“You’ll send it now.”
“What—what’s that?”
Her steady eyes caught and held his shifting ones. “I say you are going to send it now—this very minute.”
“I guess not. The line’s busy,” he bluffed.
“If you don’t begin sending that message this minute I’ll make it my business to see that you lose your position,” she told him calmly.
He snatched up the paper from the place where he had tossed it. “Oh, well, if it’s so darned important,” he conceded ungraciously.
She stood quietly above him while he sent the telegram, even though he contrived to make every moment of her stay an unvoiced insult. Her wire was to the wife of the Governor of the State. They had been close friends at school, and the latter had been urging Helen to pay a visit to Cheyenne. The message she sent was as follows:
Battle imminent between outlaws and cattlemen here. Bloodshed certain to-night. My foreman last night killed in self-defense a desperado. Bannister’s gang, in league with town authorities, mean to lynch him and one of my other friends after dark this evening. Sheriff will do nothing. Can your husband send soldiers immediately? Wire answer.
The operator looked up sullenly after his fingers had finished the last tap. “Well?”
“Just one thing more,” Helen told him. “You understand the rules of the company about secrecy. Nobody but you knows I am sending this message. If by any chance it should leak out, I shall know through whom. If you want to hold your position, you will keep quiet.”