"I should hardly care to say without consulting him, sir," I answered; and Haldane laughed.
"You need not trouble, because I do. If you chance upon him tell him what I said. Getting late, isn't it? Good-night to you!"
He left me equally relieved and mystified, and that I should feel any relief at all formed part of the mystery. Whatever was the cause of it, I was neither utterly cast down nor desperate when I sought my couch, and I managed to sleep soundly.
That was the first of several visits to Bonaventure. The acreage of Crane Valley was ample, but the house a mere elongated sod hovel, of which Miss Steel monopolized the greater portion, although I reflected grimly that in existing circumstances it was quite good enough for me. Our life there was dreary enough, and, at times, I grew tired of Sally's alternate blandishments and railleries; so, when the frost bound fast the sod and but little could be done for land and cattle, it was very pleasant to spend a few days amid the refinement and comfort which ruled at Bonaventure. During one of my journeys there I met Cotton, and rode some distance with him across the prairie. I could see there was something he wished to say, but his usually ample confidence seemed to fail him, and finally he bade me farewell with visible hesitation where our ways parted. I had, however, scarcely resumed my journey before he hailed me, and when I checked my horse he rode back in my direction with resolve and irresolution mingled in his face.
"You are in a great hurry. There was something I wanted to ask," he commenced. "Do you think this frost will hold, Ormesby?"
"You have a barometer in the station, haven't you?" I answered, regarding him ironically. "Cotton, you have something on your mind to-day, and it is not the frost. Out with it, man. I'm in no way dangerous."
"I have," he answered, with a slight darkening of the bronze in his face. "It is not a great thing, but your paternal advice and cheap witticisms pall on me now and then. Curious way to ask a favor, isn't it? But that is just what I'm going to do."
"We'll omit the compliments. Come to the point," I said; and the trooper made the plunge he had so much hesitated over.
"I want you to ride out on Wednesday night and meet Freighter Walker coming in from the rail. As you know, he generally travels all night by the Bitter Lakes trail. Ask him for a packet with my name on the label, then tear that label off and give Mail-carrier Steve the packet addressed to Miss Haldane. Those confounded people at the rail post office chatter so about every trifle, and Steve is too thick in the head to notice anything. My rounds make it quite impossible for me to go myself, and that fool of a freighter would certainly lose or smash the thing before he passed our way on his return journey. It is not asking too much, is it?"
"No," I said readily, seeing the eagerness in the trooper's eyes, though that statement implied a long, cold night's ride. "Miss Haldane is, however, in Ottawa."