When they reached the platform the car jolted and Lister sat down, with his back against the door.
"My legs won't hold me," he said in an apologetic voice. "Did Shillito get off?"
"Knocked out the trooper and made the bush; the other fellow was way back along the train," the conductor replied. "They want him for embezzlement and will soon get on his trail, but the wash-out's broke the wires and I reckon he'll cross the frontier ahead. Now you come along and I'll try to fix your cut."
Lister went, and soon after a porter helped him into his berth. His head hurt and he felt very dull and slack, but he slept and when he woke bright sunshine streamed into the standing car and he saw the train had stopped at Winnipeg. Soon afterwards the conductor and one of the station officials put him into an automobile.
"If the reporters get after you, remember you're not to talk about the girl," he said to the conductor.
The other nodded, and signed the driver to start. The car rolled off and stopped at the house of a doctor who dressed the cut on Lister's head and ordered him a week's rest. Lister went to a hotel, and in the morning found a romantic narrative of Shillito's escape in the newspaper, but was relieved to note that nothing was said about the girl. The report, however, stated that a passenger who tried to help the police had got badly hurt and Shillito had vanished in the woods. The police had not found his trail and it was possible he would reach the American frontier.
Lister thought the thing was done with, and when a letter arrived from the construction office, telling him to stay until he felt able to resume his work, resigned himself to rather dreary idleness. For some days his head ached and he could not go out; the other guests were engaged in the city and there was nobody to whom he could talk. He got badly bored, and it was a relief when one afternoon the gentleman he had met at the construction camp arrived with his daughter. For all that, Lister was surprised. Duveen was a man of some importance, Miss Duveen was a fashionable young lady, and Lister had imagined they had forgotten him. He took his guests to a corner of the spacious rotunda where a throbbing electric fan blew away the flies, and Duveen gave him a cigarette.
"The Record did not give your name, but we soon found out who was the plucky passenger," he said with a friendly smile. "Ruth thought she'd like to see you, and since I wasn't engaged this afternoon we came along."
"I did want to come, but I really think you proposed the visit," Ruth remarked.
"Oh, well," said Duveen, "I don't know if it's important, but perhaps we oughtn't to make Mr. Lister talk."