Timber-Wolf, his purposes crystallizing, did not attempt to rejoin Winch and Mexicali Joe. By the time he had ridden to the spot where his saddle was hidden and had thrown it upon Daylight's back, drawing his cinch savagely, he had begun to get his proper perspective. He knew that he could trust Billy Winch in all things; that Winch, with all of that persevering patience which the occasion demanded and that veterinary skill and love for animals which marked him, would do all that any man could to get Thor home and to care for him. And now, for Bruce Standing, beyond the stricken dog lay other considerations: There remained Lynette and Babe Deveril! He ground his teeth in savage rage and from Daylight's first leap under him rode hard.
Long before the early sun rose he was back at his own headquarters, a man grim and hard and purposeful. Rough garbed and still booted he strode through his study and into his larger office; and in this environment the man's magnificent virility was strikingly accentuated. Here was his wilderness home, a place of elegance and of palpitant centres of numerous large activities; not a dozen miles from Big Pine and yet, in all appearances, set apart from Young Gallup's crude town as far as the ends of earth. He stood in a great, hard-wooded room of orderly tables and desks and telephones and electric push-buttons. He set an impatient thumb upon a button; at the same moment his other hand caught up a telephone instrument. While the push-button still sent its urgent message he caught a response from his telephone. Into the receiver he called sharply:
[Pg 295]
"Bristow? In a hurry, Standing speaking: Give me the stables; get Billy Winch!"
All the while that insistent thumb of his upon the button! There came bursting into the big room, half dressed and clutching at his clothes, a young man whose eyes were still heavy with sleep.
"You, Graham," Standing commanded him. "Get busy on our long-distance wire. My lawyers.... Get Ben Brewster! It's the hurry of a lifetime!"
Young Graham, with suspenders dragging, flew to the switchboard. Meantime came a response from the inter-phone connecting him with the stables.
"Billy Winch?" he called.
"No, sir, Mr. Standing," said a voice. "This is Dick Ross. Bill, he got in late and was up all night nearly, working over a bad case that come in. Shall I...."
"That case," Standing told him abruptly, "was my dog, Thor. Find out who was left in charge when Bill went to sleep; call me right away and give me a report on Thor." With that he rang off.
All the while his secretary, Graham, had been plugging away at his switchboard. Standing, pacing up and down, heard his "Hello—hello—hello."
Within three minutes the stable telephone rang sharply. Standing caught it up. It was Dick Ross again, reporting:
"Bill didn't go off the case until three o'clock this morning. Had to operate again at about two; taking out a little piece of skull bone. He left Charley Peters in charge then; Charley's on the job now."
"Thor's alive then?"
"Yes, sir."
"Fine! I'll be out in a few minutes to see him. Bill's got him in the 'hospital'?"
[Pg 296]
"Sure, Mr. Standing. Thor couldn't be gettin' better care if he was King of England."
Standing rang off and came back to Graham from whose eyes now all heaviness of sleep had fled, leaving them keen and quick. Hardly more than a youngster, this Graham, and yet Timber-Wolf's confidential secretary, trained by Standing himself to Standing's ways.
"I've got Mr. Brewster's home on the wire," said Graham looking up. "He's not up yet but they're calling him...."
Standing took the instrument.
"I'll hold it for him. Now, Graham, order breakfast served here for you and me; plenty of extra coffee for the boys I'll be having in.... Get Al Blake on our wire to Red Creek Mine.... Arrange to have Bill Winch show up here as soon as he's awake; he's to bring Ross and Peters with him.... And Mexicali Joe; make sure that Joe didn't see any one to talk with last night. I want Joe here with Winch.... Hello! Hello! Is this Ben Brewster?"
He heard his lawyer's voice over the wire; then, somewhere over the long line something went wrong; Brewster was gone again. An operator at the end of Standing's own private part of the line, seventy-five miles away, was saying:
"Just a minute, Mr. Standing ... I'll get him for you...."
"Thanks, Henry," said Standing. And while he waited for the promised service which was to link him with a man nearly two hundred miles away, he was working hastily with pencil and pad. Graham was already carrying out his string of orders, getting dressed with one hand meantime.
"Brewster?" Standing spoke again into the telephone. "I've got something big and urgent on. Can
[Pg 297]
 you come up right away? Take a car to Placer Hill. I'll have a man meet you there with a saddle-horse, and you'll have to ride the last twenty miles in. We're forming a new mining company; I want to shoot it through one-two-three! Bring what papers we'll want; that will be all the baggage you need to stop for. Graham will have all particulars ready for you. Thanks, Ben. So long.
"Graham!"
Graham swung about expectantly.
"Get the stables. A couple of the best horses...." "I've already got them," said Graham.... It was for such reasons that Graham, though a youngster, could hold so difficult position as private secretary to Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf.
Al Blake was Standing's mining expert, general superintendent of all his mining interests and the one source to which he applied for advice on all mining matters. He was the highest salaried man on the extensive pay-roll and the shrewdest. In a few minutes Graham announced that he had the Red Creek Mine on the wire and that Blake was coming.
"I want you here on the jump, Al," said Standing. "And I need forty of our best men; scare up as many as you can at your diggings; I can fill the number down here. Just good men, understand? Men you know; men who at a pinch will fight like hell; every man with a rifle."
"Sounds like St. Ives!" grunted Blake, wide awake by now. "All right. I'm on my way in ten minutes."
Standing began pacing up and down again, his eyes frowning. He needed Billy Winch right now; needed him the worst way. For here was work to be done of the sort which invariably he placed in Winch's capable hands. But Winch had had a night of it and Standing
[Pg 298]
 was not the man to overlook that fact as long as he could put his hand on another man who would do....
"Have Dick Ross up, on the run," he told Graham.
Breakfast came, served on big massive trays by the Japanese servant. Almost at the same moment, and literally on the run, Dick Ross came in.
"Scare up ten good men for me, Ross. With rifles, all ready to ride. I'll have breakfast ready for them here." Graham caught the alert eye of the Japanese who set down his trays hurriedly and with a quick nod raced off to the kitchen. Standing looked sternly at Ross and said curtly: "I'm handing you a job that would usually go to Winch, Ross, but he's asleep...."
"He was just getting up again, Mr. Standing. Said he wanted to see for himself how Thor was pulling along...."
"Then," said Standing, "hop back and tell Winch what I said. He can tell you the men to pick ... or, if he's busy working with Thor he can leave it to you. Of course I want you to be of the number; Peters also if Winch doesn't need him; Winch, too, if he says the word...."
Standing and Graham ate standing up. Men summoned began coming in. Each of them was given brief clean-cut orders and allowed brief time to gulp a hot breakfast. Billy Winch came first, bringing with him Mexicali Joe.
"He's going to be all right, I think," said Winch by way of greeting, and Standing understood that he was reporting on Thor. "I never saw man or animal worse shot-all-to-hell, either. I got him in bed now, strapped down; he's conscious this morning and had a fair night, all things considered. There's nothing more to be done right away, just be kept quiet...."
"I was coming out in a minute...."
[Pg 299]
"I can't have folks running in on him, Timber," said Winch, with a slow shake of the head, mumbling over a mouthful of ham and egg. "But if you'd just run in on him one second, to sort of let him know you was with him, you know, and then beat it, it might do him good."
"Can you leave for two or three hours? To go down with Al Blake and some of the boys to stake a string of mining claims down in Light Ladies' Gulch?............