“Can you tell me where Leslie’s house is?” she asked.
“Sure,” said Wandle, pointing toward the east. “But as it will be dark before you get there, you had better let me put you on the trail. You’ll have to cross these sandhills, and as the snow’s blown off in places, it’s rough traveling.”
Gertrude thanked him, and she was glad that he led the team as they crossed the broken belt, picking out the smoothest course among the clumps of birches and low steep ridges. At times he had difficulty in urging the horses up a bank of frozen sand, but after a while he looked around at her.
“You’re Miss Jernyngham?” he said. “Guess you must have had a mighty trying time?”
His tone was respectful and, though he was a stranger, Gertrude could not resent the allusion to her troubles. She had generally found the western ranchers blunt.
“Yes,” she replied; “my father and I have had much to bear.”
Wandle made a gesture of sympathy.
“The mystery’s the worst—it’s easier to face a trouble one knows all about. What have the police been doing lately?”
“I don’t know; they have told us nothing for some time.”
“You find them kind of disappointing?”