"It ended in my having to organize the special service on the whole road to look after a thousand and one things that nobody else had--well, let us say time or inclination to look after: fraud and theft and violence and all that sort of disagreeable thing. Then one day the cat crawled out of the bag. What do you think? That man who is now president of this road had somewhere seen a highly colored story about me in a magazine, a ten-cent magazine, you know. He had spotted me the first time I walked into his office, and told me a long time afterward it was just like seeing a man walk out of a book, and that he had hard work to keep from falling on my neck. He knew what he wanted me for; it was just this thing. I left Chicago to get away from it, and this is the result. It is not all that kind of thing, oh, no! When they want to cross a reservation I have a winter in Washington with our attorneys and dine with old friends in the White House, and the next winter I may be on snowshoes chasing a band of rustlers. I swore long ago I would do no more of it--that I couldn't and wouldn't. But it is Bucks. I can't go back on him. He is amiable and I am soft. He says he is going to have a crown and harp for me some day, but I fancy--that is, I have an intimation--that there will be a red-hot protest at the bar of Heaven," he lowered his tone, "from a certain unmentionable quarter when I undertake to put the vestments on. By the way, I hear you are interested in chickens. Oh, yes, I've heard a lot about you! Bob Johnson, over at Oroville, has some pretty bantams I want to tell you about." Whether he talked railroad or chickens, it was all one: Dicksie sat spellbound; and when he announced it was half-past three o'clock and time to rouse Marion, she was amazed. [Illustration: SCENE FROM THE PHOTO-PLAY PRODUCTION OF "WHISPERING SMITH." (C) _American Mutual Studio_.]