room unobserved and stood at the
counter listening to the colloquy between the Eastern boy and the
plainsman--for neither of the two were more than boys. Dancing
saluted the new-comers. "It's Colonel Stanley and Bob Scott," he
exclaimed.

Bucks walked forward. Stanley handed him a message. "You are the night
operator? Here is a despatch for General Park. Get it out for me right
away, will you?"

Dancing came forward to the railing. "How are you, Bill?" said
Stanley, greeting the lineman as Bucks read the long message. "I am
going up into the mountains next week, and I am just asking General
Park for a cavalry detail."

"Going to need me, Colonel?"

"Better hold yourself ready. Can you read that, young man?" he asked,
speaking to Bucks.

"Yes, sir."

"Lose no time in getting it off."

With the words he turned on his heel and leaving the office went
upstairs to the despatcher's rooms. During the interval that the
message was being sent, Dancing worked at the express matter. While
the two were busy, Bob Scott, moving so quietly that he disturbed no
one, laid carefully upon the smouldering paper in the stove such chips
as he could pick from the wood-box, nursing and developing a little
blaze until, without noise or fuss, he soon had a good fire going. In
all of the mountain country there was but one kind of men who built
fires in that way and these were Indians.

Such was Bob Scott, who, wet to the skin from his ride down the hills
with Stanley, now stood slowly drying himself and watching Dancing and
the new operator.

Scott was a half-blood Chippewa Indian, silent as a mountain night and
as patient as time. He served Colonel Stanley as guide and scout
wherever the railroad man rode upon his surveys or reconnoissances.
Dancing, emerging presently from the batteries, greeted Scott again,
this time boisterously. The Indian only smiled, but his face reflected
the warmth of his friendship for the big lineman. And at this juncture
Dancing, slapping him on the shoulder, turned to introduce him to
Bucks. The three stood and talked a moment together, though, perhaps,
without realizing what they were almost at once to go through
together. The outgoing Eastern passenger train now pulled up to the
platform and Bucks was kept busy for some time selling tickets.

His buyers were all sorts and conditions of men. And one forlorn-looking
woman, with a babe in her arms and a little girl clinging to her
skirt, asked the pric