She was in her office, putting away things for the night, when she heard wheels rumbling along the road, and, looking out, saw a rough two-wheeled cart drawing up by the big shed.
“Oh, they have come for the valuables! How lucky!” she exclaimed to herself. Not stopping to shut the office door, she ran along to the big shed to open the double doors, and, if necessary, help the man to load the cases on the cart.
To her surprise, however, he had not come for goods, but had brought a dead Chinaman along in a coffin, to be put on the cars for Vancouver, whence the remains would be shipped to the land of his nativity.
“But the train ain’t gone yet for sure, is it?” asked the man in charge of this gruesome freight.
“Yes, ten minutes or a quarter of an hour ago. Why didn’t you hurry up?” said Nell, sharply.
“I thought I’d time, plenty of it, but it’s that wretched watch of mine; stops the thing does, then goes on again after half an hour or so as comfortable as you please, and me none the wiser,” the fellow said, drawing out his watch and showing it to Nell, who saw that it was, as he had said, half an hour slow.
“What are you going to do?” she asked curtly.
“Leave him here, of course, to go by first train in the morning; it won’t make much difference to him I guess, whether it’s now or next week. But I was told to get him here for the night cars, and I guess Li Hung will be pretty mad when he knows I missed. Still, accidents will happen sometimes.”
“Where does he—I mean where does it come from?” asked Nell, with a shiver.
“Goat’s Gulch; it’s a place pretty high up, about six miles beyond the Settlement, and it’s a silver claim what they’ve got, this lot of Chinkies, I mean. There’s six or seven of them. Li Hung he’s the boss, and this one here in the box was Li Hang, his brother. Is old Joey Trip about to help me to unload, miss? I’m in a hurry to get back, for my wife ain’t very well, and ours is rather a lonely location.”