Bat smiled sleepily.  “Thinks you’re hungering and thirsting for news of his flock, does he?”

“No, blank it,” snapped the news editor.

“It’s another kind of flock that’s worrying us this morning.”

Bat’s smile faded to a sly haze in his sleepy eyes.

“What has the old boy got to say?”

“How do you know he is old?” snapped the news editor.

Bat didn’t volunteer on that point.

“Ask him what his name is,” suggested Brydges.

“What did you say the name was?  Matthews—­Matthews—­is that it?  Wait, please!” The news-editor put his hand over the mouth piece of the telephone.

“Know anything about him, Bat?”

“I should say I do!  Choke it off!  He’s staying with Missionary Williams at the Indian School, and you know about how much love is lost between Williams and Moyese.”

“But we can’t possibly suppress this, Bat.  It will be all over the country.”

“Better see whose ox is gored,” advised Brydges.

“But we’ve got to get this, Brydges!  The stage driver’s told one of my men, already!  Every bar-room buffer in the country side will know it by night.”

“Then you had better get it straight,” advised Bat.

The news-man looked in space through eyes narrowed to an arrow.  Bat watched sleepily.  “If we choke this old chap’s account off, can you give one to us?”

“Got it in my pocket!  I’ve just come in on the stage!”

“I thought you came down in a motor with the Senator?  Didn’t he take the morning limited for Washington?”

“Well, the darn thing broke down so often it was bad as the stage.  Anyway, I’ve got the story for you—­”

“Senator O. K. it?” The news-man hung the telephone receiver up, still keeping his hand over the mouth piece.

“Lord, no!” Bat slid off the table, tore the sheets from his note book and handed the story of the Rim Rocks across to the editor.

“What do you take the Senator for?  He knows nothing about it; but it’s in his constituency, and I guess his own paper should see that the account which goes in is straight.”

The news-editor hoisted his foot to the seat of a chair and stood racing his eyes through sheet after sheet of Brydges’s copy.  Bat lighted a cigar, put his hands in his pockets and pivoted on his heels.  There was the squeak, squeak, squeak of a child’s new boots coming up the first flight of stairs; and a squeak, squeak, squeak up the second flight of stairs; and a little girl, not twelve years old, resplendent in such tawdry finery as might have stepped out of an East End London pawn shop, presented herself framed in the doorway of the reporter’s room.  She plainly belonged to the immigrant section of Smelter City.  The news-editor never took his eyes from Bat’s copy.  They were eyes made for drilling holes into the motives behind facts.  Bat emitted a whistle that was a laugh.