He telephoned Caretall before breakfast and asked him when he could see him to talk things over. Amos told him good-naturedly that he could come right after breakfast. “I’m taking my ease, these few days,” he said. “Staying at home in my carpet slippers, and smoking my pipe. Drop in any time.”
“I’ll be there in an hour,” Kite told him. And Amos said that was all right, and hung up the receiver. Immediately, he telephoned Peter Gergue to come right over, and Peter joined him at breakfast in ten minutes. It was not even necessary for old Maria to set an extra plate for Peter. Agnes had overslept—she nearly always did oversleep—and Amos was breakfasting alone, with Agnes’s empty place across the table from him.
Peter sat down there, and Amos helped him to fried eggs and bacon, and Maria gave him a cup of coffee. Amos said at once: “Kite just called up, Peter. He’s coming over.”
Gergue swallowed a gulp of coffee. “Guessed he would,” he assented. “Guessed he’d have things to say to you.”
“What do you guess he’s got to say to me, Peter?” Amos asked.
“He’ll want you to call Wint off, I’d say.”
Amos looked politely regretful, as though he were talking to Kite. “Why, now, you know, Wint’s his own boss. He does what he wants to do. I never saw any one that could run Wint, did you?”
“Not if Wint knew it, I never did.”
“What have you heard, Peter?” Amos asked. “What did Kite do yest’day, when he heard the sad news?”
“Lutcher told him,” said Peter. “Lutcher says he was wild. But when Jim Radabaugh saw him, he kept his head, and said it didn’t concern him. I hear he had some talk with Jack Routt; and then he posted off down to the furnace to see Chase.”