So she resolved to stay where she was, and not anticipate trouble. Only, to no one could she speak of her knowledge; that must be a secret buried in her own heart.
She showed the telegram to the people about the depot, as she was bound to do, then hung it up on a nail in the office, for further reference if required; but she hung another paper in front of it as if accidentally. Then, folding the newspaper carefully, she put that away also, wishing she could fold her knowledge away into forgetfulness likewise.
CHAPTER XIII
On the List
BUT for the secret care she carried, the weeks which followed Nell’s coming to Bratley would have been the pleasantest she had ever known.
After the isolation of Blue Bird Ridge, Bratley Junction was quite a gay and bustling place. It was true there were only about half a score of houses, scattered about in the vicinity of the depot, and the trains which went through were chiefly freight wagons or cars laden with miners, on their way to or from the mines at Camp’s Gulch and Roseneath.
But there were life and movement; she saw faces and heard voices; moreover, she was learning new things, and becoming every day more conscious of the strength that was in her—the power to work, to think, and to act as she had never done before.
At first the strangeness of having no hard drudging toil was very great, but it soon wore off, the sooner perhaps because she worked so very hard at the new duties which had come to fill her days, while her energy in the acquirement of all sorts of knowledge appeared to increase with her opportunities for learning.
By the time she had been at Bratley a month she had raised her time qualification to twenty-two words a minute, and had been put on the list of candidates for permanent posts by the inspector when he came his round.
It was a nervous moment for Nell when the inspector walked into her office one morning, accompanied by his assistant, for he was a big man with a dictatorial manner, and her courage oozed out at her finger-tips when he began to question her about her work, and to find fault with some irregularity in transmission between her office and Roseneath, concerning which complaints had been made at headquarters.