marion her pin." 
 
 " Do nothing of the sort ! Come here 1 Give it 
 to me." 
 
 " Dicksie, dare you tell me, after a shock like 
 that, it really is your pin? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know whose pin it is ! " 
 
 " Why, what is the matter? " 
 
 " Give me the pin ! " She put her hands un- 
 steadily up under her hat. " Here, for Heaven's 
 sake, if you must have something, take this comb ! " 
 She slipped from her head the shell that held her 
 knotted hair. He caught her hand and kissed it, 
 and she could not get it away. 
 
 " You are dear," murmured Dicksie, " if you 
 are silly. The reason I wouldn't let you ride home 
 with me is because I was afraid you might get 
 shot. How do you suppose I should feel if you 
 were killed? Or don't you think I have any 
 feeling?" 
 
 " But, Dicksie, is it all right? " 
 
 " How do I know ? What do you mean ? I 
 will not let you ride home with me, and you will 
 not let me ride home alone. Tie Jim again. I am 
 going to stay with Marion all night." 
 
 319 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 THE LAUGH OF A WOMAN 
 
 WITHIN an hour, Marion, working over a 
 hat in the trimming-room, was startled 
 to hear the cottage door open, and to see Dicksie 
 quite unconcernedly walk in. To Marion's excla- 
 mation of surprise she returned only a laugh. " I 
 have changed my mind, dear. I am going to stay 
 all night." 
 
 Marion kissed her approvingly. " Really, you 
 are getting so sensible I shan't know you, Dicksie. 
 In fact, I believe this is the most sensible thing you 
 were ever guilty of." 
 
 " Glad you think so," returned Dicksie dryly, 
 unpinning her hat. " I certainly hope it is. Mr. 
 McCloud persuaded me it wasn't right for me to 
 ride home alone, and I knew better than he what 
 danger there was for him in riding home with me 
 — so here I am. He is coming over for supper, 
 too, in a few minutes." 
 
 When McCloud arrived he brought with him a 
 porterhouse steak, and Marion was again driven 
 
 320 
 
The Laugh of a Woman 
 
 from the kitchen. At the end of an hour, Dicksie, 
 engrossed over the broiler, was putting the finish- 
 ing touches to the steak, and McCloud, more en- 
 grossed, was watching her, when a diffident and 
 surprised-looking person appeared in the kitchen 
 doorway and put his hand undecidedly on the 
 casing. While he stood, Dicksie turned abruptly 
 to McCloud. 
 
 " Oh, by the way, I have forgotten something I 
 Will you do me a favor? " 
 
 " Certainly! Do you want money or a pass? " 
 
 " No, not money," said Dicksie, lifting the steak 
 on her forks, " though you might give me a pass." 
 
 " But I should hate to have you go away any- 
 where " 
 
 " I don't want to go anywhere, but I never had 
 a pass, and I think it would be kind of nice to have 
 one just to keep. Don't you ? " 
 
 " Why, yes; you might put it in the bank and 
 have It drawing interest." 
 
 " This steak is. Do they give interest on 
 passes? " 
 
 " Well, a good deal of interest is felt in them — 
 on this division at least. What is the favor? " 
 
 "Yes, what is it? How can I think? Oh, I 
 know I If they don't put Jim in a box stall to- 
 night he will kill some of the horses over there. 
 Will you telephone the stables? " 
 
 321 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 " Won't you give me the number and let me 
 telephone?" asked a voice behind them. They 
 turned in astonishment and saw Whispering Smith. 
 " I am surprised," he added calmly, " to see a man 
 of your intelligence, George, trying to broil a steak 
 with the lower door of your stove wide open. 
 Close the lower door and cut out the draft through 
 the fire. Don't stare, George; put back the 
 broiler. And haven't you made a radical mistake 
 to start with?" he asked, stepping between the 
 confused couple. " Are you not trying to broil a 
 roast of beef? " 
 
 " Where did you come from? " demanded Mc- 
 Cloud, as Marion came in from the dining-room. 
 
 " Don't search me the very first thing," pro- 
 tested Whispering Smith. 
 
 " But we've been frightened to death here for 
 twenty-four hours. Are you really alive and un- 
 hurt? This young lady rode in twenty miles this 
 mornihg and came to the office in tears to get news 
 of you." 
 
 Smith looked mildly at Dicksie. " Did you shed 
 a tear for me? I should like to have seen just 
 one ! Where did I come from ? I reported in wild 
 over the telephone ten minutes ago. Didn't Mar- 
 ion tell you? She is so forgetful. That is what 
 causes wrecks, Marion. I have been in the saddle 
 since three o'clock this morning, thank you, and 
 
 322 
 
The Laugh of a Woman 
 
 have had nothing for five days but raw steer gar- 
 nished with sunshine." 
 
 The four sat down to supper, and Whispering 
 Smith began to talk. He told the story of the 
 chase to the Cache, the defiance from Rebstock, 
 and the tardy appearance of the men he wanted. 
 " Du Sang meant to shoot his way through us 
 and make a dash for it. There really was noth- 
 ing else for him to do. Banks and Kennedy were 
 up above, even if he could have ridden out through 
 the upper canyon, which is very doubtful with all 
 the water now. After a little talk back and forth, 
 Du Sang drew, and of course then it was every 
 man for himself. He was hit twice and he died 
 Sunday night, but the other two were not seri- 
 ously hurt. What can you do? It is either kill 
 or get killed with those fellows, and, of course, 
 I talked plainly to Du Sang. He had butchered a 
 man at Mission Springs just the night before, and 
 deserved hanging a dozen times over. He meant 
 from the start, he told me afterward, to get me. 
 Oh, Miss Dunning, may I have some more coffee ? 
 Haven't I an agreeable part of the railroad busi- 
 ness, don't you think ? I shouldn't have pushed in 
 here to-night, but I saw the lights when I rode by 
 awhile ago ; they looked so good I couldn't resist." 
 
 McCloud leaned forward. " You call it push- 
 ing in, do you, Gordon? Do you know what this 
 
 323 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 young lady did this morning? One' of her cow- 
 boys came down from the Cache early with the 
 word that you had been killed in the fight by Du 
 Sang. He said he saw you drop from your saddle 
 to the ground with Du Sang shooting at you. She 
 ordered up her horse, without a word, and rode 
 twenty miles in an hour and a half to find out here 
 what we had heard. She ' pushed in ' at the 
 Wickiup, where she never had been before in her 
 life, and wandered through it alone looking for 
 my office, to find out from me whether I hadn't 
 something to contradict the bad news. While we 
 talked, in came your despatch from Sleepy Cat. 
 Never was one better timed I And when she knew 
 you were safe her eyes filled again." 
 
 Whispering Smith looked at Dicksie quizzically. 
 Her confusion was delightful. He rose, lifted her 
 hand in his own, and, bending, kissed it. 
 
 They talked till late, and when Dicksie walked 
 out on the porch McCloud followed to smoke. 
 Whispering Smith still sat at the table talking to 
 Marion, and the two heard the sound of the low 
 voices outside. At intervals Dicksie's laugh came 
 in through the open door. 
 
 Whispering Smith, listening, said nothing for 
 some time, but once she laughed peculiarly. He 
 pricked up his ears. " What has been happening 
 since I left town? " 
 
 324 
 
The Laugh of a Woman 
 
 " What do you mean? " asked Marion Sinclair. 
 
 He nodded toward the porch. " McCloud and 
 Dicksie out there. They have been fixing things 
 up." 
 
 " Nonsense ! What do you mean? " 
 
 " I mean they are engaged." 
 
 "Never in the world! " 
 
 " I may be slow in reading a trail," said Smith 
 modestly, " but when a woman laughs like that I 
 think there's something doing. Don't you believe 
 it? Call them in and ask them. You won't? 
 Well, I will. Take them in separate rooms. You 
 ask her and I'll ask him." 
 
 In spite of Marion's protests the two were 
 brought in. " I am required by Mr. Smith to ask 
 you a very silly question, Dicksie," said Marion, 
 taking her into the living-room. " Answer yes or 
 no. Are you engaged to anybody? " 
 
 " What a question ! Why, no I " 
 
 " Marion Sinclair wants to know just one thing, 
 George," said Whispering Smith to McCloud 
 after he had taken him into the dark shop. " She 
 feels she ought to know because she is in a way 
 Dicksie's chaperone, you know, and she feels that 
 you are willing she should know. I don't want to 
 be too serious, but answers yes or no. Are you en- 
 gaged to Dicksie? " 
 
 " Why, yds. I " 
 
 325 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 "That's all; go back to the porch," directed 
 Whispering Smith. McCloud obeyed qrders. 
 
 Marion, alone in the living-room, was waiting 
 for the inquisitor, and her face wore a look of tri- 
 umph. " You are not such a mind-reader after all, 
 are you ? I told you they weren't." 
 
 " I told you they were," contended Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 " She says they are notl' insisted Marion. 
 
 " He says they are," returned Whispering 
 Smith, "And, what's more, I'll bet my saddle 
 against the shop they are. I could be mistaken in 
 anything but that laugh." 
 
 326 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 A MIDNIGHT VISIT 
 
 THE lights, but one, were out. McCloud and 
 Whispering Smith had gone, and Marion 
 was locking up the house for the night, when she 
 was halted by a knock at the shop door. It was a 
 summons that she thought she knew, but the last 
 in the world that she wanted to hear or to an- 
 swer. Dicksie had gone to the bedroom, and stand- 
 ing between the portieres that curtained the work- 
 room from the shop, Marion in the half-light lis- 
 tened, hesitating whether to ignore or to answer the 
 midnight intruder. But experience, and bitter ex- 
 perience, had taught her there was only one way to 
 meet that particular summons, and that was to act, 
 whether at noon or at midnight, without fear. She 
 waited until the knocking had been twice repeated, 
 turned up the light, and going to the door drew 
 the bolt; Sinclair stood before her, and she drew 
 back for him to enter. " Dicksie Dunning is with 
 me to-night," said Marion, with her hand on the 
 latch, " and we shall have to talk here." 
 
 Sinclair took off his hat. " I knew you had com- 
 327 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 pany," he returned in the low, gentle tone that 
 Marion knew very well, " so I came late. And 
 I heard to-night, for the first time, that this rail- 
 road crowd is after me — God knows why ; but they 
 have to earn their salary somehow. I want to 
 keep out of trouble if I can. I won't kill anybody 
 if they don't force me to it. They've scared nearly 
 all my men away from the ranch already; one 
 crippled-up cowboy is all I have got to help me 
 look after the cattle. But I won't quarrel with 
 them, Marion, if I can get away from here peace- 
 ably, so I've come to talk it over once more with 
 you. I'm going away and I want you to go with 
 me ; I've got enough to keep us as well as the best 
 of them and as long as we live. You've given me 
 a good lesson. I needed it, girlie " 
 
 " Don't call me that ! " 
 
 He laughed kindly. " Why, that's what it used 
 to be; that's what I want it to be again. I don't 
 blame you. You're worth all the women I ever 
 knew, Marion. I've learned to appreciate some 
 few things in the lonely months I've spent up on 
 the Frenchman; but I've felt while I was there as 
 if I were working for both of us. I've got a buyer 
 in sight now for the cattle and the land. I'm ready 
 to clean up and say good-by to trouble — all I want 
 is for you to give me the one chance I've asked 
 for and go along." 
 
 328 
 
A Midnight Visit 
 
 They stood facing each other under the dim 
 light. She listened intently to every word, though 
 in her terror she might not have heard or under- 
 stood all of them. One thing she did very clearly 
 understand, and that was why he had come and 
 what he wanted. To that she held her mind te- 
 naciously, and for that she shaped her answer. " I 
 cannot go with you — now or ever." 
 
 He waited a moment. " We always got along, 
 Marion, when I behaved myself." 
 
 " I hope you always will behave yourself; but 
 I could no more go with you than I could make 
 myself again what I was years ago, Murray. I 
 wish you nothing but good; but our ways parted 
 long ago." 
 
 " Stop and think a minute, Marion. I offer you 
 more and offer it more honestly than I ever of- 
 fered it before, because I know myself better. 
 I am alone in the world — strong, and better 
 able to care for you than I was when I under- 
 took to " 
 
 " I have never complained." 
 
 " That's what makes me more anxious to show 
 you now that I can and will do what's right." 
 
 "Oh, you multiply words! It is too late for 
 you to be here. You are in danger, you say; for 
 the love of Heaven, leave me and go away ! " 
 
 " You know me, Marion, when my mind is made 
 329 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 up. I won't leave without you." He leaned with 
 one hand against the ribbon showcase. " If you 
 don't want to go I will stay right here and pay off 
 the scores I owe. Two men here have stirred this 
 country up too long, anyway. I don't care much 
 how soon anybody gets me after I round them up. 
 But to-night I felt like this : you and I started out in 
 life together, and we ought to live it out or die 
 together, whether it's to-night, Marion, or twenty 
 years from to-night." 
 
 "If you want to kill me to-night, I have no re- 
 sistance to make." 
 
 Sinclair sat down on a low counter-stool, and, 
 bending forward, held his head between his hands. 
 " It oughtn't all to end here. I know you, and I 
 know you want to do what's right. I couldn't kill 
 you without killing myself; you know that." He 
 straightened up slowly. " Here ! " He slipped 
 his revolver from his hip-holster and held the grip 
 of the gun toward her. " Use it on me If you 
 want to. It is your chance to end everything; it 
 may save several lives if you do. I won't leave 
 McCloud here to crow over me, and, by God, I 
 won't leave you here for Whispering Smith ! I'il 
 settle with him anyhow. Take the pistol! What 
 are you afraid of? Take it! Use it! I don't 
 want to live without you. If you make me do it, 
 you're to blame for the consequences." 
 
 330 
 
A Midnight Visit 
 
 She stood with wide-open eyes, but uttered no 
 word. 
 
 " You won't touch it — then you care a little for 
 me yet," he murmured. 
 
 " No I Do not say so. But I will not do 
 murder." 
 
 " Think about the other, then. Go with me 
 and everything will be all right. I will come back 
 some evening soon for my answer. And until 
 then, if those two men have any use for life, let 
 them keep in the clear. I heard to-night that Du 
 Sang is killed. Do you know whether it is true ? " 
 
 " It is true." 
 
 An oath half escaping showed how the confirma- 
 tion cut him. " And Whispering Smith got away ! 
 It is Du Sang's own fault; I told him to keep out 
 of that trap. I stay in the open; and I'm not Du 
 Sang. I'll choose my own ground for the finish 
 when they want it with me, and when I go I'll 
 take company — I'll promise you that. Good-night, 
 Marion. Will you shake hands ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Damn it, I like your grit, girl! Well, good- 
 night, anyway." 
 
 She closed the door. She had even strength 
 enough to bolt it before his footsteps died away. 
 She put out the light and felt her way blindly back 
 to the work-room. She staggered through it, 
 
 331 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 clutching at the curtains, and fell in the darkness 
 into Dicksie's arms. 
 
 " Marion dear, don't speak," Dicksie whis- 
 pered. " I heard everything. Oh, Marion ! " 
 she cried, suddenly conscious of the inertness of 
 the burden in her arms. " Oh, what shall I do? " 
 
 Moved by fright to her utmost strength, Dicksie 
 drew the unconscious woman back to her room and 
 managed to lay her on the bed. Marion opened 
 her eyes a few minutes later to see the lights burn- 
 ing, to hear the telephone bell ringing, and to find 
 Dicksie on the edge of the bed beside her. 
 
