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"Your place is outside," continued the operator. "I can't do anything with a mob in here all talking at once." "I haven't done my talking yet," suggested the man, with a shade of significance. This, however, was lost on Bucks, who looked sharply at the stool from which the man had risen. "I think this stool is mine," said he, picking it up and examining it.
It was a tribute that he paid, not to the lady's virtues, which were notoriously absent; nor to any love of her, for he had disliked her exceedingly; nor yet because it was conventional, he hated conventionality; but, by Gad, sir, because it bucks the women up! All that was long ago. Since then he had become less fastidious. At his son's funeral he appeared in black.
Taking advantage of the instant, Bucks slipped the fingers of his left hand over the telegraph key and wired the despatchers upstairs for help. It was none too soon. The men, leaning against the railing, pushed it harder all along the line. It swayed with an ominous crack and the fastening gave way. Baggs cowered.
The surgeon and Bob Scott followed close. Bucks was first to meet the wounded scout, and the railroad men, jubilant at Levake's capture, ran to Scott and bore him down with rough welcome. Levake was laid upon a bench in the station and Scott followed to his side. Arnold, joining the scout, made ready to dress the wound in his shoulder.
"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, determined 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.
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 Sinclair's horses," he said in conclusion. "Sinclair's horses," returned Whispering Smith, "and they are all accounted for.
The problem of getting and keeping good men was the hardest that confronted the operating department, and the demoralization of the railroad men from the life in Medicine Bend grew steadily worse as the new town attracted additional parasites. When Bucks, after his return, took his first walk after supper up Front Street, he was not surprised at this.
There was jabbering among the bucks, while the squaws stood silently about, and among the most violent of the jabberers was Little Peter, who had already talked with the factor and by magnificent lying had almost convinced him that his own territory was the best for a new post.
A piece of meat could not be left outside without being carried off by them; and even since the capture of our two bucks, they had several times chased them through the park, until the noise made by the snorting of the latter had brought our dogs, and some of us along with them, to their rescue.
But stout John Saddler's train was no soft cakes for thieves, and they came up through Bucks scot-free. At times it drizzled fitfully, and the road was rough and bad; but the third day was a fair, sweet day, and most exceeding bright and fresh. The shepherds whistled on the hills, and the milkmaids sang in the winding lanes among the white-thorn hedges, the smell of which was everywhere.
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