“I know my business,” he growled. Nevertheless, she had spoken in season, for he had had it in his mind to give a tip where he knew it would be understood to hasten the jail delivery and accompanying lynching.
When she returned to the hotel, Helen found Missou waiting for her. She immediately sent him back to the office, and told him to wait there until the answer was received. “I’ll send one of the boys up to relieve you so that you may come with the telegram as soon as it arrives. I want the operator watched all day. Oh, here’s Jim Henson! Denver has explained the situation to you, I presume. I want you to go up to the telegraph office and stay there all day. Go to lunch with the operator when he goes. Don’t let him talk privately to anybody, not even for a few seconds. I don’t want you to seem to have him under guard before outsiders, but let him know it very plainly. He is not to mention a wire I sent or the answer to it—not to anybody, Jim. Is that plain?”
“Y’u bet! He’s a clam, all right, till the order is countermanded.” And the young man departed with a cheerful grin that assured Helen she had nothing to fear from official leaks.
Nora, from answering a telephone call, came to report to the general in charge. “The doctor says that he has looked after Mr. Bannister, and there is no immediate danger. If he keeps quiet for a few days he ought to do well. Mr. McWilliams sent a message by him to say that we aren’t to worry about him. He said he would—would—rope a heap of cows on the Lazy D yet.”
Nora, bursting into tears, flung herself into Helen’s arms. “They are going to kill him. I know they are, and—and ’twas only yesterday, ma’am, I told him not to—to get gay, the poor boy. When he tried to—to—” She broke down and sobbed.
Her mistress smiled in spite of herself, though she was bitterly aware that even Nora’s grief was only superficially ludicrous.
“We’re going to save him, Nora, if we can. There’s hope while there’s life. You see, Mac himself is full of courage. He hasn’t given up. We must keep up our courage, too.”
“Yes, ma’am, but this is the first gentleman friend I ever had hanged, and—” She broke off, sobbing, leaving the rest as a guess.
Helen filled it out aloud. “And you were going to say that you care more for him than any of the others. Well, you must stop coquetting and tell him so when we have saved him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” agreed Nora, very repentant for the moment of the fact that it was her nature to play with the hearts of those of the male persuasion. Immediately she added: “He was that kind, ma’am, tender-hearted.”