The Professor examined his own huge body doubtfully.
"How big's this cradle?" he asked.
"It'll hold you and your sister," replied Stamford gallantly. "But the man you want to see is Inspector Barker. In the West it's different: you don't consult the newspaper, but the Mounted Police."
He tapped a bell, and the "devil" stumbled down from the composing-room overhead.
"Give these to Arthurs," Stamford ordered, grabbing a handful of clippings from the pigeon-hole. "They'll keep him busy. I'll be out for a while. Watch the office till Smith comes back."
"I'm taking you down to the barracks myself," he explained to his visitors. "The Inspector might suspect you of ulterior motives. I confess," he added whimsically, "that you're different enough to justify it."
Inspector Barker and the editor of the Journal were on the best of terms. In Stamford's little body was all the romance of men physically unfitted to play a part in the pictures of their imagination; he had a scalp that tingled easily. And the Inspector had experiences to tell that would tingle any scalp not fossilised—as well as little reluctance about clothing his experiences with what might have happened. It wasn't often he was free to let himself loose to such an appreciative audience whose ideas could expand several sizes in response to a good yarn.
But it was plain enough that Professor Bulkeley was more susceptible, less inclined to question the reasonableness of the wildest yarn. The Inspector received him and his sister with generous hand, and a smile that took them to his heart. And their summer plans only added to his eagerness. This was something new in an extended experience popularly considered to have covered every possible phase of Western life.
"All the way from Washington, D.C., eh? Special visit to our benighted town, eh? Flattered is too mild a word. Bringing your sister adds the last drop to our overfull bucket of gratitude."
"Isabel," asked the Professor gravely, "did he put it as nicely as Mr. Stamford, d'ye think?"