"Good heavens!"
"I told her she oughtn't to try it," went on Stiles earnestly. "She's liable to run into all sorts of trouble. But she wouldn't listen to me for a minute. She aint scared of anything, Miss Lawson aint, an' she thinks it's real money she's rescuing all by her lonesome."
"You don't mean to say she went all alone?" asked Phil in dismay.
"That's just it. She wouldn't have it any other way."
They gazed at each other with sober faces.
CHAPTER XIV
WHAT HAPPENED ON THE WINNIPEG EXPRESS
Thirty-six hours later Kendrick, aboard the Winnipeg Express, was rushing westward through the night. His watch told him that the hour was near midnight and in the open timetable beside him he was tracing the train's progress. Outside in the dark the great scenic sweep of northern wilderness was fleeing behind, mile on mile. He figured that they were within half an hour's run of the Thorlakson siding. The girl had many hours the start of him and no doubt he would find her safe and sound at the section shanty with Mrs. Thorlakson. The fast passenger train did not stop often in this part of the country; but he had persuaded the conductor to slow down so that he could jump for it.
He had taken a compartment in the observation car, but at the moment was lounging in a corner of the open reading room which at that late hour presented a vista of empty chairs and discarded magazines in their leather folders. The porter was nowhere about. One by one the other passengers had sought their berths, leaving Phil in solitary possession. He sat staring out the wide window at the racing double of the lighted coach, deep in thought.
Ordinarily the thing to have done was to head her off from this wild-goose chase by reporting the matter to her father or by having her editor wire her on board train to return at once. But Stiles had pleaded earnestly that the girl's activities be kept a secret because there was much at stake which did not appear upon the surface. Miss Lawson was anxious particularly that her father did not learn of her present assignment until the task was completed as he would have worried unnecessarily, perhaps have interfered.