 " Oh, Marion, thank Heaven, you are reviving! 
 I have been frightened to death. Don't mind the 
 telephone; it is Mr. McCloud. I didn't know 
 v/hat to do, so I telephoned him." 
 
 " But you had better answer him," said Marion 
 faintly. The telephone bell was ringing wildly. 
 
 " Oh, no! he can wait. How are you, dear? I 
 don't wonder you were frightened to death. Mar- 
 ion, he means to kill us — every one ! " 
 
 " No, Dicksie. He will kill me and kill himself; 
 that is where it will end. Dicksie, do answer the 
 telephone. What are you thinking of? Mr. Mc- 
 Cloud will be at the door in five minutes. Do you 
 want him in the street to-night? " 
 
 Dicksie fled to the telephone, and an excited con- 
 ference over the wire closed in seeming reassur- 
 
 332 
 
A Midnight Visit 
 
 ance at both ends. By that time Marion had re- 
 gained her steadiness, but she could not talk of 
 what had passed. At times, as the two lay together 
 in the darkness, Marion spoke, but it was not to 
 be answered. " I do not know," she murmured 
 once wearily. " Perhaps I am doing wrong; per- 
 haps I ought to go with him. I wish, oh, I wish 
 I knew what I ought to do I " 
 
 333 
 
CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE CALL 
 
 BEYOND receiving reports from Kennedy and 
 Banks, who in the interval rode into town 
 and rode out again on their separate and silent 
 ways, Whispering Smith for two days seemed to 
 do nothing. Yet instinct keener than silence kept 
 the people of Medicine Bend on edge during those 
 two days, and when President Bucks's car came 
 in on the evening of the second day, the town knew 
 from current rumors that Banks had gone to the 
 Frenchman ranch with a warrant on a serious 
 charge for Sinclair. In the president's car Bucks 
 and McCloud, after a late dinner, were joined by 
 Whispering Smith, and the president heard the 
 first connected story of the events of the fortnight 
 that had passed. Bucks made no comment until 
 he had heard everything. " And they rode Sin- 
 clair's horses," he said in conclusion. 
 
 " Sinclair's horses," returned Whispering Smith, 
 " and they are all accounted for. One horse sup- 
 plied by Rebstock was shot where they crossed 
 Stampede Creek. It had given out and they had 
 
 334 
 
The Call 
 
 a fresh horse in the willows, for they shot the scrub 
 half a mile up one of the canyons near the cross- 
 ing. The magpies attracted my attention to it. A 
 piece of skin a foot square had been cut out of the 
 flank." 
 
 " You got there before the birds." 
 
 " It was about an even thing," said Smith. 
 " Anyway, we were there in time to see the horse." 
 
 " And Sinclair was away from the ranch from 
 Saturday noon till Sunday night? " 
 
 " A rancher living over on Stampede Creek saw 
 the five men when they crossed Saturday afternoon. 
 The fellow was scared and lied to me about it, but 
 he told Wickwire who they were." 
 
 " Now, who is Wickwire? " asked Bucks. 
 
 " You ought to remember Wickwire, George," 
 remarked Whispering Smith, turning to McCloud. 
 " You haven't forgotten the Smoky Creek wreck? 
 Do you remember the tramp who had his legs 
 crushed and lay in the sun all morning? You put 
 him in your car and sent him down here to the 
 railroad hospital and Earnhardt took care of him. 
 That was Wickwire. Not a bad fellow, either; he 
 can talk pretty straight and shoot pretty straight. 
 How do I know? Because he has told me the 
 story and I've seen him shoot. There, you see, is 
 one friend that you never reckoned on. He used 
 to be a cowboy, and I got him a job working for 
 
 335 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Sinclair on the Frenchman ; he has worked at Dun- 
 nlng's and other places on the Crawling Stone. 
 He hates Sinclair with a deadly hatred for some 
 reason. Just lately Wickwire set up for himself 
 on Little Crawling Stone." 
 
 " I have noticed that fellow's ranch," remarked 
 McCloud. 
 
 " I couldn't leave him at Sinclair's," continued 
 Whispering Smith frankly. " The fellow was on 
 my mind all the time. I felt certain he would kill 
 Sinclair or get killed if he stayed there. And then, 
 when I took him away they sprang Tower W on 
 me ! That is the price, not of having a conscience, 
 for I haven't any, but of listening to the voice that 
 echoes where my conscience used to be," said the 
 railroad man, moving uneasily in his chair. 
 
 Bucks broke the ash from his cigar into the tray 
 on the table. " You are restless to-night, Gordon 
 — and it isn't like you, either." 
 
 " It is in the air. There has been a dead calm 
 for two days. Something is due to happen to- 
 night. I wish I could hear from Banks ; he started 
 with the papers for Sinclair's yesterday while I 
 went to Oroville to sweat Karg. Blood-poisoning 
 has set in and it Is rather important to us to get 
 a confession. There's a horse! " He stepped to 
 the window. " Coming fast, too. Now, I wonder 
 — ^no, he's gone by." 
 
 336 
 
The Call 
 
 Five minutes later a messenger came to the car 
 from the Wickiup with word that Kennedy was 
 looking for Whispering Smith. Bucks, McCloud, 
 and Smith left the car together and walked up to 
 McCloud's office. 
 
 Kennedy, sitting on the edge of the table, was 
 tapping his leg nervously with a ruler. *' Bad 
 news, Gordon." 
 
 "Not from Ed Banks?" 
 
 " Sinclair got him this morning." 
 
 Whispering Smith sat down. " Go on." 
 
 " Banks and I picked up Wickwire on the Crawl- 
 ing Stone early, and we rode over to the French- 
 man. Wickwire said Sinclair had been up at 
 Williams Cache the day before, and he didn't 
 think he was home. Of course I knew the Cache 
 was watched and he wouldn't be there long, so 
 Ed asked me to stay in the cottonwoods and watch 
 the creek for him. He and Wickwire couldn't find 
 anybody home when they got to the ranch-house 
 and they rode down the corral together to look 
 over the horses." 
 
 Whispering Smith's hand fell helplessly on the 
 table. " Rode down together! For God's sake, 
 why didn't one of them stay at the house ? " 
 
 " Sinclair rode out from behind the barn and 
 hit Wickwire in the arm before they saw him. 
 Banks turned and opened on him, and Wickwire 
 
 337 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 ducked for the creek. Sinclair put a soft bullet 
 through Banks's shoulder — tore it pretty bad, Gor- 
 don — and made his get-away before Wickwire and 
 I could reach the barn again. I got Ed on his 
 horse and back to Wickwire's, and we sent one of 
 the boys to Oroville for a doctor. After Banks 
 fell out of the saddle and was helpless Sinclair 
 talked to him before I came up. ' You ought to 
 have kept out of this, Ed,' he said. ' This is a 
 railroad fight. Why didn't they send the head of 
 their own gang after me? ' — naming you." Ken- 
 nedy nodded toward Whispering Smith. 
 
 " Naming me." 
 
 " Banks says, ' I'm sheriff of this county, and 
 will be a long time yet ! ' I took the papers from 
 his breast pocket," continued Kennedy. " You <:an 
 see where he was hit." Kennedy laid the sheriff's 
 packet on the table. Bucks drew his chair for- 
 ward and, with his cigar between his fingers, picked 
 the packet up and opened it. Kennedy went on: 
 " Ed told Sinclair if he couldn't land him himself 
 that he knew a man who could and would before 
 he was a week older. He meant you, Gordon, 
 and the last thing Ed told me was that he wanted 
 you to serve the papers on Sinclair." 
 
 A silence fell on the company. One of the docu- 
 ments passing under Bucks's hand caught his eye 
 and he opened it. It was the warrant for Sinclair. 
 
 338 
 
The Call 
 
 He read it without comment, folded it, and, look- 
 ing at Whispering Smith, pushed it toward him. 
 " Then this, I guess, Gordon, belongs to you." 
 
 Starting from a rcvery. Whispering Smith 
 reached for the warrant. He looked for a moment 
 at the blood-stained caption. " Yes," he said, 
 " this, I guess, belongs to me." 
 
 339 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 DUTY 
 
 THE Stir of the town over the shooting of 
 Banks seemed to Marion, in her distress, 
 to point an accusing finger at her. The disgrace 
 of what she had felt herself powerless to prevent 
 now weighed on her mind, and she asked herself 
 whether, after all, the responsibility of this mur- 
 der was not upon her. Even putting aside this 
 painful doubt, she bore the name of the man who 
 had savagely defied accountability and now, it 
 seemed to her, was dragging her with him through 
 the slough of blood and dishonor into which he 
 had plunged. 
 
 The wretched thought would return that had 
 she listened to him, had she consented to go away, 
 this outbreak might have been prevented. And 
 what horror might not another day bring — ^what 
 lives still closer to her life be taken? For her- 
 self she cared less; but she knew that Sinclair, 
 now that he had begun, would not stop. In which- 
 ever way her thoughts turned, wretchedness was 
 upon them, and the day went in one of those de- 
 
 340 
 
Duty 
 
 spairing and indecisive battles that each one with- 
 in his own heart must fight at times with heaviness 
 and doubt. 
 
 McCloud called her over the telephone in the 
 afternoon to say that he was going West on the 
 evening train and would not be over for supper. 
 She wished he could have come, for her loneliness 
 began to be Insupportable. 
 
 Toward sunset she put on h';r hat and started 
 for the post-office. In the meantime, DIcksie, at 
 home, had called McCloud up and told him she 
 was coming down for the night. He immediately 
 cancelled his plans for going West, and when 
 Marion returned at dusk she found him with Dick- 
 sie at the cottage. The three had supper. After- 
 ward Dicksie and McCloud went out for a walk, 
 and Marion was alone in the house when the shop 
 door opened and Whispering Smith walked in. It 
 was dusk. 
 
 " Don't light the lamps, Marion," he said, sit- 
 ting down on a counter-stool as he took off his hat. 
 " I want to talk to you just a minute, if you don't 
 mind. You know what has happened. I am 
 called on now to go after Sinclair. I have tried 
 to avoid it, but my hand has been forced. To-day 
 I've been placing horses. I am going to ride to- 
 night with the warrant. I have given him a start 
 of twenty-four hours, hoping he may get out of 
 
 341 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 the country. To stay here means only death to 
 him in the end, and, what is worse, the killing of 
 more and innocent men. But he won't leave the 
 country; do you think he will? " 
 
 " Oh, I do not know ! I am afraid he will not." 
 
 " I do not think I have ever hesitated before at 
 any call of this kind; nor at what such a call will 
 probably sometin e mean ; but this man I have 
 known since we were boys." 
 
 " If I had never seen him! " 
 
 " That brings up another point that has been 
 worrying me all day. I could not help knowing 
 what you have had to go through in this country. 
 It is a tough country for any woman. Your people 
 and mine were always close together and I have 
 felt bound to do what I could to " 
 
 " Don't be afraid to say it — make my path 
 easier." 
 
 " Something like that, though there's been little 
 real doing. What this situation in which Sinclair 
 is now placed may still mean to you I do not know, 
 but I would not add a straw to the weight of your 
 troubles. I came to-night to ask a plain question. 
 If he doesn't leave the country I have got to meet 
 him. You know what, in all human probability, 
 that will mean. From such a meeting only one 
 of us can come back. Which shall it be? " 
 
 *' I'm afraid I don't understand you — do you 
 342 
 
Duty 
 
 ask me this question? How can I know which it 
 shall be ? What is it you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean I will not take his life in a fight — if 
 it comes to that — if you would rather he should 
 come back." 
 
 A sob almost refused an answer to him. " How 
 can you ask me so terrible a question? " 
 
 " It is a question that means a good deal to me, 
 of course, and I don't know just what it means to 
 you : that is the point I am up against. I may have 
 no choice in the matter, but I must decide what to 
 try to do if I have one. Am I to remember first 
 that he is your husband? " 
 
 There was a silence. " What shall I say — what 
 can I say? God help me, how am I to answer a 
 question like that? " 
 
 " How am I to answer it? " 
 
 Her voice was low and pitiful when her answer 
 came: " You must do your duty." 
 
 " What is my duty then? To serve the paper 
 that has been given to me, I know — but not neces- 
 sarily to defend my life at the price of his. The 
 play of a chance lies in deciding that; I can keep 
 the chance or give it away; that is for you to 
 say. Or take the question of duty again. You 
 are alone and your friends are few. Haven't I 
 any duty toward you, perhaps? I don't know a 
 woman's heart. I used to think I did, but I don't. 
 
 343 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 My duty to this company that I work for is only 
 the duty of a servant. If I go, another takes my 
 place; it means nothing except taking one name 
 off the pay-roll and putting another on. Whatever 
 he may have done, this man is your husband; if his 
 death would cause you a pang, it shall not be laid 
 at my door. We ought to understand each other 
 on that point fairly before I start to-night." 
 
 " Can you ask me whether you ought not to take 
 every means to defend your own life ? or whether 
 any consideration ought to come before that? I 
 think not. I should be a wicked woman if I were 
 to wish evil to him, wretched as he has made me. 
 I am a wretched woman, whichever way I turn. 
 But I should be less than human if I could say 
 that to me your death would not be a cruel, cruel 
 blow." 
 
 There was a moment of silence. " Dicksie un- 
 derstood you to say that you were in doubt as to 
 whether you ought to go away with him when he 
 asked you to go. That is why I was unsettled in 
 my mind." 
 
 " The only reason why I doubted was that I 
 thought by going I might save better lives than 
 mine. I could willingly give up my life to do that. 
 But to stain it by going back to such a man — 
 God help me ! " 
 
 " I think I understand. If the unfortunate 
 344 
 
Duty 
 
 should happen before I come back I hope only 
 this: that you will not hate me because I am the 
 man on whom the responsibility has fallen. I 
 haven't sought it. And if I should not come back, 
 at all, it is only — good-by." 
 
 He saw her clasp her hands convulsively. " I 
 will not say it ! I will pray on my knees that you 
 do come back." 
 
 " Good-night, Marion. Some one is at the cot- 
 tage door." 
 
 " It is probably Mr. McCloud and Dicksie. I 
 will let them in." 
 
 345 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 WICKWIRE 
 
 McCLOUD and Dicksie met them at the 
 porch door. Marion, unnerved, went 
 directly to her room. Whispering Smith stopped 
 to speak to Dicksie and McCloud interposed. 
 " Bob Scott telephoned the office just now he had 
 a man from Oroville who wanted to see you right 
 away, Gordon," said he. " I told him to send him 
 over here. It is Wickwire." 
 
 " Wickwire," repeated Whispering Smith.. 
 " Wickwire has no business here that I know of; 
 no doubt it is something I ought to know of. 
 And, by the way, you ought to see this man," he 
 said, turning again to Dicksie. " If McCloud 
 tells the story right, Wickwire is a sort of protege 
 of yours, Miss Dicksie, though neither of you 
 seems to have known it. He is the tramp cowboy 
 who was smashed up in the wreck at Smoky Creek. 
 He is not a bad man, but whiskey, you know, beats 
 some decent men." A footstep fell on the porch. 
 " There he comes now, I reckon. Shall I let him 
 in a minute? " 
 
 346 
 
Wickwire 
 
 " Oh, I should like to see him 1 He has been 
 at the ranch at different times, you know." 
 
