essary courtesy. For the newcomer, an operator but little older than
himself, was distinctly a "dude"--from his patent-leather shoes and
polka-dotted stockings to his red-and-yellow banded white straw hat. His
carefully-pressed suit was the very latest thing in light checked gray,
he wore a collar which threatened to envelope his ears, and his white tie
was of huge dimensions. Also he possessed the fair pink-and-white
complexion of a girl.

Alex was not alone in his derisive attitude toward the stranger. Shortly
following the appearance of the night chief Mr. Jennings nodded everyone
a good-evening, and departed, and immediately there was a general roar of
laughter in the operating-room.

"Where did he fall from?" "Whose complexion powder is he advertising?"
"Did you get onto his picture socks?" were some of the remarks bandied
about.

When the chief announced that the new operator was from the east, and was
being sent to the little foothills tank-station of Bonepile, there was a
fresh outburst of hilarity.

"Why, that cowboy outfit near there will string him up to the tank
spout," declared the operator on whose wire Bonepile was located. "It's
the toughest proposition on the wire."

"On the quiet, that is just why Jordan is sending him," the night chief
said. "Not to have him strung up, that is, but to put him in the way of
'finding himself,' so to speak."

"He'll certainly 'find himself' there, then--if there's anything left to
find when the ranch crew get through," laughed the operator. "I'd give
five real dollars to see that show, and walk back."

"At that, you _might_ have to walk back, if you wagered your money on the
outcome," responded the chief more gravely, turning to his desk. "Clothes
don't make a man--neither do they un-make one. The 'Dude' may surprise us
yet."

Whether the outcome of his appointment to the little watering station was
to be a surprise or no, there was no doubt of Wilson Jennings' surprise
when the following morning he alighted from the train at Bonepile, and as
the train sped on, awoke to the realization that he was entirely alone.
Blankly he gazed at the little red-brown "drygoods-box" depot, the
water-tank, the hills to the west, and to north, south and east the
limitless stretching prairie. He had never imagined anything like this
when he had decided on giving up a good position in the east to taste
"some adventure" in the great west.

However, here he was; and picking up his