Whispering Smith is due in Cheyenne to-morrow. Meet him at the Wickiup Sunday morning; he has full authority. I have told him to get these fellows, if it takes all the money in the treasury, and not to stop till he cleans them out of the Rocky Mountains. J. S. B.
CHAPTER XI
AT THE THREE HORSES
“Clean them out of the Rocky Mountains; that is a pretty good contract,” mused the man in McCloud’s office on Sunday morning. He sat opposite McCloud in Bucks’s old easy chair and held in his hand Bucks’s telegram. As he spoke he raised his eyebrows and settled back, but the unusual depth of the chair and the shortness of his legs left his chin helpless in his black tie, so that he was really no better off except that he had changed one position of discomfort for another. “I wonder, now,” he mused, sitting forward again as McCloud watched him, “I wonder––you know, George, the Andes are, strictly speaking, a part of the great North American chain––whether Bucks meant to include the South American ranges in that message?” and a look of mildly good-natured anticipation overspread his face.
“Suppose you wire him and find out,” suggested McCloud.
“No, George, no! Bucks never was accurate in geographical expressions. Besides, he is shifty 94 and would probably cover his tracks by telling me to report progress when I got to Panama.”
A clerk opened the outer office door. “Mr. Dancing asks if he can see you, Mr. McCloud.”