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Whether the outcome of his appointment to the little watering station was to be a surprise or no, there was no doubt of Wilson Jennings' surprise when the following morning he alighted from the train at Bonepile, and as the train sped on, awoke to the realization that he was entirely alone.
It was decidedly warm the following Monday noon at Bonepile, and Wilson Jennings, his coat off, but wearing the fancy Mexican sombrero that the Bar-O cowmen had given him, sat in the open window to catch the breeze that blew through from the rear. From the window Wilson could not see the wagon-trail toward the hills to the west.
Trembling, Wilson removed his collar and handed it over. The cowman stepped back and calmly proceeded to shoot a row of holes in it. "There," he announced, returning it, "much better. That's Bonepile fashion. Put it on." Meekly Wilson obeyed, and the circle of cowmen roared at the result. "Now," proceeded Muskoka, "that coat of yours is nice. Very nice. But I think it'd look better inside-out.
Diving within to the waist, he brought a bottle down on the instrument table with a crash. "Pardner, welcome to our city!" he shouted. The response should have been instantaneous and hearty. Instead there was a strange quiet. The following Bar-O's faltered, and exchanged glances. Surely the Western had not at last "fallen down" on its first obligation at Bonepile!
"There all proper millinaried dee la Bonepile," said Muskoka. "An' don't mention it." "Now give me that white-washed fence you have around your ears." The boy shrank farther back in his chair, then suddenly turned and reached for the telegraph key. In a moment the big cowman's pistol was out. "Back in your chair! Give me that white fence!" he commanded.
When the chief announced that the new operator was from the east, and was being sent to the little foothills tank-station of Bonepile, there was a fresh outburst of hilarity. "Why, that cowboy outfit near there will string him up to the tank spout," declared the operator on whose wire Bonepile was located. "It's the toughest proposition on the wire."
As the young operator removed his spotless collar one similar to that which had so aroused the cowmen's derision on his first day at Bonepile without a smile one of the very men who had formed the "welcoming committee" that day rubbed his hands on his shirt, took it carefully, and placed it on a clean plank. "You'll want a lamp. Somebody give the boy a cap and lamp," the boss directed.
Thus was it the young "dude" operator proved himself, and came into possession of a handsome pearl-handled Colt's revolver and, early the following morning, from a "committee" of the Bar-O cowmen, headed by Muskoka Jones, a fine high-crowned, silver-spangled Mexican sombrero, to take the place of the hat they had destroyed, and "as a mark of esteem for the pluckiest little operator ever sent to Bonepile."
From without came the crunch of stealthy footsteps. Springing to his bunk, Wilson secured his revolver and belt the same taken from the would-be bullion thief he had captured at Bonepile and stealing to the rear door, slipped out and to the ground just as the strangers approached the opposite side of the little car-depot.
When the early-morning mail train stopped at Yellow Creek Junction on Tuesday, Alex was at the little box-car station to greet Jack Orr and Wilson Jennings. Jack, who had not met Wilson before the latter boarded the train at Bonepile, had taken a liking to the easterner at once, and confided to Alex that he was "the real goods," despite the "streak of dude."
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