The best had been done for her comfort that could be done, and an empty box car close to the one occupied by the brakeman had been set aside for her use through the kindly offices of Mike Walford, who had done his very best for her, because of the manner in which she had helped his wife. There was a fresh-trimmed lamp in the car, and a hammock had been slung across one end to mitigate the shaking and jolting as much as possible.
“Are you not coming in this car too?” Bertha asked a little timidly, as, having seen her comfortably settled, Edgar Bradgate turned to leave the car.
“No, but I shall be in the next car with the brakeman, and if anything frightens you, pull this cord. I have fastened it through into our car, and if you give a good tug at it there will be a fine commotion in our car, and I will be with you inside of one minute. Now, I am going to lock you in, unless you have any serious objection. There are a rough lot on the cars to-night, and some of them are getting unpleasantly intoxicated.”
“Thank you; I would rather be locked in,” replied Bertha, and then she added, with a laugh, “But I dare say that I could pick the lock if I wanted to do so just as I picked the one in the other car.”
“I hope that you will not have the same reason for doing it,” he replied gravely, and then he bade her goodnight and shut the door.
It was something of a comfort to hear the lock shot and to know that whatever larking the half-drunken men on the cars might indulge in, they could not annoy her, and she swung herself into the hammock with a feeling of blessed security, which certainly would not have been hers, had it not been for the presence of Edgar Bradgate in the train.
Of course it was horrible that she must still carry those wretched diamonds about with her, and with no hope of getting rid of them either now or in the immediate future. But at least she was no worse off than she had been before, for although Mr. Bradgate knew that she had them in her possession, there was no danger that he would speak of the matter, and he was entirely to be trusted himself, seeing that he would have nothing whatever to do with them.
The hammock was a great comfort in saving her from the awful jolting of the car as it rolled and bumped over the unfinished track, and Bertha felt as if she could have been quite at ease about the journey, if it had not been for her dread of crossing the bridge on the Brocken Ridge side of Wastover, and the trouble of the rumour of Tom’s death.
At first she had not doubted the truth of the report, but Mrs. Walford at parting had told her not to take the news too seriously, for the Indians often grossly exaggerated ill news of this sort, and had been known to declare that a whole party had perished, when perhaps it was only one man who had died. Even the fact of the letters might have been coloured up too, and, as the stout woman had said with much kindly emphasis, it did not do to take a trouble seriously, until it was proved beyond a doubt that there was no other way out of it.
“At any rate, I cannot do anything until I get back, and if it is true that poor Tom did really die in the snow, why, I must just do the best that I can to earn a living for Grace and the children. I can manage it easily if I can only sell my stories as fast as I write them,” she murmured to herself, as she swayed gently to and fro in her hammock, and the clattering racket of the empty wagons rolling over the ill-made track lulled her into forgetfulness and slumber.