“I shall feel as if I am back on Blue Bird Ridge again,” Nell said to herself, with a first sensation of dismay, when she stepped out of the cars at Camp’s Gulch next morning and looked round upon her new surroundings.
Then she shivered a little, as she had done many times since the previous afternoon, when, standing by the side of the track at Bratley, she had heard that fretful voice exclaim, “Why, there’s Nell!” as the moving cars slid past.
The voice had belonged to Doss Umpey, of that she was quite sure, and, remembering the warning telegram, she was miserably uneasy about the matter. Having seen no one, it was plainly no business of hers to report the circumstance. But someone else would see him and his companions, if he had any, so it was only a question of time, perhaps very short time, before he would be under police supervision, maybe even in prison, for some law-breaking of the past which had but recently come to light.
The incident had spoiled all her pleasure at Gertrude’s arrival, but it had also the effect of dulling her pain about leaving Bratley. Indeed, she had been feverishly glad to get away, and could have wished that the distance had been a hundred miles instead of only fifteen, because then the chances of another encounter with Doss Umpey would have been so much lessened.
It was only the first look at Camp’s Gulch which dismayed her, for a turn round revealed the open door and pleasant, curtained windows of the house where she was to board with the station-master and his wife.
Then a white-haired old man, frail of aspect and with a most benevolent face, accosted her, bowing profoundly.
“Our new young lady, ain’t you, miss? Very glad to see you, I’m sure. Hope you’ll be happy up here. Trip, my name is—Joey Trip at your service—and marm indoors there is just spoiling for a sight of you.”
“I will run and speak to her at once, then,” Nell said, with a laugh; “but I will come back quickly, because I shall be wanted in the office.”
“The young man what’s been catching on here since Miss Irons got married week afore last goes back to Lytton in half an hour’s time. Marm says she’s just awful glad he’s going, for he’s that sickly she’s afraid he’ll take to his bed one of these days, and won’t get up again. It’s dreadful bad to be weakly; I hope you don’t have bad health,” the old man said, as he courteously waved Nell towards the door of the log house, before which a white-haired woman was standing. Then, as Nell moved towards her, he called out, “You’ll have to raise your voice a bit, miss, for marm is rather hard of hearing.”
As a matter of fact, Mrs. Trip was stone deaf, and when Nell had shouted to the utmost extent of her vocal powers without making herself heard, the old woman laid her wrinkled hand on Nell’s arm and whispered impressively—