“All right, then, go back to bed. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Carhart.”
For several days now no word had come through from Flint, on “mile 109.” But twenty hours after the trouble at Barker Hills—just before supper time of the following day—a party of plainsmen came galloping into camp. One of these, a wizened little man with a kindly smile and shrewd eyes, dismounted before the headquarters tent and peered in between the flaps. “Mr. Carhart here?”
“He will be in two minutes,” replied Young Van, rising from the table. “Come in, sir!”
“Your Mr. Flint asked me to hand him this.” The wizened one produced a letter, and dropped into the chair which Young Van had brought forward. “Having quite a time up there, isn’t he?”
“How so?” asked Young Van. It was well to speak guardedly.
“Oh, he’s in it, deep,” was the reply. “Commodore Durfee’s at the Frisco Hotel in Red Hills. They say he came out over the ‘Wobbly’ on a construction train and rode through. Pretty spry yet, the Old Commodore. He’s hired a bad man named Flagg—Jack Flagg—and sent him out with a hundred or so men to seize your bridge at La Paz. Sorry I couldn’t stay there to see the excitement, but I’m hurrying east. Mr. Flint thought maybe I could pick up one of your trains running back to Sherman. If I can’t do that, I’ll strike off south for Pierrepont, and get through that way.”
Young Van hesitated, and was about to reply, when he heard the chief approaching.