CHAPTER XXII
A TALK WITH WHISPERING SMITH
When Whispering Smith had followed McCloud from the tent, Dicksieturned to Marion and caught her hand. "Is this the terrible man I haveheard about?" she murmured. "And I thought him ferocious! But is he aspitiless 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, anddoes them. He is the man on whom the railroad relies to repress thelawlessness that breaks out in the mountains at times and interfereswith the operating of the road. It frightens people away, and preventsothers from coming in to settle. Railroads want law and order. Robberyand murders don't make business for railroads. They depend on settlersfor developing a country, don't you know; otherwise they would have notraffic, not to speak of wanting their trains and men let alone. WhenMr. Bucks undertook to open up this country to settlers, he needed aman of patience and endurance and with courage and skill in dealingwith lawless men, and no man has ever succeeded so well as thisterrible man you have heard about. He is terrible, my dear, to lawlessmen, 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 boyand 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 Marionlie 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, butDicksie put on her close-fitting black coat, raised the door-flap, andwalked noiselessly from the tent and up behind him. "Alone in therain?" she asked.
She had expected to see him start at her voice, but he did not, thoughhe rose and turned around. "Not now," he answered as he offered herhis box with a smile.
"Are you taking your hat off for me in the rain? Put it on again!" sheinsisted with a little tone of command, and she was conscious ofgratification 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 Ithought you were, and to apologize."
"Never mind apologizing. Lots of people think worse than that of meand don't apologize. I'm sorry I have no shelter to offer you, exceptto 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."
Dicksie 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, Icannot account for you, Mr. Smith. I guess at the ranch we don't knowwhat goes on in the world. Everything I see of you contradictseverything I have heard of you."
"You haven't seen much of me yet, you know, and you may have heardmuch better accounts of me than I deserve. Still, it isn't surprisingyou can't account for me; in fact, it would be surprising if youcould. Nobody pretends to do that. You must not be shocked if I can'teven account for myself. Do you know what a derelict is? A ship thathas been abandoned but never wholly sinks."
"Please don't make fun of me! How did you happen to come into themountains? I do want to understand things better."
"Why, you are in real earnest, aren't you? But I am not making fun ofyou. Do you know President Bucks? No? Too bad! He's a very handsomeold bachelor. And he is one of those men who get all sorts of men todo all sorts of things for them. You know, building and operatingrailroads in this part of the country is no joke. The mountains arefilled with men that don't care for God, man, or the devil. Sometimesthey furnish their own ammunition to fight with and don't bother therailroad for years; at such times the railroad leaves them alone. Formy part, I never quarrel with a man that doesn't quarrel with theroad. Then comes a time when they get after us, shooting our men orrobbing our agents or stopping our trains. Of course we have to getbusy then. A few years ago they worried Bucks till they nearly turnedhis hair gray. At that unfortunate time I happened into his officewith a letter of introduction from his closest Chicago friend, WillisHoward, prince of good men, the man that made the Palmer Housefamous--yes. Now I had come out here, Miss Dunning--I almost said MissDicksie, because I hear it so much----"
"I should be greatly set up to hear you call me Dicksie. And I havewondered a thousand times about your name. Dare I ask--_why_ do theycall you Whispering Smith? You don't whisper."
He laughed with abundance of good-humor. "That is a ridiculousaccident, and it all came about when I lived in Chicago. Do youknow anything about the infernal climate there? Well, in Chicago Iused to lose my voice whenever I caught a cold--sometimes forweeks together. So they began calling me Whispering Smith, and I'venever been able to shake the name. Odd, isn't it? But I came out to gointo the real-estate business. I was looking for some gold-bearingfarm lands where I could raise quartz, don't you know, and suchthings--yes. I don't mind telling you this, though I wouldn't tellit to everybody----"
"Certainly not," assented Dicksie, drawing her skirt around to sit incloser 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 officehe 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 broughthis fist down on the table and swore I should be his right-of-wayman."
"How about the mining?"
