The girl followed him and, as they went slowly up the street, while all the loungers watched them, she gave Kermode a confused explanation. Her name was Helen Foster, and she had come from England to join a brother who had taken up a farm near Drummond, which Prescott had heard was a remote settlement. Her brother had told her to notify him on her arrival at Winnipeg and await instructions, but on board the steamer she had met the wife of a railroad man engaged on the new line who had offered her company to a point in the west from which Helen could reach her destination. On arriving at the railroad man’s station, he had sent her on by the supply train.
A little distance up the street, Kermode stopped outside a shed in which a fellow of unprepossessing appearance was rubbing down a horse. His character, as Kermode knew, was no better than his looks.
“I must see the liveryman,” he told the girl, and when he had sent the hostler for him the proprietor came out.
“The round-trip to Drummond will take six days, and you’d want a team,” he said. “I’d have to charge you thirty dollars.”
Kermode looked dubious, his companion dismayed. She had three dollars and a few cents.
“Can you drive this lady there?” Kermode asked.
“I can’t. Jim would have to go.”
“I think not,” said Kermode firmly. “I’ll see you about a saddle-horse in the morning.” He turned to the girl: “We’ll go along again.”
A few minutes later they reached the widow’s shack and Kermode waited some time after his companion was admitted. As she did not come out, he concluded that Mrs. Jasper was satisfied and returned to the hotel, where he was freely bantered by the loungers.
“That will do, boys,” he said at length. “If there’s any more of this kind of talk, the man who keeps it up will get badly hurt.”