Whispering Smith Part 41

"Really," d.i.c.ksie 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. McCloud, only one after that." He looked toward Marion. "All I can say is that if Mrs. McCloud'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 moment." He adjusted his eye-gla.s.ses, looked at the pa.s.s, 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 pa.s.senger trains." When he handed the card back to Marion he turned to d.i.c.ksie. "I understand you are laying out two or three towns on the ranch, Mrs. McCloud?"

"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 surprise. d.i.c.ksie, 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 corner lot if we put another station on the ranch?"

"I will give you two if you will give us excursions and run some of the Overland pa.s.senger 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 understand 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 d.i.c.ksie 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 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 seriously."

"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."

ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS

A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal superintendent rescues her when she is captured by bandits. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close.

THE RAINBOW TRAIL

The story of a young clergyman who becomes a wanderer in the great western uplands--until at last love and faith awake.

DESERT GOLD

The story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE

A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. The prosecution of Jane Withersteen is the theme of the story.

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of deep canons and giant pines."

THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT

A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons--Well, that's the problem of this great story.

THE SHORT STOP

The young hero, tiring of his factory grind, starts out to win fame and fortune as a professional ball player. His hard knocks at the start are followed by such success as clean sportsmanship, courage and honesty ought to win.

BETTY ZANE

This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers.

THE LONE STAR RANGER

After killing a man in self defense, Buck Duane becomes an outlaw along the Texas border. In a camp on the Mexican side of the river, he finds a young girl held prisoner, and in attempting to rescue her, brings down upon himself the wrath of her captors and henceforth is hunted on one side by honest men, on the other by outlaws.

THE BORDER LEGION