Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/441

 anyway, when a division superintendent is trying to get home. What difference does it make to a passenger, I’d like to know, whether he is a few hours less or longer in getting to California or Japan or Manila or Hongkong or Buzzard’s Gulch, provided he is safe—and you know there has not been an accident on the division for a year, Marion. There’s a step now. I’ll bet that’s George!”

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 415