“You were speaking of Brown’s Expedition,” she said, in a curiously still voice, while a hush dropped upon that part of the room and spread rapidly, until everyone ceased talking and listened eagerly to what the pale-faced girl was saying. “Do you mean the expedition which Mr. Brown of Winnipeg commissioned and sent off last August?”
“Yes, miss, that is the one, for it ain’t likely that there would be two Mr. Browns doing the same thing, both starting at the same time, and both hailing from Winnipeg,” he answered, talking as if he were trying to gain time.
Bertha caught her breath in a little gasp, but her voice was quiet and steady when she said, “Will you tell me, please, exactly what has happened, and how the news came? I have a right to know, for my cousin, Tom Ellis, is with them.”
There was a strained moment of utter silence, as if the man could not get out the tidings which were so evil in the presence of this girl to whom they meant so much, then he jerked out, unwillingly enough: “They are dead, miss, every man of the lot, Brown himself amongst them. An Indian brought the news to White Fox Creek last week telling how he had stumbled, with his tribe, on a white man’s camp, with dead white men sitting in the snow huts, frozen solid, and he brought a packet of papers which he found on the bodies.”
“Why did they die?” she asked, her voice ringing sharply through the hush of the room.
“Their provisions must have given out. There was a letter among the papers which stated that they had finished their survey and were coming back, but they had somehow failed to find the provisions which they had cached on the outward journey, and so they were dying of cold and starvation,” replied the man, talking as if the words were being dragged out of him.
Someone moved forward from among the group by the door and quietly took his place beside Bertha. She did not look round, but some instinct told her that it was Edgar Bradgate, and she was dumbly grateful to the man who had thus constituted himself her friend and champion. It took away something of the awful sense of desolation which had been upon her ever since she had started on her momentous journey.
Then she thought of poor Grace, and the helpless little ones, and of Eunice Long. Suppose this dreadful news were to reach Duck Flats while she herself was away! The misery of the thought was too great to be borne, and she faced quickly round upon Edgar Bradgate, who was standing close beside her. “Oh, can you tell me how soon we can start?” she cried distressfully. “I do not know what will happen if this bad news reaches home before I can get there.”
“I came to tell you that your car is ready, and we start in about twenty minutes,” he answered quietly, and with never a word about the tragic news which she had just heard; for he guessed that she had enough to bear, and that even a word of sympathy might prove the last straw in the burden of her endurance at that moment.
The groups of men parted silently to let her pass out, and talk was not resumed until it was made certain that she was out of hearing.