Amos went to the door, shaking like a Hula dancer, and got the message. It was for him. He jigged back to the rear door and looked out. Then he almost swooned. Seated on the boxes, where Ferdinand P. Putney was concealed, was the sheriff, Big Jim Potter, smoking his pipe.
Amos staggered back to the front door. Seated on the sidewalk across the street was “Slim” Caldwell, the deputy sheriff, watching the bank front. Amos reeled. The clock was striking the hour, and at every chime Amos Weed jerked inside his clothes.
Then he unlocked the door and went drunkenly toward his desk, where he slumped in a chair, staring with unseeing eyes. The door opened and a man came toward him. He opened his eyes. It was the man he had directed to the doctor’s office. Amos shook his head wearily. Nothing mattered now. He was still holding the telegram, and now he opened it mechanically, his eyes scanning it quickly. It read:
PANHANDLE NUMBER SEVEN BRINGS IN GUSHER AT FORTY TWENTY FIVE STOP CONGRATULATIONS
GRIMES SUPERINTENDENT.
Amos fell back in his chair, the world reeling around him. He opened his eyes. The stranger with the cold had crouched back against the wall, a gun in his hand, as Cloudy McGee came in through the doorway. Slim Caldwell, the deputy sheriff, was running across the street, almost to the door, when the stranger behind it flung up his gun, covering McGee.
“Put ’em up, McGee!” he snapped, and McGee’s hands went up, a look of wonder on his face.
Slim Caldwell ran in behind him, and the gun covered both of them.
“Who are you?” asked the damp-nosed stranger of Caldwell.
“Deputy sheriff,” blurted Caldwell.
“All right. Handcuff that man.”