Whispering Smith waved his hand in something of the proud manner inwhich Bucks could wave his presidential hand. "My business, Buckssaid, need not interfere with that, not in the least; he said that Icould do all the mining I wanted to, and I _have_ done all themining I wanted to. But here is the singular thing that happened: Iopened up my office and had nothing to do; they didn't seem to wantany 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 andshooting jack-rabbits. But, Lord, I love this country! Did youknow 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 themeantime. Occasionally I would go to Bucks--you say you don't knowhim?--too bad!--and tell him candidly I wasn't doing a thing toearn my salary. At such times he would only ask me how I liked thejob," and Whispering Smith's heavy eyebrows rose in mild surpriseat the recollection. "One day when I was talking with him he handed mea telegram from the desert saying that a night operator at alonely station had been shot and a switch misplaced and a trainnearly wrecked. He asked me what I thought of it. I discovered thatthe poor fellow had shot himself, and in the end we had to put himin the insane asylum to save him from the penitentiary--but that waswhere my trouble began.
"It ended in my having to organize the special service on the wholeroad to look after a thousand and one things that nobody elsehad--well, let us say time or inclination to look after: fraud andtheft and violence and all that sort of disagreeable thing. Then oneday the cat crawled out of the bag. What do you think? That man who isnow president of this road had somewhere seen a highly colored storyabout me in a magazine, a ten-cent magazine, you know. He had spottedme the first time I walked into his office, and told me a long timeafterward it was just like seeing a man walk out of a book, and thathe had hard work to keep from falling on my neck. He knew what hewanted me for; it was just this thing. I left Chicago to get away fromit, and this is the result. It is not all that kind of thing, oh, no!When they want to cross a reservation I have a winter in Washingtonwith our attorneys and dine with old friends in the White House, andthe next winter I may be on snowshoes chasing a band of rustlers. Iswore 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 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 Ifancy--that is, I have an intimation--that there will be a red-hotprotest at the bar of Heaven," he lowered his tone, "from a certainunmentionable quarter when I undertake to put the vestments on. By theway, I hear you are interested in chickens. Oh, yes, I've heard a lotabout you! Bob Johnson, over at Oroville, has some pretty bantams Iwant to tell you about."
Whether he talked railroad or chickens, it was all one: Dicksie satspellbound; and when he announced it was half-past three o'clock andtime to rouse Marion, she was amazed.
SCENE FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCTION OF "WHISPERINGSMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]
Dawn showed in the east. The men eating breakfast in tents were to besent on a work-train up a piece of Y-track that led as near as theycould be taken to where they were needed. The train had pulled outwhen Dicksie, Marion, McCloud, and Whispering Smith took horses to getacross to the hills and through to the ranch-house. They had riddenslowly for some distance when McCloud was called back. The partyreturned and rode together into the mists that hung below the bridge.They came out upon a little party of men standing with lanterns on apiece of track where the river had taken the entire grade and racedfuriously through the gap. Fog shrouded the light of the lanterns andlent gloom to the silence, but the women could see the group thatMcCloud had joined. Standing above his companions on a pile of ties, atall young man holding a megaphone waited. Out of the darkness therecame presently a loud calling. The tall young man at intervals bawledvigorously into the fog in answer. Far away could be heard, in theintervals of silence, the faint clang of the work-train engine-bell.Again the voice came out of the fog. McCloud took the megaphone andcalled repeatedly. Two men rowed a boat out of the back-water behindthe grade, and when McCloud stepped into it, it was released on a linewhile the oarsmen guided it across the flood until it disappeared. Thetwo megaphone voices could still be heard. After a time the boat waspulled back again, and McCloud stepped out of it. He spoke a momentwith the men, rejoined his party, and climbed into the saddle. "Now weare off," said he.
"What was it all about?" asked Whispering Smith.
"Your friend Klein is over there. Nobody could understand what he saidexcept that he wanted me. When I got here I couldn't make out what hewas talking about, so they let us out in the boat on a line. Half-wayacross the break I made out what was troubling him. He said he wasgoing to lose three hundred feet of track, and wanted to know what todo."
"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?"