“Say,” he demanded, excitedly, “you don’t suppose that is so, do you, Cap’n?”
Snow was staring at the yellow slip. He breathed hard. Then he shook his head.
“Can’t be!” he declared. “No, no! It can’t be. How can it?”
“But that man says he’s just got the word right from Washin’ton. Good Lord! Why—”
“Sshh! There must be a mistake somewhere. How can it be so? Here, don’t you tell anybody about this. Keep your mouth shut until we find out more, anyhow. If it is a mistake—and in spite of everything I believe it must be—you nor I don’t want to get ourselves into trouble by spreadin’ the news around. Wait! Don’t you tell a soul; do you hear?”
The depot master nodded. “I hear,” he observed. “You needn’t worry. I don’t shove my toe under Foster Townsend’s boot until I know what I’m doin’. I’ve seen too many toes jammed that way. I won’t say nothin’.... But, good heavens above, Cap’n Ben, suppose it is true! Foster Townsend licked by Elisha Cook!... Aw, it can’t be.”
All the way home the captain kept telling himself that very thing—it could not be. The Boston broker was a trustworthy man, one not likely to accept an unsubstantiated rumor, but nevertheless— No, there was a mistake somewhere, there must be. Captain Ben, as usual when in trouble or perplexed, took council with his wife. He handed her the telegram.
“It can’t be so, can it, Mary?” he demanded. “You don’t believe it, do you?”
Mrs. Snow dazedly shook her head. “I declare I don’t know what to believe, Ben,” she said. “It doesn’t seem as if it could be, but—but I suppose it might. Of course Elisha Cook and his lawyers must have thought they had a good chance or they wouldn’t have kept on fighting the way they have.”
Her husband nodded. “But for Foster—for Foster Townsend to be beat, to have anybody stop him from having his own way, why—why, it doesn’t seem possible,” he vowed.