ave a winter in Washington
with our attorneys and dine with old friends in the White House, and
the next winter I may be on snowshoes chasing a band of rustlers. I
swore long ago I would do no more of it--that I couldn't and wouldn't.
But it is Bucks. I can't go back on him. He is amiable and I am soft.
He says he is going to have a crown and harp for me some day, but I
fancy--that is, I have an intimation--that there will be a red-hot
protest at the bar of Heaven," he lowered his tone, "from a certain
unmentionable quarter when I undertake to put the vestments on. By the
way, I hear you are interested in chickens. Oh, yes, I've heard a lot
about you! Bob Johnson, over at Oroville, has some pretty bantams I
want to tell you about."

Whether he talked railroad or chickens, it was all one: Dicksie sat
spellbound; and when he announced it was half-past three o'clock and
time to rouse Marion, she was amazed.

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

Dawn showed in the east. The men eating breakfast in tents were to be
sent on a work-train up a piece of Y-track that led as near as they
could be taken to where they were needed. The train had pulled out
when Dicksie, Marion, McCloud, and Whispering Smith took horses to get
across to the hills and through to the ranch-house. They had ridden
slowly for some distance when McCloud was called back. The party
returned and rode together into the mists that hung below the bridge.
They came out upon a little party of men standing with lanterns on a
piece of track where the river had taken the entire grade and raced
furiously through the gap. Fog shrouded the light of the lanterns and
lent gloom to the silence, but the women could see the group that
McCloud had joined. Standing above his companions on a pile of ties, a
tall young man holding a megaphone waited. Out of the darkness there
came presently a loud calling. The tall young man at intervals bawled
vigorously into the fog in answer. Far away could be heard, in the
intervals of silence, the faint clang of the work-train engine-bell.
Again the voice came out of the fog. McCloud took the megaphone and
called repeatedly. Two men rowed a boat out of the back-water behind
the grade, and when McCloud stepped into it, it was released on a line
while the oarsmen guided it across the flood until it disappeared. The
two megaphone voices could still be heard. After a time t