Halloway modestly thrust back the paper. "I kin write--some----" he said, "but not skeercely good enough fer thet. I 'lowed I'd get ye ter do hit fer me. Just say I haven't heered of no timber fer sale. His name's Will Brent an' mine's Jack Halloway." As the seated man grudgingly scribbled, the newcomer lounged lazily nearby, but just as the man at the key was about to begin sending, his instrument fell into a frenzied activity. Halloway thought that the other loiterers, who were really no more genuinely loitering than himself, made a poor showing of indifference, and that their attitudes betrayed their eagerness of waiting for whatever was coming over. Finally the electric chatter ended. The seated man had cut in once or twice with questions, and at the end he rose from his chair, not with a regularly transcribed message, but with a few hastily jotted notes on a sheet of paper in his hand. Impulse had brought him to his feet but he stood hesitant, bethinking himself of the presence of the interloper, and Halloway broke in with a drawling inquiry pitched to a stupid inflection. "Did ye send my message, Stranger? Did they say he war there?" The operator flung him a churlish glance and a short answer. "Thet office was busy," he said. "They didn't hev no time ter take your talk jest now." Then with exaggerated carelessness he turned to one of the other loungers. "Joe, ef ye'll come inter ther baggage room, I'll see ef thet express parcel o' yourn's in thar. I think hit came afore ther high-water." "I reckon," murmured Halloway disappointedly, "I'll hev ter wait a spell an' see kin I git my man later on," and making that observation he settled into his chair with a seeming of permanent intent. Meanwhile, in the privacy of the baggage room, the station-agent was whispering excitedly to his companion. The man in his chair beyond the door could of course hear no word of that hurried conference, but after all he had no need to do so. He had read its essence at first hand from the wire and it had run about like this: "She driv two of our fellows back with a pistol when they sought to follow her, but she left her mule and turned into the timber five miles this side of Coal City." Halloway had congratulated himself that to this extent at least Alexander had succeeded, but his pleasure had been short-lived for the operator here at Viper had flashed back the interrogation, "What then," and the other--who Halloway figured must be cutting in from Wolf-Pen Gap--rapped out the disquieting reply: "They're combin' ther timber fer her. Have your boys there head her off at the mouth of Chimney-pot Fork in case she circles round the Gap." A detail which might prove important struck Halloway as he listened. He had recognized the sending from the other end as a man may recognize a speaking voice.