 Smith opened the door and stepping out on the 
 porch, talked with the new-comer. In a moment 
 he brought him in. Dicksie had seated herself 
 on the sofa, McCloud stood in the doorway of 
 the dining-room, and Whispering Smith laid one 
 arm on the table as he sat down beside it with his 
 face above the dark shade of the lamp. Before 
 him stood Wickwire. The half-light threw him 
 up tall and dark, but it showed the heavy shock 
 of black hair falling over his forehead, and the 
 broad, thin face of a mountain man. 
 
 " He has just been telling me that Seagrue is 
 loose," Whispering Smith explained pleasantly. 
 " Who turned the trick, Wickwire? " 
 
 " Sheriff Coon and a deputy jailer started with 
 Seagrue for Medicine Bend this morning. Com- 
 ing through Horse Eye Canyon, Murray Sinclair 
 and Barney Rebstock got a clean drop on them, 
 took Seagrue, and they all rode off together. They 
 didn't make any bones about it, either. Their gang 
 has got lots of friends over there, you know. They 
 rode into Atlantic City and stayed over an hour. 
 Coon tracked them there and got up a posse of six 
 men. The three were standing in front of the 
 bank when the sheriff rode into town. Sinclair and 
 Seagrue got on their horses and started off. Reb- 
 
 347 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 stock went back to get another drink. When he 
 came out of the saloon he gave the posse a gun- 
 fight all by himself, and wounded two men and 
 made his get-away." 
 
 Whispering Smith shook his head, and his hand 
 fell on the table with a tired laugh. " Barney 
 Rebstock," he murmured, " of all men I Coward, 
 skate, fiUer-in ! Barney Rebstock — stale-beer man, 
 sneak, barn-yard thief! Hit two men!" He 
 turned to McCloud. " What kind of a wizard is 
 Murray Sinclair? What sort of red-blood toxin 
 does he throw into his gang to draw out a spirit 
 like that? Murray Sinclair belongs to the race of 
 empire-builders. By Heaven, it is pitiful a man 
 like that should be out of a job I England, Mc- 
 Cloud, needs him. And here he is holding up 
 trains' on the mountain division! ," 
 
 " They are all up at Oroville with the Williams 
 Cache gang, celebrating," continued Wickwire. 
 
 Whispering Smith looked at the cowboy. 
 " Wickwire, you made a good ride and I thank 
 you. You are all right. This is the young lady 
 and this is the man who had you sent to the 
 hospital from Smoky Creek," he added, rising. 
 " You can thank them for picking you up. When 
 you leave here tell Bob Scott to meet me at the 
 Wickiup with the horses at eleven o'clock, will 
 you ? " He turned to Dicksie in a gentle aside. " I 
 
 348 
 
Wickwire 
 
 am riding north to-night — I wish you were going 
 part way." 
 
 Dicksie looked at him intently. " You are 
 worried over something," she murmured; " I can 
 see it in your face." 
 
 " Nothing more than usual. I thrive, you know, 
 on trouble — and I'm sorry to say good-night so 
 early, but I have a long ride ahead." He stepped 
 quietly past McCloud and out of the door. 
 
 Wickwire was thanking Dicksie when unwill- 
 ingly she let Whispering Smith's hand slip out of 
 her own. " I shore wouldn't have been here to- 
 night if you two hadn't picked me up," laughed 
 Wickwire, speaking softly to Dicksie when she 
 turned to him. " I've knowed my friends a long 
 time, but I reckon they all didn't know me." 
 
 " I've known you longer than you think," re- 
 turned Dicksie with a smile. " I've seen you at 
 the ranch-house. But now that we really do know 
 each other, please remember you are always sure 
 of a home at the ranch — ^whenever you want one, 
 Mr. Wickwire, and just as long as you want one. 
 We never forget our friends on the Crawling 
 Stone." 
 
 " If I may make so bold, I thank you kindly.- 
 And if you all will let me run away now, I want 
 to catch Mr. Whispering Smith for just one 
 
 minute." 
 
 349 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Wickwire overtook Smith in Fort Street. 
 "Talk quick, Wickwire," he said; "I'm in a 
 hurry. What do you want? " 
 
 " Partner, I've always played fair with you." 
 
 " So far as I know, Wickwire, yes. Why?" 
 
 " I've got a favor to ask." 
 
 " What is it — money? " 
 
 " No, partner, not money this time. You've 
 always been more than liberal with me. But so far 
 I've had to keep under cover; you asked me to. I 
 want to ask the privilege now of coming out into 
 the open. The jig is up so far as watching any- 
 body goes." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " There's nobody to watch any more — they're 
 all to chase, I reckon, now. The open is my kind 
 of a fight, anyway. I want to ride out this man- 
 hunt with you." 
 
 " How is your arm? " 
 
 " My arm is all right, and there ought to be a 
 place for me in the chase now that Ed Banks is 
 out of it. I want to cut loose up on the range, 
 anyhow; if I'm a man I want to know it, and 
 if I ain't I want to know it. I want to ride 
 with you after Seagrue and Sinclair and Barney 
 Rebstock." 
 
 Whispering Smith spoke coldly : " You mean, 
 Wickwire, you want to get killed." 
 
 350 
 
Wickwire 
 
 " Why, partner, if it's coming to me, I don't 
 mind — ^yes." 
 
 " What's the use, Wickwire? " 
 
 '* If I'm a man I want to know it; if I ain't, it's 
 time my friends knowed it. Anyhow, I'm man 
 enough to work out with some of that gang. Most 
 of them have put it over me one time or another; 
 Sinclair pasted me Hke a blackbird only the 
 other day. They all say I'm nothing but a damned 
 tramp. You say I have done you service — give 
 me a show." 
 
 Whispering Smith stopped a minute in the 
 shadow of a tree and looked keenly at him. " I'm 
 too busy to-night to say much, Wickwire," he 
 said after a moment. " You go over to the barn 
 and report to Bob Scott. If you want to take the 
 chances, it is up to you ; and if Bob Scott is agree- 
 able, I'll use you where I can — that's all I can 
 promise. You will probably have more than one 
 chance to get killed." 
 
 351 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 INTO THE NORTH 
 
 THE moon had not yet risen, and in the dark- 
 ness of Boney Street Smith walked slowly 
 toward his room. The answer to his question had 
 come. The rescue of Seagrue made it clear that 
 Sinclair would not leave the country. He well 
 knew that Sinclair cared no more for Seagrue than 
 for a prairie-dog. It was only that he felt strong 
 enough, with his friends and sympathizers, to defy 
 the railroad force and Whispering Smith, and 
 planned now, probably, to kill off his pursuers or 
 wear them out. There was a second incentive for 
 remaining: nearly all the Tower W money had 
 been hidden at Rebstock's cabin by Du Sang. 
 That Kennedy had already got hold of it Sinclair 
 could not know, but it was certain that he would 
 not leave the country without an effort to recover 
 the booty from Rebstock. 
 
 Whispering Smith turned the key in the door of 
 his room as he revolved the situation in his mind. 
 Within, the dark was cheerless, but he made no 
 effort to light a lamp. Groping his way to the side 
 
 352 
 
Into the North 
 
 of the low bed, he sat down and put his head be- 
 tween his hands to think. 
 
 There was no help for it that he could sec : he 
 must meet Sinclair. The situation he had dreaded 
 most, from the moment Bucks asked him to come 
 back to the mountains, had come. 
 
 He thought of every phase of the outcome. If 
 Sinclair should kill him the difficulties were less. 
 It would be unpleasant, certainly, but something 
 that might happen any time and at any man's 
 hands. He had cut into the game too long ago 
 and with his eyes too wide open to complain at 
 this time of the possibility of an accident. They 
 might kill each other; but if, escaping himself, he 
 should kill Sinclair 
 
 He came back in the silence always to that if. 
 It rose dark between him and the woman he loved 
 — whom he had loved since she was a child with 
 school-girl eyes and braided hair. After he had 
 lost her, only to find years afterward that she was 
 hardly less wretched in her life than he in his, he 
 had dreamed of the day when she might again be 
 free and he free to win a love long hoped for. 
 
 But to slay this man — her husband — in his in- 
 most heart he felt it would mean the raising of a 
 bar as impalpable as fate, and as undying, to all 
 his dreams. Deserved or not, whatever she should 
 say or not say, what would she feel? How could 
 
 353 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 her husband's death in that encounter, if it ever 
 came, be other than a stain that must shock and 
 wound her, no matter , how much she should try 
 not to see. Could either of them ever quite for- 
 get it? » 
 
 Kennedy and his men were guarding the Cache. 
 Could they be sent against Sinclair? That would 
 be only a baser sort of murder — the murder of 
 his friends. He himself was leader, and so looked 
 upon ; the post of danger was his. 
 
 He raised his head. Through the window came 
 a faint light. The moon was rising, and against 
 the inner wall of the room the straight, hard hnes 
 of the old wardrobe rose dimly. The rifles were 
 within. He must choose. 
 
 He walked to the window and pushed the cur- 
 tain aside. It was dark everywhere across the 
 upper town, but in the distance one light burned. 
 It was in Marion's cottage. He had chosen this 
 room because from the window he could see her 
 home. He stood for a few moments with his 
 hands in his pockets, looking. When he turned 
 away he drew the shade closely, lighted a lamp, 
 and unlocked the wardrobe door. 
 
 Scott left the barn at half-past ten with a led 
 horse for Whispering Smith. He rode past 
 
 354 
 
Into the North 
 
 Smith's room in Fort Street, but the room was 
 dark, and,he jogged down to the Wickiup square, 
 where he had been told to meet him. After wait- 
 ing and riding about for an hour, he tied the horses 
 and went up to McCloud's office. McCIoud was 
 at his desk, but knew nothing of Whispering Smith 
 except that he was to come in before he started. 
 *' He's a punctual man," murmured Bob Scott, who 
 had the low voice of the Indian. " Usually he is 
 ahead of time." 
 
 "Is he in his room, do you think?" asked 
 McCloud. 
 
 " I rode around that way about fifteen minutes 
 ago ; there was no light." 
 
 " He must be there," declared McCloud. 
 " Have you the horses below? We will ride over 
 and try the room again." 
 
 Fort Street back of Front is so quiet after 
 eleven o'clock at night that a footfall echoes in it. 
 McCloud dismounted in front of the bank build- 
 ing and, throwing the reins to Bob Scott, walked 
 upstairs and back toward Smith's room. In the 
 hallway he paused. He heard faint strains of 
 music. They came from within the room — frag- 
 ments of old airs played on a violin, and subdued 
 by a mute, in the darkness. Instinct stayed Mc- 
 Cloud's hand at the door. He stood until the 
 music ceased and footsteps moved about in the 
 
 355 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 room;, then he knocked, and a light appeared 
 within. Whispering Smith opened the door. He 
 stood in his trousers and shirt, with his cartridge- 
 belt in his hand. " Come in, George. I'm just 
 getting hooked up." ' 
 
 " Which way are you going to-night, Gordon ? " 
 asked McCloud, sitting down on the chair. 
 
 " I am going to Oroville. The crowd is cele- 
 brating there. It is' a defi, you know." 
 
 " Who are you going to take with you ? " 
 
 " Nobody." 
 
 McCloud moved uneasily. " I don't like that." 
 
 " There will be nothing doing. Sinclair may be 
 gone by the time I arrive, but I want to see Bob 
 and Gene Johnson, and scare the Williams Cache 
 coyotes, just to keep their tails between their legs." 
 
 " I'd like to kill off half a dozen of that gang." 
 
 Whispering Smith said nothing for a moment. 
 " Did you ever have to kill a man, George? " he 
 asked buckling his cartridge-belt. 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 There was no reply. Smith had taken a rifle 
 from the rack and was examining the firing mech- 
 anism. He worked the lever for a moment with 
 lightning-like speed, laid the gun on the bed, and 
 sat down beside it. 
 
 " You would hardly believe, George, how I hate 
 to go after Murray Sinclair. I've known him all 
 
 3.S6 
 
Into the North 
 
 my life. His folks and mine lived across the street 
 from one another for twenty years. Which is the 
 older? Murray is five years older than I am; he 
 was always a big, strong, good-looking fellow." 
 Whispering Smith put his hands on the side of the 
 bed. "It is curious how you remember things 
 that happened when you were a boy, isn't it? I 
 thought of something to-night I hadn't thought 
 of for twenty years. A little circus came to town. 
 While they were setting up the tent the lines for 
 the gasolene tank got fouled in the block at the 
 top of the centre pole. The head canvasman 
 offered a quarter to any boy that would climb the 
 pole and free the block. One boy after another 
 tried it, but they couldn't climb half-way up. 
 Then Murray sailed in. I was seven years old and 
 Murray was twelve, and he wore a vest. He gave 
 me the vest to hold while he went up. I felt like 
 a king. There was a lead-pencil in one pocket, 
 beautifully sharpened, and I showed it to the other 
 boys. Did he make good? He always made 
 good," said Whispering Smith gloomily. " The 
 canvasman gave him the quarter and two tickets, 
 and he gave one of the tickets to me. I got to 
 thinking about that to-night. As boys, Murray 
 and I never had a quarrel." He stopped. Mc- 
 Cloud said nothing, and, after an interval. Smith 
 spoke again: 
 
 357 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 "He was an oracle for all the small boys in 
 town, and could advise us on any subject on earth 
 — ^whether he knew anything about it or nothing 
 about it made no difference. I told him once I 
 wanted to be a California stage-robber, and he re- 
 plied without an instant's hesitation that I ought 
 to begin to practise running. I was so upset at his 
 grasp of the subject that I hadn't the nerve to ask 
 him why I needed to practise running to be a stage- 
 robber. I was ashamed of appearing green and 
 to this day I've never understood what he meant. 
 Whether it was to run after the stage or to run 
 away from it I couldn't figure out. Perhaps my 
 being too proud to ask the question changed my 
 career. He went away for a long time, and we 
 heard he was in the Black Hills. When he came 
 back, my God! what a hero he was." 
 
 Bob Scott knocked at the door and Whispering 
 Smith opened it. " Tired of waiting. Bob ? Well, 
 I guess I'm ready. Is the moon up? This is the 
 rifle I'm going to take. Bob. Did Wickwire have 
 a talk with you? He's all right. Suppose you 
 send him to the mouth of Little Crawling Stone 
 to watch things a day or two. They may try to 
 work north that way or hide in the wash." 
 
 Walking down to the street, Whispering Smith 
 continued his suggestions. " And by the way, 
 Bob, I want you to pass this word for me up and 
 
 358 
 
Into the North 
 
 down Front Street. Sinclair has his friends in 
 town and it's all right — I know them and expect 
 them to stay by him. I expect Murray's friends 
 to do what they can for him. I've got my friends 
 and expect them to stay by me. But there is one 
 thing that I will not stand for on any man's part, 
 and that is hiding Sinclair anywhere in Medicine 
 Bend. You keep him out of Medicine Bend, Bob ; 
 will you do it? And remember, I will never let 
 up on the man who hides him in town while this 
 fight is on. There are good reasons for drawing 
 the line on that point, and there I draw it hard 
 and fast. Now Bob and Gene Johnson were at 
 Oroville when you left, were they. Bob ? " He 
 was fastening his rifle in the scabbard. " Which 
 is deputy sheriff this year, Bob or Gene? Gene — 
 very good." He swung into the saddle. 
 
 " Have you got everything? " murmured Scott. 
 
