Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/284

 but I think these are our friends. You can head Banks off by telephone somewhere if we change our minds when we get a trail. Start Brill Young and a good man from Sleepy Cat ahead of us, George, if you can, in a baggage car with any horses that they can get there. They can be at Tower W by daybreak and perhaps pick up a trail before we reach there, and we shall have fresh horses for them. I’m ready, I guess; let’s go. Slam the door, George!” In the hall Whispering Smith threw a pocket-light on his watch. “I want you to put us there by seven o’clock.”

“Charlie Sollers is going to pull you,” answered McCloud. “Have you got everything? Then we’re off.” The three men tiptoed down the dark hall, down the stairs, and across the street on a noiseless run for the railroad yard.

The air was chill and the sky clear, with a moon more than half to the full. “Lord, what a night to ride!” exclaimed Whispering Smith, looking mournfully at the stars. “Well planned, well planned, I must admit.”

The men hastened toward the yard, where lanterns were moving about the car of the train-guards near the Blue Front stables. The loading board had been lowered, and the horses were being carefully led into the car. From a switch engine behind the car a shrill cloud of steam bil- 260