“You look new. And you act all-fired new. My name is Bill Dancing and I am the telegraph lineman.”
“Why, you are the man I am looking for.”
“So I thought, when you pushed me out of here with the rest of your visitors.”
“Why didn’t you speak up, Bill?” demanded Bucks calmly.
A quizzical expression passed over Dancing’s face. “I didn’t want to break the calm. When I see a man walking around a powder magazine I hate to do anything that might set it off.
“So your name is Bucks,” continued Dancing, as he walked through the wicket and threw his wet hat among the way-bills on the freight desk. “Well, Mr. Bucks, do you know what was most likely to happen to you any minute before you got through with that crowd, just now?”
“No, I don’t know. Why?” asked Bucks, busy with his messages.
“Have you ever seen a shooting mix-up in Medicine 9 Bend?” demanded Dancing in a tone of calculated indifference.
“No,” answered Bucks in decided but off-hand manner, “I never saw a shooting mix-up anywhere.”
“Never got shot up just for fun?” persisted Dancing. “Do you know,” he continued without waiting for an answer, “who that polite man was, the last one you shouldered out of here?” Dancing pointed as he spoke to the corner from which Levake had risen, but the operator, straightening out the papers before him, did not look around.