 " I think so. Stop ! I'm riding away without 
 my salt-bag. That would be a pretty piece of busi- 
 ness, wouldn't it ? Take the key, Bob. It's hang- 
 ing between the rifles and the clock. Here's the 
 wardrobe key, too." 
 
 There was some further talk when Scott came 
 back with the salt, chiefly about horses and direc- 
 tions as to telephoning. Whispering Smith took 
 up a notch again in his belt, pulled down his hat, 
 and bent over the neck of his horse to lay his 
 
 359 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 hand a moment in McCloud's. It was one o'clock. 
 Across the foot-hills the moon was rising, and 
 Whispering Smith straightening up in the saddle 
 wheeled his horse and trotted swiftly up the street 
 into the silent north. 
 
 360 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 AMONG THE COYOTES 
 
 OROVILLE once marked farthest north for 
 the Peace River gold camps, but with min- 
 ing long ago abandoned it now marks farthest 
 south for a rustler's camp, being a favorite resort 
 for the people of the Williams Cache country. 
 Oroville boasts that it has never surrendered and 
 that it has never been cleaned out. It has moved, 
 and been moved, up stream and down, and from 
 bank to bank; it has been burned out and blown 
 away and lived on wheels: but it has never suf- 
 fered the loss of its identity. Oroville is said to 
 have given to its river the name of Peace River — 
 either wholly in irony or because in Oroville there 
 was for many years no peace save i^i the river. 
 However, that day, too, is past, and Peace County 
 has its sheriff and a few people who are not 
 habitually " wanted." 
 
 Whispering Smith, well dusted with alkali, rode 
 up to the Johnson ranch, eight miles southwest of 
 Oroville, in the afternoon of the day after he left 
 Medicine Bend. The ranch lies in a valley wa- 
 
 361 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 tered by the Rainbow, and makes a pretty little 
 oasis of green in a limitless waste of sagebrush. 
 Gene and Bob Johnson were cutting alfalfa when 
 Whispering Smith rode into the field, and, stop- 
 ping the mowers, the three men talked while the 
 seven horses nibbled the clover. 
 
 " I may need a little help. Gene, to get him out 
 of town," remarked Smith, after he had told his 
 story; "that is, if there are too many Cache men 
 there for me." 
 
 Bob Johnson was stripping a stalk of alfalfa in 
 his fingers. " Them fellows are pretty sore." 
 
 " That comes of half doing a job. Bob. I was 
 in too much of a hurry with the round-up. They 
 haven't had dose enough yet," returned Whisper- 
 ing Smith. " If you and Gene will join me some- 
 time when I have a week to spare, we will go in 
 there, clean up the gang and burn the hair off the 
 roots of the chapparal — ^what? I've hinted to 
 Rebstock he could get ready for something like 
 that." 
 
 " Tell us about that fight, Gordon." 
 
 " I will if you will give me something to eat 
 and have this horse taken care of. Then, Bob, 
 I want you to ride into Oroville and reconnoitre. 
 This is mail day and I understand some of the 
 boys are buying postage stamps to put on my 
 coffin." 
 
 362 
 
Among the Coyotes 
 
 They went to the house, where Whispering 
 Smith talked as he ate. Bob took a horse and 
 rode away, and Gene, with his guest, went back to 
 the alfalfa, where Smith took Bob's place on the 
 mower. When they saw Bob riding up the val- 
 ley, Whispering Smith, bringing in the machine, 
 mounted his horse. 
 
 " Your man is there all right," said Bob, as he 
 approached. " He and John Rebstock were in the 
 Blackbird saloon. Seagrue isn't there, but Barney 
 Rebstock and a lot of others are. I talked a few 
 minutes with John and Murray. Sinclair didn't say 
 much; only that the railroad gang was trying to 
 run him out of the country, and he wanted to meet 
 a few of them before he went. I just imagined 
 he held up a little before me ; maybe not. There's 
 a dozen Williams Cache men in town." 
 , " But those fellows are not really dangerous. 
 Bob, though they may be troublesome," observed 
 Smith reflectively. 
 
 "Well, what's your plan?" blurted Gene 
 Johnson. 
 
 " I haven't any. Gene," returned Smith, with 
 perfect simplicity. " My only plan is to ride into 
 town and serve my papers, if I can. I've got a 
 deputyship — and that I'm going to do right away. 
 If you, Bob, or both of you, will happen in about 
 thirty minutes later you'll get the news and per- 
 
 363 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 haps see the fun. Much obliged for your feed, 
 Gene ; come down to Medicine Bend any time and 
 I'll fill you up. I want you both for the elk hunt 
 next fall, remember that. Bucks is coming, and is 
 going to bring Brown and Henson and perhaps 
 Atterbury and Gibbs and some New Yorkers ; and 
 McCloud's brother, the preacher, is coming out 
 and they are all right — all of them." 
 
 The only street in Oroville faces the river, and 
 the buildings string for two or three blocks along 
 modest bluffs. Not a soul was anywhere in sight 
 when Whispering Smith rode into town, save that 
 across the street from where he dismounted and 
 tied his horse three men stood in front of the 
 Blackbird. 
 
 They watched the new arrival with languid in- 
 terest. Smith walked stiffly over toward the sa- 
 loon to size up the men before he should enter it. 
 The middle man of the group, with a thin red 
 face and very blue eyes, was chewing tobacco in an 
 unpromising way. Before Smith was half-way 
 across the street he saw the hands of the three men 
 falling to their hips. Taking care, however, only 
 to keep the men between him and the saloon door, 
 Smith walked directly toward them. " Boys, have 
 you happened to see Gene or Bob Johnson to-day, 
 any of you?" He threw back the brim of his 
 Stetson as he spoke. 
 
 364 
 
Among the Coyotes 
 
 " Hold your hand right there — right where it 
 is," said the blue-eyed man sharply. 
 
 Whispering Smith smiled, but held his hand 
 rather awkwardly upon his hat-brim. 
 
 " No," continued the spokesman, " we ain't 
 none of us happened to see Bob or Gene Johnson 
 to-day; but we happen to seen Whispering Smith, 
 and we'll blow your face off if you move it an inch." 
 
 Smith laughed. " I never quarrel with a man 
 that's got the drop on me, boys. Now, this is 
 sudden but unexpected. Do I know any of you ? " 
 He looked from one face to another before him, 
 with a wide reach in his field of vision for the three 
 hands that were fast on three pistol-butts. " Hold 
 on ! I've met you somewhere," he said with easy 
 confidence to the blue-eyed man with the weather- 
 split lip. " Williams Cache, wasn't it? All right, 
 we're placed. Now what have you got in for me ? " 
 
 " I've got forty head of steers in for you," an- 
 swered the man in the middle, with a splitting oath. 
 " You stole forty head of my steers in that round- 
 up, and I'm going to fill you so full of lead you'll 
 never run off no more stock for nobody. Don't 
 look over there to your horse or your rifle. Hold 
 your hands right where they are." 
 
 " Certainly, certainly! " 
 
 "When I pull, I shoot!" 
 
 " I don't always do it, but it is business, I ac- 
 365 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 knowledge. When a man pulls he ought to shoot 
 — very often it's the only chance he ever gets to 
 shoot. Well, It isn't every man gets the drop on 
 me that easy, but you boys have got It," continued 
 Whispering Smith In frank admiration. " Only I 
 want to say you're after the wrong man. That 
 round-up was all Rebstock's fault, and Rebstock 
 Is bound to make good all loss and damage." 
 
 " You'll make good my share of It right now 
 and here," said the man with the wash-blue eyes. 
 
 " Why, of course," assented Whispering Smith, 
 " if I must, I must. I suppose I may light a cig- 
 arette, boys, before you turn loose the fireworks? " 
 
 " Light It quick I " 
 
 Laughing at the humor of the situation. Whis- 
 pering Smith, his eyes beaming with good-nature, 
 put the finger and thumb of his right hand Into 
 his waistcoat pocket, drew out a package of cig- 
 arette paper, and, bantering his captors innocently 
 the while, tore out a sheet and put the packet back. 
 Folding the paper in his two hands, he declared 
 he believed his tobacco was in his saddle-pocket, 
 and asked leave to step across the street to get It. 
 The trick was too transparent, and leave was re- 
 fused with scorn and some hard words. Whisper- 
 ing Smith begged the men In front of him in turn 
 for tobacco. They cursed him and shook their 
 heads. 
 
 366 
 
Among the Coyotes 
 
 For an instant he looked troubled. Still appeal- 
 ing to them with his eyes, he tapped lightly the 
 lower outside pockets of his coat with his fingers, 
 shifting the cigarette paper from hand to hand as 
 he hunted. The outside pockets seemed empty. 
 But as he tapped the inside breast pocket on 
 the left side of the coat — the three men, lynx- 
 eyed, watching — his face brightened. " Stop 1 " 
 said he, his voice sinking to a relieved whisper as 
 his hand rested lightly on the treasure. " There's 
 the tobacco. I suppose one of you will give me a 
 match?" 
 
 All that the three before him could ever after- 
 ward recollect — and for several years afterward 
 they cudgelled their brains pretty thoroughly about 
 that moment — was that Whispering Smith took 
 hold of the left lapel of his coat to take the to- 
 bacco out of the breast pocket. An excuse to take 
 that lapel in his left hand was, in fact, all that 
 Whispering Smith needed to put not alone the 
 three men before him but all Oroville at his 
 mercy. The play of his right hand in crossing the 
 corduroy waistcoat to pull his revolver from its 
 scabbard and throw it into their faces was all too 
 quick for better eyes than theirs. They saw only 
 the muzzle of the heavy Colt's playing like a 
 snake's tongue under their surprised noses, with 
 the good-natured smile still behind it. " Or will 
 
 367 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 one of you roll a cigarette?" asked Whispering 
 Smith, without a break between the two questions. 
 " I don't smoke. Now don't make faces ; go right 
 ahead. Do anything you want to with your hands. 
 I wouldn't ask a man to keep his hands or feet 
 still on a hot day like this," he insisted, the re- 
 volver playing all the time. "You won't draw? 
 You won't fight? Pshaw I Then disengage your 
 hands gently from your guns. You fellows really 
 ought not to attempt to pull a gun in Oroville, and 
 I will tell you why — there's a reason for it." He 
 looked confidential as he put his head forward to 
 whisper among the crestfallen faces. " At this alti- 
 tude it is too fast work. I know you now," he 
 went on as they continued to wilt. " You are Fatty 
 Filber," he said to the thin chap. " Don't work 
 your mouth like that at me ; don't do it. You seem 
 surprised. Really, have you the asthma? Get 
 over it, because you are wanted in Pound County 
 for horse-stealing. Why, hang it. Fatty, you're 
 good for ten years, and of course, since yOu have 
 reminded me of it, I'll see that you get it. And 
 you, Baxter," said he to the man on the right, " I 
 know I spoke to you once when I was inspector 
 about altering brands ; that's five years, you know. 
 You," he added, scrutinizing the third man to 
 scare him to death — " I think you were at Tower 
 W. No? No matter; you two boys may go, any- 
 
 368 
 
Among the Coyotes 
 
 way. Fatty, you stay; we'll put some state cow 
 on your ribs. By the way, are you a detective. 
 Fatty? Aren't you? See here! I can get you 
 into an association. For ten dollars, they give 
 you a German-silver star, and teach the Japanese 
 method of pulling, by correspondence. Or you 
 might get an electric battery to handle your gun 
 with. You can get pocket dynamos from the mail- 
 order houses. Sure ! Read the big book I " 
 
 When Gene and Bob Johnson rode into town, 
 Whispering Smith was sitting in a chair outside 
 the Blackbird, still chatting with Filber, who stood 
 with his arms around a hitching-post, holding fast 
 a mail-order house catalogue. A modest crowd 
 of hangers-on had gathered. 
 
 " Here we are, Gene," exclaimed Smith to the 
 deputy sheriff. " I was looking for steers, but 
 some calves got into the drive. Take him away." 
 
 While the Johnsons were laughing, Smith 
 walked into the Blackbird. He had lost thirty 
 minutes, and in losing them had lost his quarry. 
 Sinclair had disappeared, and Whispering Smith 
 made a virtue of necessity by taking the upsetting 
 of his plans with an unruffled face. There was but 
 one thing more, indeed, to do, and that was to eat 
 his supper and ride away. The street encounter 
 had made so much talk in Oroville that Smith de- 
 clined Gene Johnson's invitation to go back to the 
 
 369 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 house. It seemed a convenient time to let any 
 other ambitious rustlers make good if they were 
 disposed to try, and Whispering Smith went for 
 his supper to the hotel where the Williams Cache 
 men made their headquarters. 
 
 There was a rise in the atmospheric pressure the 
 moment he entered the hotel office door, and when 
 he walked into the dining-room, some minutes 
 later, the silence was oppressive. Smith looked 
 for a seat. The only vacant place chanced to be 
 at a table where nine men from the Cache sat busy 
 with ham and eggs. It was a trifle awkward, but 
 the only thing to do was to take the vacant chair. 
 
 The nine men were actively engaged with knives 
 and forks and spoons when Whispering Smith 
 drew out the empty chair at the head of the table ; 
 but nine pairs of hands dropped modestly under 
 the table when he sat down. Coughing slightly to 
 hide his embarrassment and to keep his right hand 
 in touch with his necktie. Whispering Smith looked 
 around the table with the restrained air of a man 
 who has bowed his head and resolved to ask the 
 blessing, but wants to make reasonably sure that 
 the family is listening. A movement at the other 
 tables, among the regular boarders of the hostelry, 
 was apparent almost at once. Appetites began to 
 fail all over the dining-room. Whispering Smith 
 gave his order genially to the confused waitress: 
 
 370 
 
Among the Coyotes 
 
 " Bring me two eggs — one fried on one side and 
 one on the other — and coffee." 
 
 There was a general scraping of chairs on the 
 floor as they were pushed back and guests not at 
 the moment interested In the bill of fare started, 
 modestly but firmly, to leave the dining-room. At 
 Whispering Smith's table there were no second 
 calls for coffee. To stimulate the eating he turned 
 the conversation into channels as reassuring as 
 possible. Unfortunately for his endeavor, the man 
 at the far end of the table reached for a tooth- 
 pick. It seemed a pleasant way out of the diffi- 
 culty, and when the run on toothpicks had once 
 begun, all Whispering Smith's cordiality could not 
 check it. Every man appeared to want a tooth- 
 pick, and one after another of Whispering Smith's 
 company deserted him. He was finally left alone 
 with a physician known as " Doc," a forger and a 
 bigamist from Denver. Smith tried to engage 
 Doc in medical topics. The doctor was not alone 
 frightened but tipsy, and when Smith went so far 
 as to ask him, as a medical man, whether in his 
 opinion the high water in the mountains had any 
 direct connection with the prevalence of falling of 
 the spine among old " residenters " in Williams 
 Cache, the doctor felt of his head as if his brain 
 were turning turtle. 
 
 When Whispering Smith raised his knife osten- 
 371 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 tatiously to bring out a feature of his theory, the 
 doctor raised his knife higher to admit the force 
 of it ; and when Whispering Smith leaned his head 
 forward impressively to drive home a point in his 
 assertion, the doctor stretched his neck till his face 
 grew apoplectic. Releasing him at length from the 
 strain, Whispering Smith begged of the staring 
 maid-servant the recipe for the biscuit. When she 
 came back with it he sat all alone, pouring catsup 
 over his griddle-cakes In an abstracted manner, and 
 it so flurried her that she had to go out again to 
 ask whether the gasolene went Into the dough or 
 under it. 
 
