a valuable man at keeping the
camp awake. Bill Dancing talked and, after Sinclair's name had been
dropped from the roll, ate and drank more than any two men on the
division. A little apart, McCloud lay on a leather caboose cushion
trying to get a nap.

"It was the day George McCloud came," continued Dancing, spinning a
continuous story. "Nobody was drinking--Murray Sinclair started that
yarn. I was getting fixed up a little for to meet George McCloud, so
I asked the barber for some tonic, and he understood me for to say
dye for my whiskers, and he gets out the dye and begins to dye my
whiskers. My cigar went out whilst he was shampooing me, and my
whiskers was wet up with the dye. He turned around to put down th'
bottle, and I started for to light my cigar with a parlor-match, and,
by gum! away went my whiskers on fire--burnt jus' like a tumbleweed.
There was the barbers all running around at once trying for to choke
me with towels, and running for water, and me sitting there
blazing like a tar-barrel. That's all there was to that story. I went
over to Doc Torpy's and got bandaged up, and he wanted me for to go to
the hospit'l--but I was going for to meet George McCloud." Bill
raised his voice a little and threw his tones carelessly over toward
the caboose cushion: "And I was the on'y man on the platform when
his train pulled in. His car was on the hind end. I walked back and
waited for some one to come out. It was about seven o'clock in the
evening and they was eating dinner inside, so I set up on the fence
for a minute, and who do you think got out of the car? That boy
laying right over there. 'Where's your dad?' says I; that's exactly
what I said. 'Dead,' says he. 'Dead!' says I, surprised-like. 'Dead,'
says he, 'for many years.' 'Where's the new superintendent?' says
I. 'I'm the new superintendent,' says he. Well, sir, you could have
blowed me over with a air-hose. 'Go 'way,' I says. 'What's the
matter with your face, Bill?' he says, while I was looking at him;
now that's straight. That was George McCloud, right over there,
the first time I ever set eyes on him or him on me. The assertion
was met with silence such as might be termed marked.

[Illustration: SCENE FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCTION OF "WHISPERING
SMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]

"Bucks told him," continued Bill Dancing, in corroborative detail,
"that when he got to Medicine Bend one man would be waiting for to
meet him. 'He met me,' says Bucks;