There was a pang.... Where was Nevin? Why had Noyes or someone from the Western States not come to him? Coming back to these things pained.... A boy in the halls called the afternoon papers in a modified voice.
“Will you get me the papers—especially the Western States?”
She hurried to call the boy. He saw the huge picture of Duke Fallows on the sheet toward him, as she re-entered.
“This is what I want,” he said hoarsely, taking the Western States....
“John Morning,” she whispered.
In inch letters across the top—there it was:
JOHN MORNING BRINGS IN THE FIRST FALLOWS STORY.
Full Day Ahead of Coptic Mails.... Morning Leaves Fallows on the Field Beyond Liaoyang, Night of September 3rd.... Two Americans Alone See Great Battle.... The Incomparable Fallows’ Story Printed in Full in the Western States To-day.... John Morning’s Detail Picture—a Book in Itself—Begins in the Western States To-morrow—Biggest Newspaper Feature of the Year’s Campaign.... Read To-day How John Morning Brought in the News—a Story of Unparalleled Daring and Superhuman Endurance....
Such was the head and the big-print captions. Morning’s riding forth from Liaoyang on the night of the third—the sorrel mare—the Hun Crossing—the Liao Crossing and the fight with the river-bandits—the runaway of the sorrel and her broken heart—his journey dazed and delirious, covered with wounds, thirty miles to Koupangtse—Tongu—the battle to get aboard the Sickles, first, second, and third attempts—redoing the great story on shipboard—all this in form of an interview and printed as a local story, ran ahead of the Duke Fallows article.
A great moment, and John Morning, forgetting all else, even forgetting the girl who glanced at him with awed and troubled eyes, held hard for a moment to the one realization: Noyes would not have printed, “Begins in the Western States to-morrow,” had he not arranged for publication in Reever Kennard’s World-News....