Whispering Smith Part 21

"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 b.u.mper that proves every friend!

Isn't that true?

And though when we drink it it wrings us,

--and it does sometimes!

Here's to the cup that we drain to the end,

Even women have to be plucky, don't they, Marion?

And here's to the hearts that it brings us!"

Whispering Smith rose before the applause subsided. "I ask you to drink this, standing, in condensed milk."

"Have we enough to stand in?" interposed d.i.c.ksie.

"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!--_I_ shouldn't have been in camp to-night," said Whispering Smith.

"And if _I_ had not been in trouble this camp wouldn't have been here to-night," declared McCloud. "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?"

"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 intrusion, and if you want ice-water ring twice."

CHAPTER XXII

A TALK WITH WHISPERING SMITH

When Whispering Smith had followed McCloud from the tent, d.i.c.ksie turned to Marion and caught her hand. "Is this the terrible man I have heard about?" she murmured. "And I thought him ferocious! But is he as pitiless as they say, Marion?"

Marion laughed--a troubled little laugh of surprise 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 repress the lawlessness that breaks out in the mountains at times and interferes with the operating of the road. It frightens people away, and prevents others from coming in to settle. Railroads want law and order. Robbery and murders don't make business for railroads. They depend on settlers for 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 country to settlers, he needed a man of patience and 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 d.i.c.ksie 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 d.i.c.ksie 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 another!" she said. "Oh, you have another! I 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."

"But a stranger to you."

"Only in a way."

d.i.c.ksie gazed for a moment at the fire. "You won't think me abrupt, will you?" she said, turning 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. n.o.body pretends to do that. You must not be shocked if I can't even account for myself. 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."

"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 operating railroads in this part of the country is no joke. The mountains are filled with men that don't care for G.o.d, 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 robbing 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 d.i.c.ksie, because I hear it so much----"

"I should be greatly set up to hear you call me d.i.c.ksie. And I have wondered a thousand times about your name. Dare I ask--_why_ do 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 anything 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," a.s.sented d.i.c.ksie, drawing her skirt around to sit in closer confidence.

"I wanted to get rich quick," murmured Whispering Smith, confidentially.

"Almost criminal, wasn't it?"

"I wanted to have evening clothes."

"Yes."

"And for once in my life two pairs of suspenders--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 fist down on the table and swore I should be his right-of-way man."