“I’ve got to drive to the depot, but the stores are at the other end of the town mostly, so I can go in that way and drop you there before I go on to the depot,” he said, puffing a great deal from his recent exertions.
“It is the police barracks that I want to go to. Do you know which part of the town that is?” asked Bertha, and then flushed hotly because of the surprise which came into the face of her companion.
“I can drive you to the door, and as it is close to the stores, you will be all right until I come back from the depot,” said Bill. “I shall have to give these critters a couple of hours for rest, and then we’ll be starting back bright and early; for I don’t somehow fancy having to slip and slide on the way back same as I’ve had to do coming. It is a leetle bit too exciting for an old fellow like me.”
“I don’t think that you must call yourself old, for no one could have jumped about more briskly than you did,” replied Bertha, laughing softly at the remembrance of his gymnastic performances, as he helped his horses along that dangerous bit of trail.
“Well, I guess I am fairly nimble, though it is nearer sixty than fifty I am, and I’ve worked as hard as most men ever since I have been able to work at all,” he answered, with a sigh of satisfaction, and then he went on, “A good many men would have made their pile by this time, I reckon; but though I have earned a good bit of money, it has never seemed to stick to me, so I guess that I have got to be a poor man to the end of the chapter. But I don’t know as I would have that altered, provided that I can always pay my way, for the life of a poor man suits me best. It is what I am used to, you see, and there is a mighty deal more in habit than you may think. Ah, there is Rownton showing up on the edge of the prairie! Can you see it?”
Bertha shook her head. Her eyes were still weak from the glare of the snow, and the sunshine was trying her very much, for she had forgotten to bring the coloured spectacles, which, by the way, she most cordially hated. But there was not much to see in the town—a couple of grain elevators, straggling groups of houses dotted over the level plain, and the railway track running at this point due east and west.
The sight of the railway brought a lump into the throat of Bertha. She had not been to Rownton since the day that Tom had met her on her arrival from the east. Her misery of homesickness had been so dreadful that day as to make even the remembrance of it a pain. There were even tears in her eyes, which she was trying hard not to shed, and Bill Humphries, seeing them, wondered mightily what cause she had to cry. In fact, he wondered about it so much, that he forgot to be curious as to her errand at the police barracks.
Bertha’s courage failed her when at length she stood before the long, low framehouse which was the headquarters of the Rownton division of the police, and instead of asking to see Mr. Bradgate she asked for the superintendent, who fortunately chanced to be at home. He had to keep her waiting for a few minutes, and during that time Bertha’s courage was oozing and oozing, until she felt fit to turn and run away, if only running had been possible, or there had been anywhere to run to.
Inspector Grant, who was superintendent of the division, was one of the kindliest men alive, but his sympathies had been taxed to the uttermost during that winter following on the disaster to the wheat. So when he heard that Miss Doyne of Duck Flats was waiting to see him, he promptly made up his mind that it was some story of destitution, or fierce struggle with hardship, which he had to hear; and if he sighed a trifle impatiently he was surely to be forgiven.
When he entered the bare room, with its uncovered deal table well splashed with ink, and seated with wooden benches all round the walls, his first glance at the white face and trembling lips of Bertha confirmed his fears about her errand, and unconsciously added a deeper gravity to his manner.