"We'll consider it as fixed, but in the meanwhile you're to stay with Mrs. Hastings for the fortnight," said Wyllard. "Sproatly"—and he signed to the man in the skin coat—"will you get Miss Rawlinson's baggage into your waggon?"
The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see Mrs. Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you up in a league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his off-side trace."
"He might have had things straight for once," said Wyllard half-aloud.
Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his waggon—a high, narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels, but she had to hold fast to it while they jolted across the track and through a sea of mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked her companion's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by his appearance. Two or three minutes later he drew up before a little wooden house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who frowned at Sproatly.
"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," she said.
Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an axe along."
Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Winifred there, and the woman favoured her with a glance of careful scrutiny.
"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." Then she added, as though further satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait."
Sproatly assured her that this was not the case, and in a few more minutes the girl, who went into the house, got into the waggon again, with relief in her face.
"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said.