About three weeks later a maid presented herself before Madge Mundy in the Montgomerys’ apartment in Los Angeles.
“There’s a man to see you at the door, miss,” she announced. “He has no card, and he won’t come in. He says he’s from Ragtown and has an important message for you.”
“I’ll see him,” said Madge, a strange feeling of faintness coming over her.
At the door she found California Bill, holding in his short hand an open-face silver watch of large proportions.
“Hello, Shanty Madge,” he greeted her. “I come to tell ye that Tony’s gettin’ pretty low. He’s in th’ hospital at Ragtown, an’ I hadta go clean to Spur to get a decent doctor. He’s pretty well shot up in the upper works, an’ he won’t fight back—seems. After Lee Sweet shot ’im—”
“After what?” Madge’s head was swimming and her hand grasped the door-frame.
“Yes’m—after that ornery beef critter shot ’im he went out f’r a time, an’ then he come back a-ravin’ about what he’d seen on Mars. An’ nothin’ would do but I had to go to Spur that night an’ send a telegram to Milton University. I done it, o’ course—seein’ his well-bein’ depended on it. Ye see, Lee an’ some o’ his buckeroos was all lit up an’ jes’ aimin’ to scare Tony. An’ they shot high, thinkin’ Tony was on th’ ground. But Tony’s up on his ladder squintin’ at ole Mars. An’ now Lee’s th’ scaredest man in all that country. I’ll read ye what Tony told me to write, so’s I could turn it over to th’ operator at Spur.”
Madge gazed at the old freighter while he fumbled in his pocket and finally produced a piece of dirty paper. He placed his steel-rimmed glasses on his nose and read haltingly:
“Dr. Hiram A. Buck,
Director Observatory,
Milton University,
Elmfield, Massachusetts.
“Observed at thirteenth hour thirteenth minute June eighteenth with eight-inch refractor singular geometrical configuration on Mars. Latitude seventy degrees; longitude plus twenty degrees. Central to Uranius, Nilokeras, and Ganges. Appeared to be circle with straight line south and tangent to circumference. Very faint. Please wire my expense if larger instruments confirm reality of object.”