ing back to Van Dyne and take an engineering course."

"Got it all figured out, have you?"

"Then I heard they were building the Union Pacific, and I knew
something about telegraphing--Jim Foster and I had a line from the
house to the barn."

"Had a line from the house to the barn, eh?" chuckled Dancing.

"So I bought a railroad ticket to Des Moines from Pittsburgh and
staged it to Omaha, and General Park gave me a job right away and sent
me out on the first train to take this office, nights. I didn't even
know where Medicine Bend was."

"Don't believe you know yet. Now that's right, I don't believe you
know yet. You're a good boy, but you talk too much."

"How old are you, Bill?"

"I am twenty."

"Twenty!" echoed Bucks, as if that were not very much, either.

"Twenty!" repeated the lineman. "But," he added, drawing himself up in
his tremendous stature, with dignity, "I have been on the plains
driving wagons and building telegraph lines for seven years----"

"Seven years!" echoed Bucks, now genuinely admiring his companion.

"My father was a Forty-niner. I was a line foreman when I was
seventeen, for Edward Creighton, and we put the first telegraph line
through from the Missouri River to the Pacific," continued Dancing,
ready to back his words with blows if necessary.

"You _are_ an old-timer," cried Bucks enviously. "Any good rabbit-shooting
around here, Bill?"

"Rabbit-shooting?" echoed Dancing in scorn. "The only rabbits they
shoot around here, young fellow, are Pittsburgh rabbits, that
don't keep their ears hid proper. When we go hunting, we go
antelope-hunting, buffalo-hunting, grizzly-bear hunting, elk-hunting.
Now I don't say I don't like you and I don't say you won't do. What I
say is, you talk too much. I'll tell you what I've learned. I've
learned not to say too much at a time. And when I say it, I don't
say it very loud. And if you don't get killed, in advance, you will
learn the same thing in the same way I learned it. Where are your
blamed batteries?"

"Bill, you are all right."

"I am, am I?"

"First help me enter these way-bills and check up the express packages
so I can deliver them to this mob."

"My business isn't checking up express; but I like you, young fellow,
so, go ahead. Only you talk too much."

"Just a moment!"

At these words coming from the other end of the office, the lineman
and the operator looked around. The military-looking man and his
companion had entered the