"Why, man, I'm not even asking for a subscription; I simply want to ten—"
"Get out!" snapped the man with the gun; and in a foam the newsman climbed down. A curious crowd gathered close to hear an editorial version of the ten commandments revised on the spur of the moment. Felix Kennedy said it was worth going miles to hear. "That's the coldest deal I ever struck on the plains, boys," declared the editor. "Talk about your bereaved parents. If the boy doesn't have a chill when that man reaches him, I miss my guess. He acts to me as if he was afraid his grief would get away before he got to Denver."
Meantime Georgie Sinclair was tying a silk handkerchief around his neck, while Neighbor gave him parting injunctions. As he put up his foot to swing into the cab the boy looked for all the world like a jockey toe in stirrup. Neighbor glanced at his watch.
"Can you make it by eleven o'clock?" he growled.
"Make what?"
"Denver."
"Denver or the ditch, Neighbor," laughed Georgie, testing the air. "Are you right back there, Pat?" he called, as Conductor Francis strode forward to compare the Mountain Time.
"Right and tight, and I call it five-two-thirty now. What have you, Georgie?"
"Five-two-thirty-two," answered Sinclair, leaning from the cab window. "And we're ready."
"Then go!" cried Pat Francis, raising two fingers.