TELL BARBARA I'M ALL RIGHT.
When Abe Lee, after twenty-six hard hours in the saddle, dismounted in front of the San Felipe hotel and entered the lobby his usually perfect nerves were strained almost to the breaking point. For weeks the surveyor had carried the burden of Jefferson Worth's financial condition as if it were his own. With the prospect of seeing the work he loved better than his life wrecked and taken over by the Company, he had for days faced the critical situation of the strike. Then, in the very hour of relief, the situation had become seemingly hopeless. Abe Lee, better than anyone, knew the temper of the Mexican and Indian strikers. He realized fully how great the chances were that at the very moment when he finished his ride for relief the town of Republic was the scene of tragic violence.
If Jefferson Worth had left San Felipe ignorant of the failure of his effort to relieve the dangerous situation at home, or if by some chance the money so desperately needed was not ready, Abe knew that the cause was lost. The Company would triumph.
As he entered the hotel his eyes, searching eagerly for his employer, fell first on James Greenfield. With a movement wholly involuntary the hand of the overwrought desert man came to rest on his hip close to the heavy Colt's forty-five. Then he saw Jefferson Worth and Willard Holmes moving towards him.
When a man feels himself hard-pressed in a fight and is struggling desperately to hold his ground, he has small thought for the trifling courtesies demanded by custom. Without returning the greetings of the two men and instinctively drawing apart from Holmes, the surveyor shot a single question at his employer. "Have you got it?"
"Everything is all right," answered Jefferson Worth, and with his words something of his calm confidence went to Abe Lee.
When the two men reached Worth's apartment the surveyor, without hesitation, began stripping off his clothes. "I want a good bath first," he said. "And while I am at it will you please have a good thick beefsteak cooked rare and sent up here? Then I'll sleep for a couple of hours. That buckskin of Texas Joe's is standing in from of the hotel. He's about all in. I wish that you would see that he is cared for."
As he finished speaking the tall lean figure of the surveyor disappeared through the bath room door. Mr. Worth sent the order for his superintendent's supper to the cook with a sum of money that insured immediate and careful attention. Then with his own hands he led the buckskin horse to a barn where the animal would have the care he had so well earned.
When Mr. Worth returned to the hotel he opened the door of his room softly. There was a tray of empty dishes on the table, an odor of cigarette smoke in the atmosphere, and in his employer's bed the surveyor, sound asleep. Abe Lee understood the value of every moment even in taking rest.
Two hours later Mr. Worth, going again to his room, found that the surveyor had just finished dressing. With a smile the financier handed Abe a slip of yellow paper. It was a message from Barbara saying that so far all was well at home, and concluded with the words: "Love to Abe."