Bucks took the cigar from his mouth, leaned forward in his chair, and stretched his heavy chin out of his neck as if the situation now promised a story. The leader, Smith continued, was the mine blacksmith, a strapping Welshman, from whom McCloud had taken the Italian in the street. The blacksmith had a revolver, and was crazy with liquor. McCloud singled him out in the crowd, pointed a finger at him, got the attention of the men, and lashed him across the table with his tongue until the blacksmith opened fire on him with his revolver, McCloud all the while shaking his finger at him and abusing him like a pickpocket. "The crowd couldn't believe its eyes," Gordon Smith concluded, "and McCloud was pushing for the blacksmith with his cue when Kennedy and I squirmed through to the front and relieved the tension. McCloud wasn't hit." "What is that mining man's name?" asked Bucks, reaching for a message clip. "McCloud." "First name?" continued Bucks mechanically. "George." Bucks looked at his companion in surprise. Then he spoke, and a feeling of self-abasement was reflected in his words. "George McCloud," he echoed. "Did you say George? Why, I must know that man. I turned him down once for a job. He looked so peaceable I thought he was too soft for us." The president laid down his cigar with a gesture of disgust. "And yet there really are people along this line that think I'm clever. I haven't judgment enough to operate a trolley car. It's a shame to take the money they give me for running this system, Gordon. Hanged if I didn't think that fellow was too soft." He called the flagman over. "Tell Whitmyer we will stay at Cold Springs to-night." "I thought you were going through to Medicine Bend," suggested Smith as the trainman disappeared. "McCloud," repeated Bucks, taking up his cigar and throwing back his head in a cloud of smoke. "Yes," assented his companion; "but I am going through to Medicine Bend, Mr. Bucks." "Do." "How am I to do it?" "Take the car and send it back to-morrow on Number Three." "Thank you, if you won't need it to-night." "I sha'n't. I am going to stay at Cold Springs to-night and hunt up McCloud." "But that man is in bed in a very bad way; you can't see him. He is going to die." "No, he isn't. I am going to hunt him up and have him taken care of." That night Bucks, in the twilight, was sitting by McCloud's bed, smoking and looking him over. "Don't mind me," he said when he entered the room, lifted the ill-smelling lamp from the table, and, without taking time to blow it out, pitched it through the open window. "I heard you were sick, and just looked in to see how they were taking care of you. Wilcox," he added, turning to the nurse he had brought in--a barber who wanted to be a railroad man, and had agreed to step into the breach and nurse McCloud--"have a box of miner's candles sent up from the roundhouse. We have some down there; if not, buy a box and send me the bill."