 He played out the play to the end, but when he 
 rode away in the dusk his face was careworn. 
 John Rebstock had told him why Sinclair dodged : 
 there were others whom Sinclair wanted to meet 
 rirst ; and Whispering Smith was again heading on 
 a long, hard ride, and after a man on a better 
 horse, back to the Crawling Stone and Medicine 
 Bend. " There's others he wants to see first or 
 you'd have no trouble in talking business to-day. 
 You nor no other man will ever get him alive." 
 But Whispering Smith knew that. 
 
 " See that he doesn't get you alive, Rebstock," 
 was his parting retort. " If he finds out Kennedy 
 has got the Tower W money, the first thing he does 
 v/ill be to put the Doxology all over you." 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 A SYMPATHETIC EAR 
 
 WHEN Whispering Smith rode after Sin- 
 clair, Crawling Stone Ranch, in common 
 with the whole countryside, had but one interest in 
 life, and that was to hear of the meeting. Riders 
 across the mountain valleys met with but one 
 question; mail-carriers brought nothing in their 
 pouches of interest equal to the last word concern- 
 ing Sinclair or his pursuer. If was commonly 
 agreed through the mountains that it would be a 
 difficult matter to overhaul any good man riding 
 Sinclair's steel-dust horses, but with Sinclair him- 
 self in the saddle, unless it pleased him to pull up, 
 the chase was sure to be a stern one. Against this 
 to feed speculation stood one man's record — that 
 of the man who had ridden alone across Deep 
 Creek and brought Chuck Williams out on a 
 buckboard. 
 
 Business in Medicine Bend, meantime, was 
 practically suspended. As the centre of all tele- 
 phone lines the big railroad town was likewise the 
 centre of all rumors. Officers and soldiers to and 
 
 373 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 from the Fort, stage-drivers and cowmen, home- 
 steaders and rustlers, discussed the apprehension of 
 Sinclair. Moreover, behind this effort to arrest 
 one man who had savagely defied the law were 
 ranged all of the prejudices, sympathies, and 
 hatreds of the high country, and practically the 
 whole population tributary to Medicine Bend and 
 the Crawling Stone Valley were friends either to 
 Sinclair or to his pursuer. Behind Sinclair were 
 nearly all the cattlemen, not alone because he was 
 on good terms with the rustlers and protected his 
 friends, but because he warred openly on the 
 sheepmen. The big range interests, as a rule, 
 were openly or covertly friendly to Sinclair, while 
 against him were the homesteaders, the railroad 
 men, the common people, and the men who every^ 
 where hate cruelty and outrage and the making 
 of a lie. 
 
 Lance Dunning had never concealed his friend- 
 liness for Sinclair, even after hard stories about 
 him were known to be true, and it was this confi- 
 dence of fellowship that made Sinclair, twenty-four 
 hours after he had left Oroville, ride down the 
 hill trail to Crawling Stone ranch-house. 
 
 The morning had been cold, with a heavy wind 
 and a dull sky. In the afternoon the clouds low- 
 ered over the valley and a misting rain set in. 
 Dicksie had gone into Medicine Bend on the stage 
 
 374 
 
A Sympathetic Ear 
 
 in the morning, and, after a stolen half-hour 
 with McCloud at Marion's, had ridden home to 
 escape the storm. Not less, but much more, than 
 those about her she was alive to the situation in 
 which Sinclair stood and its danger to those closest 
 to her. In the morning her one prayer to Mc- 
 Cloud had been to have a care of himself, and to 
 Marion to have a care of herself; but even when 
 Dicksie left them it seemed as if neither quite felt 
 the peril as she felt it. 
 
 In the afternoon the rain, falling steadily, kept 
 her in the house, and she sat in her room sewing 
 until the light failed. She went downstairs. Puss 
 had lighted the grate in the living-room, and Dick- 
 sie threw herself into a chair. The sound of hoofs 
 aroused her and she went to a window. To 
 her horror, she saw Sinclair walking with her 
 cousin up to the front door. She ran into the din- 
 ing-room, and the two men entered the hall and 
 walked into the office. Choking with excitement, 
 Dicksie ran through the kitchen and upstairs to 
 master her agitation. 
 
 In the office Sinclair was sitting down before the 
 hot stove with a tumbler of whiskey. " Lance " 
 — he shook his head as he spoke hoarsely — " I 
 want to say my friends have stood by me to a 
 man, but there's none of them treated me squarer 
 through thick and thin than you have. Well, 
 
 375 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 I've had some bad luck. It can't be helped. 
 Regards I" 
 
 He drank, and shook his wet hair again. Four 
 days of hard riding had left no trace on his iron 
 features. Wet to the bone, hi^ eyes flashed with 
 fire. He held the glassful of whiskey in a hand 
 as steady as a spirit-level and tossed It down a 
 throat as cool as dew. 
 
 " I want to say another thing, Lance : I had no 
 more intention than a child of hurting Ed Banks. 
 I warned Ed months ago to keep out of this fight, 
 and I never knew he was in it till it was too late. 
 But I'm hoping he will pull through yet, if they 
 don't kill him in the hospital to spite me. I never 
 recognized the men at all till it was too late. 
 Why, one of them used to work for me 1 A man 
 with the whole railroad gang in these mountains 
 after him has got to look out for himself or 
 his life ain't worth a glass of beer. Thank you. 
 Lance, not any more. I saw two men, with their 
 rifles in their hands, looking for me. I hollered 
 at them; but, Lance, I'm rough and ready, as all 
 my friends know, and I will let no man put a drop 
 on me — that I will never do. Ed, before I ever 
 recognized him, raised his rifle; that's the only 
 reason I fired. Not so full. Lance, not so full, if 
 you please. Well," he shook his black hair as he 
 threw back his head, " here's to better luck in 
 
 376 
 
A Sympathetic Ear 
 
 worse countries! " He paused as he swallowed, 
 and set the tumbler down. " Lance, I'm saying 
 good-by to the mountains." 
 
 " You're not going away for good, Murray? " 
 
 " I'm going away for good. What's the use? 
 For two years these railroad cutthroats have been 
 trying to put something on me; you know that. 
 They've been trying to mix me up with that bridge- 
 burning at Smoky Creek; Sugar Buttes, they had 
 me there ; Tower W — nothing would do but I was 
 there, and they've got one of the men in jail down 
 there now, Lance, tryipg to sweat enough perjury 
 out of him to send me up. What show has a poor 
 man got against all the money there is in the coun- 
 try? I wouldn't be afraid of a jury of my own 
 neighbors — the men that know me, Lance — any 
 time. What show would I have with a packed 
 jury in Medicine Bend? I could explain anything 
 I've done to the satisfaction of any reasonable 
 man. I'm human. Lance; that's all I say. I've 
 been mistreated and I don't forget it. " They've 
 even turned my wife against me — as fine a woman 
 as ever lived." 
 
 Lance swore sympathetically. " There's good 
 stuff in you yet, Murray." 
 
 " I'm going to say good-by to the mountains," 
 Sinclair went on grimly, " but I'm going to Medi- 
 cine Bend to-night and tell the man that has 
 
 m 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 hounded me what I think of him before I leave. 
 I'm going to give my wife a chance to do what is 
 right and go with me. She's been poisoned against 
 me — I know that; but if she does what's fair and 
 square there'll be no trouble — no trouble at all. 
 All I want, Lance, is a square deal, What? " 
 
 Dicksie with her pulses throbbing at fever- 
 heat heard the words. She stood half-way down 
 the stairs, trembling as she listened. Anger, 
 hatred, the spirit of vengeance, choked in her 
 throat at the sinister words. She longed to stride 
 into the room and confront the murderer and call 
 down retribution on his head. It was no fear of 
 him that restrained her, for the Crawling Stone 
 girl never knew fear. She would have confronted 
 him and denounced him, but prudence checked her 
 angry impulse. She knew what he meant to do — 
 to ride into Medicine Bend under cover of the 
 storm, murder the two he hated, and escape in the 
 night; and she resolved he should never succeed. 
 If she could only get to the telephone! But the 
 telephone was in the room where he sat. He was 
 saying good-by. Her cousin was trying to dis- 
 suade him from riding out into the storm, but he 
 was going. The door opened; the men went out 
 on the porch, and it closed. Dicksie, lightly as a 
 shadow, ran into the office and began ringing Med- 
 icine Bend on the telephone. 
 
 378 
 
CHAPTER XLI 
 
 dicksie's ride 
 
 WHEN Lance Dunning entered the room ten 
 minutes later, Dicksie stood at the tele- 
 phone; but the ten minutes of that interval had 
 made quite another creature of his cousin. The 
 wires were down and no one from any quarter gave 
 a response to her frantic ringing. Through the 
 receiver she could hear only the sweep of the rain 
 and the harsh crackle of the wind. Sometimes 
 praying, sometimes fainting, and sometimes de- 
 spairing, she stood clinging to the instrument, 
 ringing and pounding upon it like one frenzied. 
 Lance looked at her in amazement. " Why, God 
 a'mighty, Dicksie, what's the matter? " 
 
 He called twice to her before she turned, and 
 her words almost stunned him : " Why did you not 
 detain Sinclair here to-night? Why did you not 
 arrest him? " 
 
 Lance's sombrero raked heavily to one side of 
 his face, and one end of his mustache running up 
 much higher on the other did not begin to express 
 
 379 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 his astonishment. "Arrest him? Arrest Sin- 
 clair? Dicksie, are you crazy? Why the devil 
 should I arrest Sinclair? Do you suppose I am 
 going to mix up in a fight like this ? Do you think 
 / want to get killed? The level-headed man in 
 this country, just at present, is the man who can 
 keep out of trouble, and the man who succeeds, let 
 me tell you, has got more than plenty to do." 
 
 Lance, getting no answer but a fierce, searching 
 gaze from Dicksie's wild eyes, laid his hand on a 
 chair, lighted a cigar, and sat down before the fire. 
 Dicksie dropped the telephone receiver, put her 
 hand to her girdle, and looked at him. When she 
 spoke her tone was stinging. " You know that 
 man is going to Medicine Bend to kill his 
 wife ! " 
 
 Lance took the cigar from his mouth and re- 
 turned her look. " I know no such thing," he 
 growled curtly. 
 
 " And to kill George McCloud, if he can." 
 
 He stared without reply. 
 
 " You heard him say so," persisted Dicksie 
 vehemently. 
 
 Lance crossed his legs and threw back the brim 
 of his hat. " McCloud is nobody's fool. He will 
 look out for himself." 
 
 "These fiendish wires to Medicine Bend are 
 down. Why hasn't this line been repaired? " she 
 
 380 
 
Dicksie's Ride 
 
 cried, wringing her hands. " There is no way to 
 give warning to any one that he is coming, and 
 you have let him go 1 " 
 
 Lance whirled in his chair. " Damnation 1 
 Could I keep him from going? " 
 
 " You did not want to ; you are keeping out of 
 trouble. What do you care whom he kills to- 
 night!" 
 
 " You've gone crazy, Dicksie. Your imag- 
 ination has upset your reason. Whether he 
 kills anybody to-night or not, it's too late now 
 to make a row about it," exclaimed Lance, 
 throwing his cigar angrily away. " He won't 
 kill us." 
 
 " And you expect me to sit by and fold my 
 hands while that wretch sheds more blood, do 
 you?" 
 
 " It can't be helped." 
 
 " I say it can be helped I I can help it — I will 
 help it — as you could have done if you had wanted 
 to. I will ride to Medicine Bend to-night and 
 help it." 
 
 Lance jumped to his feet, with a string of oaths. 
 *' Well this is the limit! " He pointed his finger 
 at her. " Dicksie Dunning, you won't stir out of 
 this house to-night." 
 
 Her face hardened. " How dare you speak in 
 that way to me ? Who are you, that you order me 
 
 381 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 what to do, where to stay? Am I your cowboy, 
 to be defiled with your curses? " 
 
 He looked at her in amazement. She was only 
 eighteen; he would still face her down. " I'll tell 
 you who I am. I am master here, and you will 
 do as I tell you. You will ride to Medicine Bend 
 to-night, will you ? " He struck the table with his 
 clinched fist. " Do you hear me? I say, by God, 
 not a horse shall leave this ranch in this storm to- 
 night to go anywhere for anybody or with any- 
 body!" 
 
 " Then I say to you this ranch is my ranch, and 
 these horses are my horses I From this hour forth 
 I will order them to go and come when and where 
 I please ! " She stepped toward him. " Hence- 
 forward I am mistress here. Do you hear me? 
 Henceforward / give orders in Crawling Stone 
 House, and every one under this roof takes orders 
 from me ! " 
 
 " Dicksie, what do you mean? For God's sake, 
 you're not going to try to ride " 
 
 She swept from the room. What happened 
 afterward she could never recall. Who got Jim 
 for her or whether she got the horse up herself, 
 what was said to her in low, kindly words of warn- 
 ing by the man at Jim's neck when she sprang into 
 the saddle, who the man was, she could not have 
 told. All she felt at last was that she was free 
 
 382 
 
Dicksie's Ride 
 
 and out under the black sky, with the rain beating 
 her burning face and her horse leaping fearfully 
 into the wind. 
 
 No man could have kept the trail to the pass 
 that night. The horse took it as if the path flashed 
 in sunshine, and swung into the familiar stride that 
 had carried her so many times over the twenty 
 miles ahead of them. The storm driving into 
 Dicksie's face cooled her. Every moment she rec- 
 ollected herself better, and before her mind all the 
 aspects of her venture ranged themselves. She 
 had set herself to a race, and against her rode the 
 hardest rider in the mountains. She had set her- 
 self to what few men on the range would have 
 dared and what no other woman on the range 
 could do. " Why have I learned to ride," went 
 the question through her mind, " if not for this — 
 for those I love and for those who love me?" 
 Sinclair had a start, she well knew, but not so much 
 for a night like this night. He would ride to kill 
 those he hated; she would ride to save those she 
 loved. Her horse already was on the Elbow 
 grade ; she knew it from his shorter spring — a lithe, 
 creeping spring that had carried her out of deep 
 canyons and up long draws where other horses 
 walked. The wind lessened and the rain drove 
 less angrily in her face. She patted Jim's neck 
 with her wet glove, and checked him as tenderly 
 
 383 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 as a lover, to give him courage and breath. She 
 wanted to be part of him as he strove, for the 
 horror of the night began to steal on the edge 
 of her thoughts. A gust drove into her face. 
 They were already at the head of the pass, 
 and the horse, with level ground underfoot, was 
 falling into the long reach; but the wind was 
 colder. 
 
 Dicksie lowered her head and gave Jim the rein. 
 She realized how wet she was; her feet and her 
 knees were wet. She had no protection but her 
 skirt, though the meanest rider on all her count- 
 less acres would not have braved a mile on such a 
 night without leather and fur. The great lapels 
 of her riding-jacket, reversed, were buttoned tight 
 across her shoulders, and the double fold of fur 
 lay warm and dry against her heart and lungs; 
 but her hands were cold, and her skirt dragged 
 leaden and cold from her waist, and water soaked 
 in upon her chilled feet. She knew she ought to 
 have thought of these things. She planned, as 
 thought swept in a moving picture across her brain, 
 how she would prepare again for such a ride — 
 with her cowboy costume that she had once mas- 
 queraded in for Marion, with leggings of buck- 
 skin and " chaps " of long white silken wool. It 
 was no masquerade now — she was riding in deadly 
 earnest; and her lips closed to shut away a creepy 
 
 384 
 
Dicksie's Ride 
 
 feeling that started from her heart and left her 
 shivering. 
 
