He must have weighed nearly three hundred pounds, and when Whitey first saw him, he at once wondered how he ever got on a horse, and then Whitey reflected that it sure would take a mighty strong horse to buck with Dan on it.
When Whitey arrived, Dan was in what he called his office, a small room all fitted up with saddles and bridles, and boots and spurs, and belts and guns, and--oh, yes; there was a little desk almost hidden in the litter, and Dan Brayton was seated at it, his face all wrinkled in the effort to solve some figures written on a piece of paper.
Dan received Whitey cordially, but seemed surprised to hear that he was the bearer of an important letter from Bill Jordan.

He held the letter in his hand and looked at it critically, as people do who are not in the habit of receiving many letters, and he asked: "How is Silent ?" "Silent ?" inquired the puzzled Whitey.
"Sure, Silent," replied Dan.

"That's what we allus called Bill Jordan back in Wyomin'." "Why, he talks all the time," said Whitey.
"That's th' reason we called him Silent," Dan answered, chuckling.
Whitey did not know that Bill Jordan hated this nickname, and had done his best to leave it behind when he moved from Wyoming, and that when he came to Montana he only got rid of it by licking several cowpunchers who tried to tack it onto him there.

But he answered that Bill was very well.

When Dan had looked the letter up and down, and behind and before, and over and back, he finally opened it and read it.
But before he had finished it, he was attacked by a violent fit of coughing and choking, and became almost purple in the face.