Dicksie's Ride

When Lance Dunning entered the room ten minutes later, Dicksie stood at the telephone; but the ten minutes of that interval had made quite another creature of his cousin. The wires were down and no one from any quarter gave a response to her frantic ringing. Through the receiver she could hear only the sweep of the rain and the harsh crackle of the wind. Sometimes praying, sometimes fainting, and sometimes despairing, she stood clinging to the instrument, ringing and pounding upon it like one frenzied. Lance looked at her in amazement. "Why, God a'mighty, Dicksie, what's the matter?"

He called twice to her before she turned, and her words almost stunned him: "Why did you not detain Sinclair here to-night? Why did you not arrest him?"

Lance's sombrero raked heavily to one side of his face, and one end of his mustache running up much higher on the other did not begin to express his astonishment. "Arrest him? Arrest Sinclair? Dicksie, are you crazy? Why the devil should I arrest Sinclair? Do you suppose I am going to mix up in a fight like this? Do you think I want to get killed? The level-headed man in this country, just at present, is the man who can keep out of trouble, and the man who succeeds, let me tell you, has got more than plenty to do."

Lance, getting no answer but a fierce, searching gaze from Dicksie's wild eyes, laid his hand on a chair, lighted a cigar, and sat down before the fire. Dicksie dropped the telephone receiver, put her hand to her girdle, and looked at him. When she spoke her tone was stinging. "You know that man is going to Medicine Bend to kill his wife!"