Whispering Smith
cried. “I’m coming to Medicine Bend, superintendent of the division!”
“Mr. McCloud!” Marion Sinclair clasped her hands and dropped into a chair. “Have they made you superintendent already?”
“Well, I like that! Do you want them to wait till I’m gray-headed?”
Marion threw her hands to her own head. “Oh, don’t say anything about gray hairs. My head won’t bear inspection. But I can’t get over this promotion coming so soon—this whole big division! Well, I congratulate you very sincerely”
“Oh, but that isn’t it! I suppose anybody will congratulate me. But where am I to board? Have you a cook? You know how I went from bad to worse after you left Cold Springs. May I have my meals here with you as I used to there?”
“Why, I suppose you can, yes, if you can stand the cooking. I have an apprentice, Mr. Dancing’s daughter, who does pretty well. She lives here with me, and is learning the business. But I sha’n’t take as much as you used to pay me, for I’m doing so much better down here.”
“Let me run that end of it, will you? I shall be doing better down here myself.”
They laughed as they bantered. Marion Sinclair wore gold spectacles, but they did not hide the
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