He counted the words.
“Gee whiz, partner, that’ll cost you a young fortune,” he said in a tone compounded of surprise and awe. “That ain’t a telegram. It’s a letter.”
“Send her just the same,” Rock requested. “And get it on the wire as soon as you can. How long will it take to get an answer?”
“Depends. It’ll have to be relayed from St. Paul to Chicago and then to Fort Worth. With close connections and your man on the job at the other end, maybe four hours, maybe twelve, maybe longer.”
“Is there any way I can get quick action?” Rock asked. “It’s darned important. Time is money.”
“Gosh, money is certainly no objection to nobody that sends two-hundred-word telegrams,” the man replied. “I might ask the St. Paul office to rush it if they can.”
“Look!” Rock laid a ten-dollar gold piece on the counter. “That’s to grease your axles. Go as far as you like to get that message hurried. Shoot her quick. I’m going to the N. P. Hotel and turn in. The clerk can tell you my room number. You get the answer to me hot off the griddle when it comes. If I’m asleep, wake me up.”
The operator grinned, as he pocketed the ten. “I’ll get you all the action there is,” he promised.
Rock dragged himself across the street, too tired to seek a restaurant, despite his hunger. Within twenty minutes he was fast asleep, at three in the afternoon. Billings went about its daily affairs. The sound of rattling wagons in the street, the voices of men, the intermittent bang of carpenter’s hammers and the whine of saws floated in through his open windows on the hot summer air. These sounds receded and died away, powerless to break the deep slumber of weariness. Rock was really exhausted.
A pounding at his door wakened him. Dark had closed in. His room was like a cellar. For a second, in that subterranean gloom, Rock struggled to remember where he was, and why he was there. Then sleep fell away from him like a discarded garment, and he leaped up, opened the door to a man in shirt sleeves, with a green eye shade, a lantern in one hand, and a telegram in the other.