thou to r

this nigh

d thine then

ride on

ight

an idea he was as surprised about it as I was, and that he had been expostulating with her about her expedition

e me the despairing glance of a sensible man who had tri

, if you go to Caraquet. And-Good heavens-you ought not to go, if you want the truth of it! Th

e to come over for a week and work for her. I'm going to stay all night with Mrs. Jones and bring her back in the morning. She'll never leave Billy unless she's fetched. So I really think you needn't worry, Mr. Macartney," she paused, and I

s must have struck him. I lost the angry, startled sentence he snapped out. But it could ha

going to Billy Jones's for the sake of a drive with me. The only real thought I had was that behind me, in the back of the wagon, were the boxe

d even though she belonged to another man, it was no thought with which to start on a lonely drive with her. I set my teeth on it and never opened them for a solid mile over the hummocky road through the endless spruce bush, behind which the sun had al

"Mr. Stretton, you're not angr

d women I seem to go blind and dumb. I know I never could read a detective story; the clues and complications always made me feel dizzy. I was pretty well dazed where I sat beside that girl I knew I ought to find out about, and her nearness did not help me t

wants Billy Jones's wife: she won't let me wait on her, and of course Charliet

t well enough,

irl quietly, "will you

ush ceased for a long stretch of swamp,-bare, featureless, and frozen. Then,

or I saw she was white to the lips, though her eyes met min

hing bumping around in the back of the wagon. I"-there was a s

aited. But she did not get out. She turned in her seat and reached backwards into the back of the wagon, as if she had neither bones nor joints in her lovely body. Marcia was right when she said it was perfectly educated and trained. For a moment I could think of nothing but the marvel

of startled puzzle too, as if she had sooner expected dy

there was no bottle in it. But it came over me that she might be pretending astonishment and have put the thing there herself while I was in my room getting my revolver; since there had been no one else near my wagon but Macartney, and he could not have left the horses' head

t see--" and she paused, staring at the bottle with a tho

at any of Dudley's things should be on my dream girl put me in a black, senseless fury. I wanted to take them straight off her and wrap her up in my own belongings. I grabbed at anything to say that would keep my

of the brew I spilled over

exclaimed sharply. "What

neither her, or me, or Dudley. I made as long a story as I could of my stay in Skunk's Misery when I took home the half-killed boy; of the filthy stuff

ught to have guessed"-but she either checked herself, or her pause was absolutely natural-"I should have guessed you'd had some sort of a horrible time that nigh

lt like a sulphide factory when it got on m

y more; it was stern, if a girl's face can be stern, and it was white with angry suspicion. Suddenly she laughed, rather

ended to know nothing of it, so I said not

" she said, as if she had been thinking. "I

een you to speak to till to-night, except," and I said it deliberately, "the firs

I would be a fool to fight my own thoughts of her with explanations, even if she chose to make any. I looked directly into her face instead. All I could see was her eyes, that were just dark pools in the dusk, and her mouth, oddly grave and unsmiling. But then and there-and any one who thinks me a fool is welcome to-my ugly suspicions

d up a seal for you, and I told you your hair was untidy before Marcia could. I think those are all t

u things-and when y

led along the side of the long rocky hill that followed the swamp, that I had to look hard to see her

had struck her, "do you mean you're ta

k I knew about Collins, much more all the stuff Marcia had said. B

een thinking I was, Mr. Stretton! Only," passionately, and it was the last thing

ld have driven all night with her beside me, and her a

y. "Why? You're not afraid we'll be held up,

beings," she returned simply

there, nosing round the bunk-house rubbish heap. And anyhow, a wolf or two wouldn't trouble us. They're cowardly things, unless they're in packs." I felt exactly as if I

hey seemed to be

ny on this road! I'v

an up-ending lurch, and nothing holding it to the horses but the reins. Why on earth they held I don't know. For with one almighty bound my two young horses tried to get away from me,-and they would have, if the reins had not been new

it is," said I. "If it's a wheel we're stuck

e come prepared for accidents. "There," she said, "I expect you can patch us up if I hold the horses. Here's a knife, too, and"-I turned hot all over, for she was putting something else i

was no business of mine, now or ever. I got the horses out of the traces and the pole straps, and let Paulette hold them while I levered the boulder out of the way, down the hillside. I was scared to do it, too, for fear they would get away from her, but she was evidently as used to horses as to wagons: Bob and Danny stood for her like lambs, while I set to work to repair damages. The pole was snapped, and the whiffletree smashed, so that the tra

l but shrieked at me

y's hind legs. I grabbed the reins from Paulette, and I thought of skunks, and a sulphide factory,-and dead skunks and rotten sulphide at that. Even in the freezing evening air the smell that came from th

a voice that matched it. "Let the horses go, I tell you! If there's anything left in that bottle it may save us for a-I mean," she caught herself up furiously, "it m

ssion of dead whales. For after the first choking explosion of the thing it reeked of nothi

th get in my wagon?" I gasped. And i

rtly. "Mr. Stretton, can't you hurry

d of a pole,-and suddenly both of them wound themselves up, with a jerk to try any pole. I had all I could do to keep them from a dead run, and if I k

aid sharply. "Mr. St

d changed it. "Just a

ree, four quarters at onc