An hour went past, an hour and a quarter--Stella Donovan was still
writing. An hour and a half. Westcott saw her face tensing under the
strain, saw it grow wan and white, and, reaching down he gripped the
fingers that clenched the pencil.
"No more, Stella," he said firmly, "you've sent four thousand!"
She looked at him tenderly. "Please, Jim," she begged, "just let me
add one more paragraph. It's the most important one of all."
The miner released her hand and the girl wrote hurriedly, this time
passing the sheets direct to Carson. Heroically the station agent
stuck to his task, and as he tossed the first of the sheets aside, an
eddying wisp of wind caught it, danced it a moment on the table-top,
then slid it over under the very palm of big Jim Westcott's right hand.
Slowly he picked it up and read it.
"So!" he said, with something strangely like a cry in his deep voice,
"so you've resigned from the _Star_, and you're going to stay in
Haskell?"
The girl looked at him, her lips trembling.
"I never want to be a lady reporter again," she whispered.
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