On the morning of the third day Dicksie Dunning, who had gone home from Medicine Bend and who had been telephoning Marion and George McCloud two days for news, was trying to get Medicine Bend again on the telephone when Puss came in to say that a man at the kitchen door wanted to see her.
"I d'no, Miss Dicksie; 'deed, I never seen him b'fore."
Dicksie walked around on the porch to the kitchen. A dust-covered man sitting on a limp horse threw back the brim of his hat as he touched it, lifted himself stiffly out of the saddle, and dropped to the ground. He laughed at Dicksie's startled expression. "Don't you know me?" he asked, putting out his hand. It was Whispering Smith.
He was a fearful sight. Stained from head to foot with alkali, saddle-cramped and bent, his face scratched and stained, he stood with a smiling appeal in his bloodshot eyes.
Dicksie gave a little uncertain cry, clasped her hands, and, with a scream, threw her arms impulsively around his neck. "Oh, I did not know you! What has happened? I am so glad to see you! Tell me what has happened. Are you hurt?"
He stammered like a school-boy. "Nothing has happened. What's this? Don't cry; nothing at all has happened. I didn't realize what a tramp I look or I shouldn't have come. But I was only a mile away and I had heard nothing for four days from Medicine Bend. And how are you? Did your ride make you ill? No? By Heaven, you are a game girl. That was a ride! How are they all? Where's your cousin? In town, is he? I thought I might get some news if I rode up, and oh, Miss Dicksie--jiminy! some coffee. But I've got only two minutes for it all, only two minutes; do you think Puss has any on the stove?"
Dicksie with coaxing and pulling got him into the kitchen, and Puss tumbled over herself to set out coffee and rolls. He showed himself ravenously hungry, and ate with a simple directness that speedily accounted for everything in sight. "You have saved my life. Now I am going, and thank you a thousand times. There, by Heaven, I've forgotten Wickwire! He is with me--waiting down in the cottonwoods at the fork. Could Puss put up a lunch I could take to him? He hasn't had a scrap for twenty-four hours. But, Dicksie, your tramp is a hummer! I've tried to ride him down and wear him out and lose him, and, by Heaven, he turns up every time and has been of more use to me than two men."