“I left him at Duck Flats asleep. He has been very ill all night, and I am very anxious to get back,” she said, and, in spite of herself, there was a quiver of breakdown in her voice, although she was hugely relieved to find that the business of the police was with the sick driver and not with herself.
“Will you ride on, then, and we will follow, if the man is at your place? We must go there first, although it would seem as if there is some mistake, and this cannot be the sledge that we are looking for,” said the inspector.
Bertha set forward, then, at the very best pace that she could get out of old Pucker. The fact of having two other horses pounding along behind him seemed to exhilarate the old horse to an astonishing extent, and he raced across the snow at such a rate that the police sledge was some distance in the rear when the solitary little house at Duck Flats showed on the horizon.
A sob of relief came into Bertha’s throat as she drew nearer and saw that it looked all right. It was fire that she had been afraid of all through that journey out and home again, so well she knew how easily an accident might happen with only little children, a delirious sick man, and poor helpless Grace at home, and the fire going in the stove. She had been strung up to bear all sorts of things, and when she found the outside looking quite peaceful and all right, a sudden weakness assailed her, and for a few moments it was all she could do to keep her hold of the saddle to which she was blindly clinging, while old Pucker raced along as merrily as if the journey had only just begun.
That ridge in the snow was the paddock fence. She would be home in a few moments now, and already the horrible feeling of faintness was passing. She sat straight up on her saddle, and wondered what had made her so silly, when a sound reached her ears which filled her with terror. The children were screaming; she could hear them as she approached the house.
Riding right up to the door, she slid off and burst in at the door, coming upon a scene of indescribable confusion. The table, which stood in the middle of the room, and upon which she had left the children’s breakfast spread, was lying on its side, while the crockeryware and food lay more or less in ruins on the floor, where also lay the sick stranger, squirming feebly, as if he had been trying to pull himself up by the table, and found the effort too much for him.
But the children in their fear had flung themselves upon their mother, shrieking and screaming with terror, while Grace herself was trying to pierce the din with her voice in order to reassure them, but was in a fair way of being suffocated; for the twins had cast themselves upon her, while Noll was clinging with both chubby hands to her head, his deep boo-oo-ooing in sharp contrast to the shrill squeals of Molly.
With one bound Bertha had crossed the room, and, scattering the children to right and left, slipped her arm under the head of Grace, which she lifted up into the air. For one terrible moment she thought that the helpless woman was going to faint, and instinct told her that if Grace fainted it would be the end. But the long minute passed, and then Grace managed to say feebly: “It needs a really strong sense of humour to appreciate a scene such as we have had.”
“You poor, poor darling, how awful it must have been for you!” cried Bertha, with actual tears of pity coming into her eyes as she gently fanned Grace, taking no notice at all of the sick man, who still lay, feebly struggling to rise from among the ruins he had caused by his ill-advised efforts to pull himself up by the aid of the table.
“Dear Noll was the worst,” said Grace, and now there was a weak gurgle of laughter in her throat. “He thought that there was safety with me if he only hugged me tightly enough, poor little man; and I could not make Dicky understand that I must have air. But you came just in time, Bertha.”