“Where'd you get it?” asked Thorpe breathlessly.
“A fellow came here early and left it for you while I was sweeping out,” explained the boy. “Said he had to catch a train. It's yours all right, ain't it?”
He took the envelope and walked uncertainly to the tall window. He looked out at the chimneys. After a moment he tore open the envelope.
“I hope there's no bad news, sir?” said the clerk, startled at the paleness of the face Thorpe turned to the desk.
“No,” replied the landlooker. “Give me a receipt. There's a certified check for your money!”
Now that the strain was over, Thorpe experienced a great weariness. The long journey through the forest, his sleepless night on the train, the mental alertness of playing the game with shrewd foes all these stretched his fibers out one by one and left them limp. He accepted stupidly the clerk's congratulations on his success, left the name of the little hotel off Fort Street as the address to which to send the deeds, and dragged himself off with infinite fatigue to his bed-room. There he fell at once into profound unconsciousness.
He was awakened late in the afternoon by the sensation of a strong pair of young arms around his shoulders, and the sound of Wallace Carpenter's fresh voice crying in his ears:
“Wake up, wake up! you Indian! You've been asleep all day, and I've been waiting here all that time. I want to hear about it. Wake up, I say!”
Thorpe rolled to a sitting posture on the edge of the bed, and smiled uncertainly. Then as the sleep drained from his brain, he reached out his hand.
“You bet we did 'em, Wallace,” said he, “but it looked like a hard proposition for a while.”
“How was it? Tell me about it!” insisted the boy eagerly. “You don't know how impatient I've been. The clerk at the Land Office merely told me it was all right. How did you fix it?”
While Thorpe washed and shaved and leisurely freshened himself, he detailed his experiences of the last week.
“And,” he concluded gravely, “there's only one man I know or ever heard of to whom I would have considered it worth while even to think of sending that telegram, and you are he. Somehow I knew you'd come to the scratch.”
“It's the most exciting thing I ever heard of,” sighed Wallace drawing a full breath, “and I wasn't in it! It's the sort of thing I long for. If I'd only waited another two weeks before coming down!”