“H-E-L-P—H-E-L-D U-P—A-F-T-E-R G-O-L-D—T-I-E-D T-O T-A-B-L-E—G-O-T D-R-O-P O-N H-I-M—M-A-K-I-N-G H-I-M S-E-N-D—B.”
The despatcher grasped his key. “Good boy! Good boy!” he hurled back. “Keep it up for twenty-five minutes and we’ll get help to you. There’s an extra engine at H, waiting for 92. I’ll start her right down.” And therewith he whirled off into an urgent succession of “H’s.”
But through young Jennings’ strange feat in telegraphy help was nearer even than the unexpected succor from Hillside. Despite the sleeping draught Burns had administered to Muskoka Jones, the unaccustomed clicking of the telegraph instruments had begun to arouse the big cowman. When finally, in climax, came the lightning whirr of the despatcher’s excited response, he gasped into consciousness, blinked, and suddenly found himself sitting upright, staring open-mouthed at the spectacle before him.
The next moment, with a shout, he was on his feet in the middle of the floor, and the nerve-strung boy had fainted.
As the lad sank forward his “pistol” fell from his hand and rolled into the light.
From Burns came an inarticulate cry, his jaw dropped, his eyes started in his head. Muskoka halted in his stride, wet his lips and muttered incredulous words of admiration and amazement. Then in a moment he had cut Wilson free, and stretched him on the floor.
It was Iowa broke the silence. Rising, with compressed lips he held toward Muskoka the butt of his pistol. “Here, shoot me—with my own gun!” he said hoarsely. “I deserve it.”
Muskoka considered. “No,” he decided at length. “Leave your gun as a present for the kid, and,” turning and indicating the door, “git!”
Thus was it the young “dude” operator proved himself, and came into possession of a handsome pearl-handled Colt’s revolver—and, early the following morning, from a “committee” of the Bar-O cowmen, headed by Muskoka Jones, a fine high-crowned, silver-spangled Mexican sombrero, to take the place of the hat they had destroyed, and “as a mark of esteem for the pluckiest little operator ever sent to Bonepile.”
More important still, however, the incident won Wilson immediate esteem at division headquarters, where one of the first of the operators to congratulate him was Alex Ward.