Back to the Mountains

The door opened and it was George.

"Oh, honey!" cried Dicksie softly, waving her arms as she stood an instant before she ran to him. "But haven't I been a-waitin' for you!"

"Too bad! and, Marion," he exclaimed, turning without releasing his wife from his arms, "how can I ever make good for all this delay? Oh, yes, I've had dinner. Never, for Heaven's sake, wait dinner for me! But wait, both of you, till you hear the news!"

Dicksie kept her hands on his shoulders. "You have heard from Whispering Smith!"

"I have."

"I knew it!"

"Wait till I get it straight. Mr. Bucks is here--I came in with him in his car. He has news of Whispering Smith. One of our freight-traffic men in the Puget Sound country, who has been in a hospital in Victoria, learned by the merest accident that Gordon Smith was lying in the same hospital with typhoid fever."

Marion rose swiftly. "Then the time has come, thank God, when I can do something for him; and I am going to him to-night!"

"Fine!" cried McCloud. "So am I, and that is why I'm late."

"Then I am going, too," exclaimed Dicksie solemnly.

"Do you mean it?" asked her husband. "Shall we let her, Marion? Mr. Bucks says I am to take his car and take Barnhardt, and keep the car there till I can bring Gordon back. Mr. Bucks and his secretary will ride to-night as far as Bear Dance with us, and in the morning they join Mr. Glover there." McCloud looked at his watch. "If you are both going, can you be ready by twelve o'clock for the China Mail?"