 She became conscious of how fast she was going. 
 Instinct, made keen by thousands of saddle miles, 
 told Dicksie of her terrific pace. She was riding 
 faster than she would have dared go at noonday 
 and without thought or fear of accident. In spite 
 of the sliding and the plunging down the long hill, 
 the storm and the darkness brought no thought of 
 fear for herself ; her only fear was for those ahead. 
 In supreme moments a horse, like a man when 
 human efforts become superhuman, puts the lesser 
 dangers out of reckoning, and the faculties, set on 
 a single purpose, though strained to the breaking- 
 point, never break. Low in her saddle, Dicksie 
 tried to reckon how far they had come and how 
 much lay ahead. She could feel her skirt stiffen- 
 ing about her knees, and the rain beating at her 
 face was sharper; she knew the sleet as it stung 
 her cheeks, and knew what next was coming — the 
 snow. 
 
 There was no need to urge Jim. He had the 
 rein and Dicksie bent down to speak to him, as 
 she often spoke when they were alone on the road, 
 when Jim, bolting, almost threw her. Recovering 
 instantly, she knew they were no longer alone. 
 She rose alert in her seat. Her straining eyes 
 could see nothing. Was there a sound in the wind? 
 
 385 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 She held her breath to listen, but before she could 
 apprehend Jim leaped violently ahead. Dicksie 
 screamed in an agony of terror. She knew then 
 that she had passed another rider, and so close she 
 might have touched him. 
 
 Fear froze her to the saddle; it lent wings to 
 her horse. The speed became wild. Dicksie knit 
 herself to her dumb companion and a prayer 
 choked in her throat. She crouched lest a bullet 
 tear her from her horse ; but through the darkness 
 no bullet came, only the sleet, stinging her face, 
 stiffening her gloves, freezing her hair, chilling 
 her limbs, and weighting her like lead on her strug- 
 gling horse. She knew not even Sinclair could 
 overtake her now — that no living man could lay 
 a hand on her bridle-rein — and she pulled Jim in 
 down the winding hills to save him for the long 
 flat. When they struck it they had but four miles 
 to go. 
 
 Across the flat the wind drove in fury. Reflec- 
 tion, thought, and reason were beginning to leave 
 her. She was crying to herself quietly as she used 
 to cry when she lost herself, a mere chijd, riding 
 among the hills. She was praying meaningless 
 words. Snow purred softly on her cheeks. The cold 
 was soothing her senses. Unable at last to keep 
 her seat on the horse, she stopped him, slipped 
 stifily to the ground, and, struggling through the 
 
 386 
 
Dicksie's Ride 
 
 wind as she held fast to the bridle and the horn, 
 half walked and half ran to start the blood 
 through her benumbed veins. She struggled until 
 she could drag her mired feet no farther, and tried 
 to draw herself back into the saddle. It was al- 
 most beyond her. She sobbed and screamed at 
 her helplessness. At last she managed to climb 
 flounderingly back into her seat, and, bending her 
 stiffened arms to Jim's neck, she moaned and cried 
 to him. When again she could hold her seat no 
 longer, she fell to the horse's side, dragged herself 
 along in the frozen slush, and, screaming with the 
 pain of her freezing hands, drew herself up into 
 the saddle. 
 
 She knew that she dare not venture this again — 
 that if she did so she could never remount. She 
 felt now that she should never live to reach Med- 
 icine Bend. She rode on and on and on — would 
 it never end ? She begged God to send a painless 
 death to those she rode to save, and when the 
 prayer passed her failing senses a new terror 
 awakened her, for she found herself falling out of 
 the saddle. With excruciating torment she recov- 
 er;ed her poise. Reeling from side to side, she 
 fought the torpor away. Her mind grew clearer 
 and her tears had cfeased. She prayed for a light. 
 The word caught between her stiffened lips and 
 she mumbled it till she could open them wide and 
 
 387 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 scream it out. Then came a sound like the beating 
 of great drums in her ears. It was the crash of 
 Jim's hoofs on the river bridge, and she was in 
 Medicine Bend. 
 
 A horse, galloping low and heavily, slued 
 through the snow from Fort Street into Boney, 
 and, where it had so often stopped before, dashed 
 up on the sidewalk in front of the little shop. The 
 shock was too much for its unconscious rider, and, 
 shot headlong from her saddle, Dicksie was flung 
 bruised and senseless against Marion's door. 
 
 388 
 
CHAPTER XLII 
 
 AT THE DOOR 
 
 SHE woke in a dream of hoofs beating at her 
 brain. Distracted words fell from her lips, 
 and when she opened her swollen eyes and saw 
 those about her she could only scream. 
 
 Marion had called up the stable, but the stable- 
 men could only tell her that Dicksie's horse, in 
 terrible condition, had come in riderless. While 
 Earnhardt, the railway surgeon, at the bedside ad- 
 ministered restoratives, Marion talked with him of 
 Dicksie's sudden and mysterious coming. Dicksie, 
 lying in pain and quite conscious, heard all, but, 
 unable to explain, moaned in her helplessness. She 
 heard Marion at length tell the doctor that Mc- 
 Cloud was out of town, and the news seemed to 
 bring back her senses. Then, rising in the bed, 
 while the surgeon and Marion coaxed her to lie 
 down, she clutched at their arms and, looking from 
 one to the other, told her story. When it was 
 done she swooned, but she woke to hear voices 
 at the door of the shop. She heard as if she 
 
 389 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 dreamed, but at the door the words were dread 
 reality. Sinclair had made good his word, and 
 had come out of the storm with a summons 
 upon Marion and it was the surgeon who threw 
 open the door and saw Sinclair standing in the 
 snow. 
 
 No man in Medicine Bend knew Sinclair more 
 thoroughly or feared him less than Earnhardt. 
 No man could better meet him or speak to him 
 with less of hesitation. Sinclair, as he faced Earn- 
 hardt, was not easy in spite of his dogged self- 
 control; and he was standing, much to his annoy- 
 ance, in the glare of an arc-light that swung across 
 the street in front of the shop. He was well aware 
 that no such light had ever swung within a block 
 of the shop before and in it he saw the hand of 
 Whispering Smith. The light was unexpected, 
 Earnhardt was a surprise, and even the falling 
 snow, which protected him from being seen twenty 
 feet away, angered him. He asked curtly who 
 was ill, and without awaiting an answer asked for 
 his wife. 
 
 The surgeon eyed him coldly. " Sinclair, what 
 are you doing in Medicine Eend? Have you 
 come to surrender yourself? " 
 
 " Surrender myself? Yes, I'm ready any time 
 to surrender myself. Take me along yourself, 
 Earnhardt, if you think I've done worse than any 
 
 390 
 
At the Door 
 
 man would that has been hounded as I've been 
 hounded. I want to see my wife." 
 
 " Sinclair, you can't see your wife." 
 
 " What's the matter — is she sick? " 
 
 " No, but you can't see her." 
 
 " Who says I can't see her? " 
 
 " I say so." 
 
 Sinclair swept the ice furiously from his beard 
 and his right hand fell to his hip as he stepped 
 back. " You've turned against me too, have you, 
 you gray-haired wolf? Can't see herl Get out 
 of that door." 
 
 The surgeon pointed his finger at the murderer. 
 " No, I won't get out of this door. Shoot, you 
 coward! Shoot an unarmed man. You will not 
 live to get a hundred feet away. This place is 
 watched for you; you could not have got within 
 a hundred yards of it to-night except for this 
 snow." Earnhardt pointed through the storm. 
 *' Sinclair, you will hang in the court-house square, 
 and I will take the last beat of your pulse with 
 these fingers, and when I pronounce you dead they 
 will cut you down. You want to see your wife. 
 You want to kill her. Don't lie ; you want to kill 
 her. You were heard to say as much to-night 
 at the Dunning ranch. You were watched and 
 tracked, and you are expected and looked for 
 here. Your best friends have gone back on you. 
 
 391 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Ay, curse again and over again, but that will not 
 put Ed Banks on his feet." 
 
 Sinclair stamped with frenzied oaths. " You're 
 too hard on me," he cried, clenching his hands. 
 " I say you're too hard. You've heard one side 
 of it. Is that the way you put judgment on a man 
 that's got no friends left because they start a new 
 lie on him every day? Who is it that's watching 
 me? Let them stand out like men in the open. 
 If they want me, let them come like men and take 
 me ! " 
 
 " Sinclair, this storm gives you a chance to 
 get away; take it. Bad as you are, there are men 
 in Medicine Bend who knew you when you were 
 a man. Don't stay here for some of them to sit 
 on the jury that hangs you. If you can get away, 
 get away. If I were your friend — and God knows 
 whom you can call friend in Medicine Bend to- 
 night — I couldn't say rnore. Get away before it 
 is too late." 
 
 He was never again seen alive in Medicine 
 Bend. They tracked him next day over every foot 
 of ground he had covered. They found where he 
 had left his spent horse and where afterward he 
 had got the fresh one. They learned how he had 
 eluded all the picketing planned for precisely such 
 a contingency, got into the Wickiup, got upstairs 
 and burst open the very door of McCloud's room. 
 
 392 
 
At the Door 
 
 But Dicksie had on her side that night One greater 
 than her invincible will or her faithful horse. 
 McCloud was two hundred miles away. 
 
 Earnhardt lost no time in telephoning the Wicki- 
 up that Sinclair was in town, but within an hour, 
 while the tvyo women were still under the surgeon's 
 protection, a knock at the cottage door gave them 
 a second fright. Earnhardt answered the sum- 
 mons. He opened the door and, as the man out- 
 side paused to shake the snow off his hat, the sur- 
 geon caught him by the shoulder and dragged into 
 the house Whispering Smith. 
 
 Picking the icicles from his hair. Smith listened 
 to all that Earnhardt said, his eyes roving mean- 
 time over everything within the room and men- 
 tally over many things outside it. He congratu- 
 lated Earnhardt, and when Marion came into the 
 room he apologized for the snow he had brought 
 in. Dicksie heard his voice and cried out from 
 the bedroom. They could not keep her away, and 
 she ran out to catch his hands and plead with him 
 not to go away. He tried to assure her that the 
 danger was over; that guards were now outside 
 everywhere, and would be until morning. Eut 
 Dicksie clung to him and would take no refusal. 
 
 Whispering Smith looked at her in amazement 
 and in admiration. " You are captain to-night, 
 Miss Dicksie, by Heaven. If you say the word 
 
 393 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 I'll lie here on a rug till morning. But that man 
 will not be back to-night. You are a queen. If 
 I had a mountain girl that would do as much as 
 that for me I would " 
 
 " What would you do? " asked Marion. 
 
 " Say good-by to this accursed country forever." 
 
 394 
 
CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 CLOSING IN 
 
 IN the morning the sun rose with a mountain 
 smile. The storm had swept the air till the 
 ranges shone blue and the plain sparkled under a 
 cloudless sky. Bob Scott and Wickwire, riding at 
 daybreak, picked up a trail on the Fence River 
 road. A consultation was held at the bridge, and 
 within half an hour Whispering Smith, with un- 
 shaken patience, was in the saddle and following it. 
 
 With him were Kennedy and Bob Scott. Sin-, 
 clair had ridden into the lines, and Whispering 
 Smith, with his best two men, meant to put it up 
 to him to ride out. They meant now to get him, 
 with a trail or without, and were putting horse- 
 flesh against horseflesh and craft against craft. 
 
 At the forks of the Fence they picked up Wick- 
 wire, Kennedy taking him on the up road, while 
 Scott with Whispering Smith crossed to the Crawl- 
 ing Stone. When Smith and Scott reached the 
 Frenchman they parted to cover in turn each of 
 the trails by which it is possible to get out of 
 
 395 
 
Whispering Smith 
 
 the river country toward the Park and Williams 
 Cache. 
 
 By four o'clock in the afternoon they had all 
 covered the ground so well that the four were 
 able to make their rendezvous on the big Fence di- 
 vide, south of Crawling Stone Valley. They then 
 found, to their disappointment, that, widely sep- 
 arated as they had been, both parties were follow- 
 ing trails they believed to be good. They shot a 
 steer, tagged it, ate dinner and supper in one, and 
 separated under Whispering Smith's counsel that 
 both the trails be followed into the next morning 
 — in the belief that one of them would run 
 out or that the two would run together. At 
 noon the next day Scott rode through the hills 
 from the Fence, and Kennedy with Wickwire came 
 through Two Feather Pass from the Frenchman 
 with the report that the game had left their 
 valleys. 
 
 Without rest they pushed on. At the foot of 
 the Mission Mountains they picked up the tracks 
 of a party of three horsemen. Twice within 
 ten miles afterward the men they were follow- 
 ing crossed the river. Each time their trail, with 
 some little difficulty, was found again. At a little 
 ranch in the Mission foot-hills, Kennedy and Scott, 
 leaving Wickwire with Whispering Smith, took 
 fresh horses and pushed ahead as far as they could 
 
 396 
 
Closing In 
 
 ride before dark, but they brought back news. 
 The trail had split again, with one man riding 
 alone to the left, while two had taken the hills to 
 the right, heading for Mission Pass and the Cache. 
 With Gene Johnson and Bob at the mouth of 
 the Cache there was little fear for that outlet. The 
 turn to the left was the unexpected. Over the 
 little fire in the ranch kitchen where they ate sup- 
 per, the four men were in conference twenty min- 
 utes. It was decided that Scott and Kennedy should 
 head for the Mission Pass, while Whispering 
 Smith, with Wickwire to trail with him, should 
 undertake to cut off, somewhere .between Fence 
 River and the railroad, the man who had gone 
 south, the man believed to be Sinclair. It was a 
 late moon, and when Scott and Kennedy saddled 
 their horses Whispering Smith and Wickwire were 
 asleep. 
 
 With the cowboy. Whispering Smith started at 
 daybreak. No one saw them again for two days. 
 During those two days and nights they were in 
 the saddle almost continuously. For every mile 
 the man ahead of them rode they were forced to 
 ride two miles and often three. Late in the sec- 
 ond night they crossed the railroad, and the first 
 word from them came in long despatches sent by 
 Whispering Smith to Medicine Bend and instruc- 
 tions to Kennedy and Scott in the north, which 
 
 397 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 were carried by hard riders straight to Deep 
 Creek. 
 
 On the morning of the third day Dicksie Dun- 
 ning, who had gone home from Medicine Bend 
 and who had been telephoning Marion and George 
 McCloud two days for news, was trying to get 
 Medicine Bend again on the telephone when Puss 
 came in to say that a man at the kitchen door 
 wanted to see her. 
 
 "Who is it, Puss?" 
 
 " I d'no. Miss Dicksie; 'deed, I never seen him 
 b'fore." 
 
 Dicksie walked around on the porch to the 
 kitchen. A dust-covered man sitting on a lirap' 
 horse threw back the brim of his hat as he touched 
 it, lifted himself stifHy out of the saddle, and 
 dropped to the ground. He laughed at Dicksie's. 
 startled expression. " Don't you know me?" he 
 asked, putting out his hand. It was Whispering 
 Smith. 
 
 He was a fearful sight. Stained from head to 
 foot with alkali, saddle-cramped and bent, his face 
 scratched and stained, he stood with a smiling ap- 
 peal in his bloodshot eyes. 
 
