Page:Frank Spearman--Whispering Smith.djvu/445

 pass, and called for a pen; Bucks had never lost his gracious way of doing very little things. He laid the card on the table and wrote across the back of it over his name: "Good on all passenger trains." When he handed the card back to Marion he turned to Dicksie. "I understand you are laying out two or three towns on the ranch, Mrs. McCloud?"

"Two or three! Oh, no, only one as yet, Mr. Bucks! They are laying out, oh, such a pretty town! Cousin Lance is superintending the street work—and whom do you think I am going to name it after? You! I think ’Bucks’ makes a dandy name for a town, don’t you? And I am going to have one town named Dunning; there will be two stations on the ranch, you know, and I think, really, there ought to be three."

"As many as that?"

"I don’t believe you can operate a line that long, Mr. Bucks, with stations fourteen miles apart." Bucks opened his eyes in benevolent surprise. Dicksie, unabashed, kept right on: "Well, do you know how traffic is increasing over there, with the trains running only two months now? Why, the settlers are fairly pouring into the country."

"Will you give me a corner lot if we put another station on the ranch?" 419