"Your place is outside," continued the operator. "I can't do anything with a mob in here all talking at once." "I haven't done my talking yet," suggested the man, with a shade of significance. This, however, was lost on Bucks, who looked sharply at the stool from which the man had risen. "I think this stool is mine," said he, picking it up and examining it. "It is mine," he added, after a moment's inspection. "Please move on." "Perhaps before I go," returned the man with the same unpleasant irony, "you will tell me whether you have an express package here for Harvey Levake." "Of course I will, Harvey," responded the operator in a matter-of-fact way. "Just wait a minute." Levake's lips stretched into a ghost of a smile, and his white-lashed gray eyes contracted with an effort at amiability. The operator, going inside the railing, ran over the express way-bills which, not yet entered up, lay on the freight desk. "There is a package here for you," he announced a moment later, and turning to a heap of parcels thrown under the desk he searched among them until he found and produced the one he sought. "Here it is--a box of cartridges." "What are the charges?" asked the man. "Four dollars and sixty cents." The man laid down a twenty-dollar bank-bill. The operator hesitated: "I haven't the change." Levake showed no sympathy: "That is not my fault," he returned. The operator looked at him: "Do you want the package to-night?" "If I didn't, do you suppose I would waste an hour here waiting for it?" The boy considered a moment and made a decision, but it chanced to be the wrong decision. "Take the package along. Bring me the charges in the morning." Levake made no response beyond a further glance at the boy somewhat contemptuous; but he said nothing and picking up his package walked out. No one opposed him. Indeed, had the operator been interested he would have noticed with what marked alacrity every man, as he passed through the waiting-room, got out of Levake's way. Dancing, standing at the door and with his hair on end, awaited the close of the incident. He now re-entered the inner office and shut the waiting-room door behind him with an audible bang. Bucks, who had returned to his table, looked around. "Well, who are you?" he demanded as he regarded Dancing. "And what are you doing here?" "Who are you?" retorted Dancing bluntly. "And what are you doing here?" "My name is Bucks and I am the new night operator." "You look new. And you act all-fired new. My name is Bill Dancing and I am the telegraph lineman." "Why, you are the man I am looking for." "So I thought, when you pushed me out of here with the rest of your visitors." "Why didn't you speak up, Bill?" demanded Bucks calmly. A quizzical expression passed over Dancing's face. "I didn't want to break the calm. When I see a man walking around a powder magazine I hate to do anything that might set it off.