 Dicksie gave a little uncertain cry, clasped her 
 hands, and, with a scream, threw her arms impul- 
 sively around his neck. " Oh, I did not know 
 you I What has happened? I am so glad to 
 
 398 
 
closing In 
 
 see you I Tell me what has happened. Are you 
 hurt?" 
 
 He stammered like a school-boy. " Nothing 
 has happened. What's this ? Don't cry ; nothing 
 at all has happened. I didn't realize what a tramp 
 I look or I shouldn't have come. But I was only 
 a mile away and I had heard nothing for four days 
 from Medicine Bend. And how are you? Did 
 your ride make you ill ? No ? By Heaven, you are 
 a game girl. That was a ride ! How are they all? 
 Where's your cousin ? In town, is he ? I thought 
 I might get some news If I rode up, and oh. Miss 
 Dicksie — jiminyl some coffee. But I've got only 
 two minutes for it all, only two minutes; do you 
 think Puss has any on the stove ? " 
 
 Dicksie with coaxing and pulling got him into 
 the kitchen, and Puss tumbled over herself to set 
 out coffee and rolls. He showed himself raven- 
 ously hungry, and ate with a simple directness 
 that speedily accounted for everything in sight. 
 " You have saved my life. Now I am going, and 
 thank you a thousand times. There, by Heaven, 
 I've forgotten Wickwire! He is with me — wait- 
 ing down in the cottonwoods at the fork. Could 
 Puss put up a lunch I could take to him? He 
 hasn't had a scrap for twenty-four hours. But, 
 Dicksie, your tramp is a hummer! I've tried to 
 ride him down and wear him out and lose him, 
 
 399 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 and, by Heaven, he turns up every time and has 
 been of more use to me than two men." 
 
 She put her hand on Whispering Smith's arm. 
 " I told him if he would stop drinking he could be 
 foreman here next season." Puss was putting up 
 the lunch. "Why need you hurry away?" per- 
 sisted Dicksie. " I've a thousand things to say." 
 
 He looked at her amiably. " This is really a 
 case of must." 
 
 " Then, tell me, what favor may I do for you ? " 
 She looked appealingly into his tired eyes, " I 
 want to do something for you. I must I don't 
 deny me. Only, what shall it be? " 
 
 " Something for me? What can I say? You'll 
 be kind to Marion — I shouldn't have to ask that. 
 What can I ask? Stop! there is one thing. I've 
 got a poor little devil of an orphan up in the Deep 
 Creek country. Du Sang murdered his father. 
 You are rich and generous, Dicksie; do something 
 for him, will you? Kennedy or Bob Scott will 
 know all about him. Bring him down here, will 
 you, and see he doesn't go to the dogs? You're a 
 good girl. What's this, crying? Now you are 
 frightened. Things are not so bad as that. You 
 want to know everything — I see it in your eyes. 
 Very well, let's trade. You tell me everything and 
 I'll tell you everything. Now then: Are you en- 
 gaged? " 
 
 400 
 
Closing In 
 
 They were standing under the low porch with 
 the sunshine breaking through the trees. She 
 turned away her face and threw all of her happi- 
 ness into a laugh. " I won't tell." 
 
 " Oh, that's enough. You have told! " declared 
 Whispering Smith. " I knew — ^why, of course I 
 knew — ^but I wanted to make you own up. Well, 
 here's the way things are. Sinclair has run us all 
 over God's creation for two days to give his pals 
 a chance to break into Williams Cache to get the 
 Tower W money they left with Rebstock. For a 
 fact, we have ridden completely around Sleepy Cat 
 and been down in the Spanish Sinks since I saw 
 you. He doesn't want to leave without the money, 
 and doesn't know it is in Kennedy's hands, and 
 can't get into the Cache to find out. Now the 
 three — ^whoever the other two are — and Sinclair 
 — are trying to join forces somewhere up this val- 
 ley, and Kennedy, Scott, Wickwire, and I are 
 after them; and every outlet is watched, and it 
 must all be over, my dear, before sunset to-night. 
 Isn't that fine? I mean to have the thing wound 
 up somehow. Don't look worried." 
 
 " Do not — do not let him kill you," she cried 
 with a sob. 
 
 " He will not kill me ; don't be afraid." 
 
 " I am afraid. Remember what your life is t» 
 all of us I" 
 
 401 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " Then, of course, I've got to think of what it 
 is to myself — being the only one I've got. Some- 
 times I don't think much of it; but when I get a 
 welcome like this it sets me up. If I can once get 
 out of this accursed man-slaughtering business, 
 Dicksie — How old are you? Nineteen? Well, 
 you've got the finest chap in all these mountains, 
 and George McCloud has the finest " 
 
 With a bubbling laugh she shook her finger at 
 him. " Now you are caught. Say the finest 
 woman in these mountains if you dare ! Say the 
 finest woman ! " 
 
 " The finest woman of nineteen in all creation 1 " 
 He swung with a laugh into the saddle and waved 
 his hat. She watched him ride down the road and 
 around the hill. When he reappeared she was still 
 looking and he was galloping along the lower 
 road. A man rode out at the fork to meet him 
 and trotted with him over the bridge. Riding 
 leisurely across the creek, their broad hats bobbing 
 unevenly in the sunshine, they spurred swiftly past 
 the grove of quaking asps, and in a moment were 
 lost beyond the trees. 
 
 402 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 CRAWLING STONE WASH 
 
 WHERE the Little Crawling Stone River 
 tears out of the Mission Mountains it has 
 left a grayish-white gap that may be seen for many 
 miles. This is the head of the North Crawling 
 Stone Valley. Twenty miles to the right the big 
 river itself bursts through the Mission hills in the 
 canyon known as the Box. Between the confluence 
 of Big and Little Crawling Stone, and on the east 
 side of Little Crawling Stone, lies a vast waste. 
 Standing in the midst of this frightful eruption 
 from the heart of the mountains, one sees, as far 
 as the eye can reach, a landscape utterly forbid- 
 ding. North for sixty miles lie the high chains 
 of the Mission range, and a cuplike configuration 
 of the mountains close to the valley affords a rest- 
 ing-place for the deepest snows of winter and a 
 precipitous escape for the torrents of June. Here, 
 when the sun reaches its summer height or a sweet- 
 grass wind blows soft or a cloudburst above the 
 peaks strikes the southerly face of the range, win- 
 ter unfrocks in a single night. A glacier of snow 
 
 403 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 melts within twenty-four hours into a torrent 
 of lava and bursts with incredible fury from a 
 thousand gorges. 
 
 When this happens nothing withstands. What- 
 ever lies in the path of the flood is swept from the 
 face of ithe earth. The mountains, assailed in a 
 moment with the ferocity of a hundred storms, are 
 ripped and torn like hills of clay. The frosted 
 scale of the granite, the desperate root of the 
 cedar, the poised nest of the eagle, the clutch of the 
 crannied vine, the split and start of the mountain- 
 side, are all as one before the June thaw. At its 
 height Little Crawling Stone, with a head of forty 
 feet, is a choking flood of rock. Mountains, torn 
 and bleeding, vomit bowlders of thirty, sixty, a 
 hundred tons like pebbles upon the valley. Even 
 there they find no permanent resting-place. Each 
 succeeding year sees them torn groaning from their 
 beds in the wash. New masses of rock are hurled 
 upon them, new waters lift them in fresh caprice, 
 and the crash and the grinding echo in the hills 
 like a roar of mountain thunder. 
 
 Where the wash covers the valley nothing lives ; 
 the fertile earth has long been buried under the 
 mountain debris. It supports no plant life beyond 
 the scantiest deposit of weed-plant seed, and the 
 rocky scurf, spreading like a leprosy over many 
 miles, scars the face of the green earth. This is the 
 
 404 
 
Crawling Stone Wash 
 
 Crawling Stone wash. Exhausted by the fury of 
 its few yearly weeks of activity, Little Crawling 
 Stone runs for the greater part of the year a wind- 
 ing, shallow stream through a bed of whitened 
 bowlders where lizards sun themselves and trout 
 lurk in shaded pools. 
 
 When Whispering Smith and his companions 
 were fairly started on the last day of their ride, it 
 was toward this rift in the Mission range that the 
 trail led them. Sinclair, with consummate clever- 
 ness, had rejoined his companions; but the attempt 
 to get into the Cache, and his reckless ride into 
 Medicine Bend, had reduced their chances of escape 
 to a single outlet, and that they must find up Crawl- 
 ing Stone Valley. The necessity of it was spelled 
 in every move the pursued men had made for 
 twenty-four hours. They were riding the pick of 
 mountain horseflesh and covering their tracks by 
 every device known to the high country. Behind 
 them, made prudent by unusual danger, rode the 
 best men the mountain division could muster for 
 the final effort to bring them to account. The fast 
 riding of the early week had given way to the pace 
 of caution. No trail sign was overlooked, no point 
 of concealment directly approached, no hiding- 
 place left unsearched. 
 
 The tension of a long day of this work was 
 drawing to a close when the sun set and left the 
 
 405 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 big wash in the shadow of the mountains. On 
 the higher ground to the right, Kennedy and Scott 
 were riding where they could command the gul- 
 lies of the precipitous left bank of the river. High 
 on the left bank itself, worming his way like a 
 snake from point to point of concealment through 
 the scanty brush of the mountain-side, crawled 
 Wickwire, commanding the pockets In the right 
 bank. Closer to the river on the right and follow- 
 ing the trail itself over shale and rock and be- 
 tween scattered bowlders, Whispering Smith, low 
 on his horse's neck, rode slowly. 
 
 It was almost too dark to catch the slight dis- 
 colorations where pebbles had been disturbed on a 
 flat surface or the calk of a horseshoe had slipped 
 on the uneven face of a ledge, and he had halted 
 under an uplift to wait for Wickwire on the dis- 
 tant left to advance, when, half a mile below him, 
 a horseman crossing the river rode slowly past a 
 gap in the rocks and disappeared below the next 
 bend. He was followed in a moment by a second 
 rider and a third. Whispering Smith knew he 
 had not been seen. He had flushed the game, and, 
 wheeling his horse, rode straight up the river-bank 
 to high ground, where he could circle around 
 widely below them. They had slipped between 
 his line and Wickwire's, and were doubling back, 
 following the dry bed of the stream. It was im- 
 
 406 
 
Crawling Stone Wash 
 
 possible to recall Kennedy and Scott without giv- 
 ing an alarm, but by a quick, detour he could at 
 least hold the quarry back for twenty minutes with 
 his rifle, and in that time Kennedy and Scott could 
 come up. 
 
 Less than half an hour of daylight remained. If 
 the outlaws could slip down the wash and out into 
 the Crawling Stone Valley they had every chance 
 of getting away in the night; and if the third man 
 should be Barney Rebstock, Whispering Smith 
 knew that Sinclair thought only of escape. Smith 
 alone, of their pursuers, could now intercept them, 
 but a second hope remained: on the left. Wick- 
 wire was high enough to command every turn in 
 the bed of the river. He might see them and could 
 force them to cover with his rifle even at long 
 range. Casting up the chances. Whispering Smith, 
 riding faster over the uneven ground than any- 
 thing but sheer recklessness would have prompted, 
 hastened across the waste. His rifle lay in his 
 hand, and he had pushed his horse to a run. A 
 single fearful instinct crowded now upon the long 
 strain of the week. A savage fascination burned 
 like a fever in his veins, and he meant that they 
 should not get away. Taking chances that would 
 have shamed him in cooler moments, he forced his 
 horse at the end of the long ride to within a hun- 
 dred paces of the river, threw his lines, slipped like 
 
 407 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 a lizard from the saddle, and, darting with incred- 
 ible swiftness from rock to rock, gained the wa- 
 ter's edge. 
 
 From up the long shadows of the wash there 
 came the wail of an owl. From it he knew that 
 Wickwire had seen them and was warning him, but 
 he had anticipated the warning and stood below 
 where the hunted men must ride. He strained 
 his eyes over the waste of rock above. For one 
 half-hour of daylight he would have sold, in that 
 moment, ten years of his life. What could he do 
 if they should be able to secrete themselves until 
 dark between him and Wickwire ? Gliding under 
 cover of huge rocks up the dry watercourse, he 
 reached a spot where the floods had scooped a 
 long, hollow curve out of a soft ledge in the bank, 
 leaving a stretch of smooth sand on the bed of the 
 stream. At the upper point great bowlders pushed 
 out in the river. He could not inspect the curve 
 from the spot he had gained without reckless ex- 
 posure, but he must force the little daylight left 
 to him. Climbing completely over the lower point, 
 he advanced cautiously, and from behind a shelter- 
 ing spur stepped out upon an overhanging table of 
 rock and looked across the river-bottom. Three 
 men had halted on the sand within the curve. Two 
 lay on their rifles under the upper point, a hun- 
 dred and twenty paces from Whispering Smith. 
 
 408 
 
Crawling Stone Wash 
 
 The third man, Seagrue, less than fifty yards away, 
 had got off his horse and was laying down his 
 rifle, when the hoot-owl screeched again and he 
 looked uneasily back. They had chosen for 
 their halt a spot easily defended, and needed 
 only darkness to make them safe, when Smith, 
 stepping out into plain sight, threw forward his 
 hand. 
 
 They heard his sharp call to pitch up, and the 
 men under the point jumped. Seagrue had not 
 yet taken his hand from his rifle. He threw it to 
 his shoulder. As closely together as two fingers 
 of the right hand can be struck twice in the palm 
 of the left, two rifle-shots cracked across the wash. 
 Two bullets passed so close in flight they might 
 have struck. One cut the dusty hair from Smith's 
 temple and slit the brim of his hat above his 
 ear; the other struck Seagrue under the left eye, 
 ploughed through the roof of his mouth, and, 
 coming out below his ear, splintered the rock at 
 his back. 
 
 The shock alone would have staggered a bul- 
 lock, but Seagrue, laughing, came forward pump- 
 ing his gun. Sinclair, at a hundred and twenty 
 yards, cut instantly into the fight, and the ball from 
 his rifle creased the alkali that crusted Whisper- 
 ing Smith's unshaven cheek. As he fired he sprang 
 to cover. 
 
 409 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 For Seagrue and Smith there was no cover : for 
 one or both it was death in the open and Seagrue, 
 with his rifle at his cheek, walked straight into it. 
 Taking for a moment the fire of the three guns. 
 Whispering Smith stood, a perfect target, outlined 
 against the sky. They whipped the dust from his 
 coat, tore the sleeve from his wrist, and ripped 
 the blouse collar from his neck; but he felt no 
 bullet shocL He saw before him only the buckle 
 of Seagrue's belt forty paces away, and sent bullet 
 after bullet at the gleam of brass between the 
 sights. Both men were using high-pressure guns, 
 and the deadly shock of the slugs made Seagrue 
 twitch and stagger. The man was dying as he 
 walked. Smith's hand was racing with the lever, 
 and had a cartridge jammed, the steel would have 
 snapped like a match. 
 
 It was beyond human endurance to support the 
 leaden death. The little square of brass between 
 the sights wavered. Seagrue stumbled, doubled on 
 his knees, and staggering plunged loosely forward 
 on the sand. Whispering Smith threw his fire 
 toward the bowlder behind which Sinclair and 
 Barney Rebstock had disappeared. 
 
 Suddenly he realized that the bullets from the 
 point were not coming his way. He was aware 
 of a second rifle-duel above the bend. Wickwire, 
 worming his way down the stream, had uncovered 
 
 410 
 
Crawling Stone Wash 
 
 Sinclair and young Rebstock from behind. A yell 
 between the shots rang across the wash, and the 
 cringing figure of a man ran out toward Whisper- 
 ing Smith with his hands high in the air, and 
 pitched headlong on the ground. It was the 
 skulker, Barney Rebstock, driven out by Wick- 
 wire's fire. 
 
 The shooting ceased. Silence fell upon the 
 gloom of the dusk. Then came a calling between 
 Smith and Wickwire, and a signalling of pistol- 
 shots for their companions. Kennedy and Bob 
 Scott dashed down toward the river-bed on their 
 horses. Seagrue lay on his face. Young Reb- 
 stock sat with his hands around his knees on the 
 sand. Above him at some distance, Wickwire and 
 Smith stood before a man who leaned against the 
 sharp cheek of the bowlder at the point. In his 
 hands his rifle was held across his lap just as he 
 had dropped on his knee to fire. He had never 
 moved after he was struck. His head, drooping 
 a little, rested against the rock, and his hat lay on 
 the sand; his heavy beard had sunk into his chest 
 and he kneeled in the shadow, asleep. Scott and 
 Kennedy knew him. In the mountains there was 
 no double for Murray Sinclair. 
 
 When he jumped behind the point to pick Whis- 
 pering Smith off the ledge he had laid himself 
 directly under Wickwire's fire across the wash. 
 
 411 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 The first shot of the cowboy at two hundred yards 
 had passed, as he knelt, through both temples. 
 
 They laid him a,t Seagrue's side. The camp 
 was made beside the dead men in the wash. " You 
 had better not take him to Medicine Bend," said 
 Whispering Smith, sitting late with Kennedy ^be- 
 fore the dying fire. " It would only mean that 
 much more unpleasant talk and notoriety for her. 
 The inquest can be held on the Frenchman. Take 
 him to his own ranch and telegraph the folks in 
 Wisconsin — God knows whether they will want 
 to hear. But his mother is there yet. But if half 
 what Barney has told to-night is true it would be 
 better If no one ever heard." 
 
 412 
 
CHAPTER XLV 
 
 BACK TO THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 IN the cottage in Boney Street, one year later, 
 two women were waiting. It was ten o'clock 
 at night. 
 
 " Isn't it a shame to be disappointed like this? " 
 complained Dicksie, pushing her hair impatiently 
 back. " Really, poor George is worked to death. 
 He was to be in at six o'clock, Mr. Lee said, and 
 here it is ten, and all your beautiful dinner spoiled. 
 Marion, are you keeping something from me? 
 Look me in the eye. Have you heard from Gor- 
 don Smith? " 
 " No, Dicksie." 
 
 " Not since he left the mountains a year ago? " 
 " Not since he left the mountains a year ago. " 
 Dicksie, sitting forward in her chair, bent her 
 eyes upon the fire. " It is so strange. I wonder 
 where he is to-night. How he loves you, Marion I 
 He told me everything when he said good-by. He 
 made me promise not to tell then; but I didn't 
 promise to keep it forever." 
 
 413 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 Marion smiled. " A year isn't forever, Dick- 
 sie. 
 
 " Well, it's pretty near forever when you are in 
 love," declared Dicksie energetically. " I know 
 just how he felt," she went on in a quieter tone. 
 " He felt that all the disagreeable excitement and 
 talk we had here then bore heaviest on you. He 
 said if he stayed in Medicine Bend the newspapers 
 never would cease talking and people never would 
 stop annoying you — and you know George did say 
 they were asking to have passenger trains held here 
 just so people could see Whispering Smith. And, 
 Marion, think of it, he actually doesn't know yet 
 that George and I are married! How could we 
 notify him without knowing where he was? And 
 he doesn't know that trains are running up the 
 Crawling Stone Valley. Mercy I a year goes like 
 an hour when you're in love, doesn't it ? George 
 said he knew we should hear from him within six 
 months — and George has never yet been mistaken 
 excepting when he said I should grow to like the 
 railroad business — and now it is a year and no 
 news from him." Dicksie sprang from her chair. 
 " I am going to call up Mr. Rooney Lee and just 
 demand my husband! I think Mr. Lee handles 
 trains shockingly every time George tries to get 
 home like this on Saturday nights — now don't you ? 
 And passenger trains ought to get out of the way, 
 
 414 
 
Back to the Mountains 
 
 anyway, when a division superintendent is trying to 
 get home. What difference does it make to a 
 passenger, I'd like to know, whether he is a few 
 hours less or longer in getting to California or 
 Japan or Manila or Hongkong or Buzzard's 
 Gulch, provided he is safe — and you know there 
 has not been an accident on the division for a 
 year, Marion. There's a step now. I'll bet that's 
 George I " 
 
 The door opened and it was George. 
 
 " Oh, honey I " cried Dicksie softly, waving her 
 arms as she stood an instant before she ran to him. 
 " But haven't I been a-waitin' for you ! " 
 
 " Too bad I and, Marion," he exclaimed, turning 
 without releasing his wife from his arms, " how 
 can I ever make good for all this delay? Oh, yes, 
 I've had dinner. Never, for Heaven's sake, wait 
 dinner for me! But wait, both of you, till you 
 hear the news I " 
 
 Dicksie kept her hands on his shoulders. " You 
 have heard from Whispering Smith I " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 "I knew it!" 
 
 " Wait till I get it straight. Mr. Bucks is here 
 — I came in with him in his car. He has news 
 of Whispering Smith. One of our freight-traffic 
 men in the Puget Sound country, who has been 
 in a hospital in Victoria, learned by the merest 
 
 415 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 accident that Gordon Smith was lying in the same 
 hospital with typhoid fever." 
 
 Marion rose swiftly. " Then the time has come, 
 thank God, when I can do something for him ; and 
 I am going to him to-night! " 
 
 " Fine! " cried McCloud. " So am I, and that 
 is why I'm late." 
 
 " Then I am going, too," exclaimed DIcksie 
 solemnly. 
 
 " Do you mean it? " asked her husband. " Shall 
 we let her, Marion? Mr. Bucks says I am to 
 take his car and take Earnhardt, and keep the 
 car there till I can bring Gordon back. Mr. 
 Bucks and his secretary will ride to-night as 
 far as Bear Dance with us, and in the morning 
 they join Mr. Glover there." McCloud looked 
 at his watch. " If you are both going, can 
 you be ready by twelve o'clock for the China 
 Mail?" 
 
 " We can be ready in an hour," declared Dick- 
 sie, throwing her arm half around Marion's neck, 
 " can't we, Marion ? " 
 
 " I can be ready in thirty minutes." 
 
 " Then, by Heaven — " McCloud studied his 
 watch. 
 
 "What is it, George?" 
 
 " We won't wait for the midnight train. We 
 will take an engine, run special to Green River, 
 
 416 
 
Back to the Mountains 
 
 overhaul the Coast Limited, and save a whole 
 day." 
 
 " George, pack your suit-case — quick, dear; and 
 you, too, Marion; suit-cases are all we can take," 
 cried Dicksie, pushing her husband toward the bed- 
 room. " I'll telephone Rooney Lee for an engine 
 myself right away. Dear me, it is kind of nice, 
 to be able to order up a train when you want one 
 in a hurry, isn't it, Marion ? Perhaps I shall come 
 to like it if they ever make George a vice- 
 president." 
 
 In half an hour they had joined Bucks in his 
 car, and Bill Dancing was piling the baggage into 
 the vestibule. Bucks was sitting down to cof- 
 fee. Chairs had been provided at the table, and 
 after the greetings, Bucks, seating Marion Sinclair 
 at his right and Bamhardt and McCloud at his left, 
 asked Dicksie to sit opposite and pour the coffee. 
 " You are a railroad man's wife now and you must 
 learn to assume responsibility." 
 
 McCloud looked apprehensive. " I am afraid 
 she will be assuming the whole division if you en- 
 courage her too much, Mr. Bucks." 
 
 " Marrying a railroad man," continued Bucks, 
 pursuing his own thought, " is as bad as marrying 
 into the army; if you have your husband half the 
 time you are lucky. Then, too, in the railroad 
 business your husband may have to be set back 
 
 417 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 when the trafEc falls off. It's a little light at this 
 moment, too. How should you take it if we had 
 to put him on a freight train for a while, Mrs. 
 McCloud?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Bucks!" 
 
 " Or suppose he should be promoted and should 
 have to go to headquarters — some of us are get- 
 ting old, you know." 
 
 " Really," Dicksie looked most demure as she 
 filled the president's cup, " really, I often say to 
 Mr. McCloud that I can not believe Mr. Bucks is 
 president of this great road. He always looks to 
 me to be the youngest man on the whole executive 
 staff. Two lumps of sugar, Mr. Bucks? " 
 
 The bachelor president rolled his eyes as he 
 reached for his cup. " Thank you, Mrs. Mc- 
 Cloud, only one after that." He looked toward 
 Marion. "All I can say is that if Mrs. Mc- 
 Cloud's husband had married her two years earlier 
 he might have been general manager by this time. 
 Nothing could hold a man back, even a man of 
 his modesty, whose wife can say as nice things as 
 that. By the way, Mrs. Sinclair, does this man 
 keep you supplied with transportation? " 
 
 " Oh, I have my annual, Mr. Bucks ! " Marion 
 opened her bag to find it. 
 
 Bucks held out his hand. " Let me see it a mo- 
 ment." He adjusted his eye-glasses, looked at the 
 
 418 
 
Back to the Mountains 
 
 pass, and called for a pen ; Bucks had never lost his 
 gracious way of doing very little things. He laid 
 the card on the table and wrote across the back of 
 it over his name: " Good on all passenger trains." 
 When he handed the card back to Marion he 
 turned to Dicksle. " I understand you are laying 
 out two or three towns on the ranch, Mrs. 
 McCIoud?" 
 
 " Two or three ! Oh, no, only one as yet, Mr. 
 Bucks! They are laying out, oh, such a pretty 
 town! Cousin Lance is superintending the street 
 work — and whom do you think I am going to 
 name it after? You! I think 'Bucks' makes a 
 dandy name for a town, don't you? And I am 
 going to have one town named Dunning; there will 
 be two stations on the ranch, you know, and I think, 
 really, there ought to be three." 
 
 " As many as that ? " 
 
 " I don't believe you can operate a line that 
 long, Mr. Bucks, with stations fourteen miles 
 apart." Bucks opened his eyes in benevolent sur- 
 prise. Dicksie, unabashed, kept right on : " Well, 
 do you know how traffic is increasing over there, 
 with the trains running only two months now? 
 Why, the settlers are fairly pouring into the 
 country." 
 
 " Will you give me a comer lot if we put 
 another station on the ranch ? " 
 
 419 
 
whispering Smith 
 
 " I will give you two if you will give us excur- 
 sions and run some of the Overland passenger 
 trains through the valley." 
 
 Bucks threw back his head and laughed in his 
 tremendous way. "I don't know about that; I 
 daren't promise offhand, Mrs. McCloud. But if 
 you can get Whispering Smith to come back you 
 might lay the matter before him. He is to take 
 charge of all the colonist business when he returns; 
 he promised to do that before he went away for 
 his vacation. Whispering Smith is really the man 
 you will have to stand in with." 
 
 Whispering Smith, lying on his iron bed in the 
 hospital, professed not to be able quite to under- 
 stand why they had made such a fuss about it. 
 He underwent the excitement of the appearance 
 of Barnhardt and the first talk with McCloud and 
 Dicksie with hardly a rise in his temperature, and, 
 lying in the sunshine of the afternoon, he was 
 waiting for Marion. When she opened the door 
 his face was turned wistfully toward it. He held 
 out his hands with the old smile. She ran half 
 blinded across the room and dropped on her knee 
 beside him. 
 
 " My dear Marion, why did they drag you 
 away out here? " 
 
 " They did not drag me away out here. Did 
 420 
 
Back to the Mountains 
 
 you expect me to sit with folded hands when I 
 heard you were ill anywhere in the wide world? " 
 
 He looked hungrily at her. " I didn't suppose 
 any one in the wide world would take it very seri- 
 ously." 
 
 " Mr. McCloud is crushed this afternoon to 
 think you have said you would not go back with 
 him. You would not believe how he misses you." 
 
 " It has been pretty lonesome for the last year. 
 I didn't think it could be so lonesome anywhere." 
 
 " Nor did I." 
 
 " Have you noticed it? I shouldn't think you 
 could in the mountains. Was there much water 
 last spring ? Heavens, I'd like to see the Crawling 
 Stone again ! " 
 
 " Why don't you come back? " 
 
 He folded her hands in his own. " Marion, it 
 is you. I've been afraid I couldn't stand it to be 
 near you and not tell you " 
 
 " What need you be afraid to tell me? " 
 
 " That I have loved you so long." 
 
 Her head sunk close to his. " Don't you know 
 you have said it to me many times without words ? 
 I've only been waiting for a chance to tell you 
 how happy it makes me to think it is true." 
 
 421 
 
By frank H. spearman 
 
 Doctor Bryson 
 
 i2mo. $1.50 
 
 " k good, ingenious gtory is this, fiill of a quality of life 
 peculiarly Chicagoan, of wholesome manhood and womanhood, 
 of success wrested from the jaws of defeat that we like to think 
 is Chicago's own brand. ... As the story of a strong, 
 brilliant man's struggles and successes 'Doctor Bryson' is 
 decidedly a success." — Chicago Record- Herald. 
 
 " Told in a breezy manner, as a Chicago story may 
 properly be told. The book belongs to that class of books 
 which will not let you put them down until you have read 
 every line." — Boston Transcript. 
 
 " A love-story full of interest and color. If the love is 
 passionate it is wholesome and splendidly human. Mr. 
 Spearman has put strength and clean human nature into this 
 book in the most admirable fashion." — The Literary Digest. 
 
 " The novel is so exceptional in its realism, so absolutely 
 sure and confident and convincing in its treatment, that its 
 clinical episodes will probably be closely scanned and scien- 
 tifically criticised by the profession. It is a strong, firm, fine 
 piece of work, admirable as a love-story, novel as a picture of 
 Chicago life, and remarkable as a feat of American reah'sm." 
 
 — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 
By frank H. spearman 
 
 The Daughter of 
 a Magnate 
 
 Illustrated, ismo. $1.50 
 
 "An American story through and through. It has the 
 American atmosphere, the American vitality, the American 
 push. It deals with that great American institution, the 
 railway, not only with technical expertness, but in the form 
 of a warm and pulsating human romance. The hero and 
 heroine are typical American characters, and their love-story 
 has pecuUar force and beauty." 
 
 — Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. 
 
 " He has deftly woven exciting escapes and heroic acts 
 into an entertaining love tale." — The Outlook. 
 
 " It is true romance, a romance of stern adventures." 
 
 — Nezo York Evening Post. 
 "There is not a dull page." — Washington Post. 
 
 "The story is one calculated to keep the reader up till 
 midnight." — Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " Realism prettily punctured with romance." 
 
 — New 7~ork Tribune. 
 " Full of vivid pictures of an interesting phase of American 
 life." — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 " Abounds in romantic incident and dramatic situation." 
 
 — Boston Globe. 
 
 " The author seems as well up in railroading as in 
 literature." — Railway Age. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 PUBLISHERS NEW YORK 
 

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