First—Helen with him, of course—he directed his steps, or rather the wheels of a hack, to the new station where the ring of saws, hammering, noise and bustle of work, acted upon him like the draught of the elixir of life, bringing color to his cheeks, stiffness to his knees, sparkle to his eyes. Thence they drove for a conference to Greer & Smythe's; whereafter nothing would suit him but a long drive out to the prairies. It was a strenuous beginning, but fresh air and sunshine are ever potent. He gained color and strength under her anxious eyes; seemed fresher when he dropped her at Jean Glaves's house that evening than in the morning.
Throughout the happy day they had lived in the present. But though he had made no plan for the future, she had trusted, and her face lit up with flashing intuition when he said good-night.
"Mistress Morrill, you are to take the morning train to Lone Tree."
This was the "something he wanted to do."
XXXII
THE TRAIL AGAIN
Skipping that long if happy night, peep with dawn into Helen's bedroom, and see her up and singing small snatches of song that presently brought Jean Glaves, herself the earliest of birds, from bed to assist at the toilet. Should she wear this, that, or the other? There was the usual doubt which beset a young lady who wishes to look her best for occasion; but the result that went forth from big Jean's hug? A vision of healthy beauty that drew tentative smiles from a brace of drummers and attracted the stealthy regard of the entire station when she finally broke, like a burst of sunlight, on the platform. Continuing the figure, the smile, its crowning asset, faded like the afterglow when her anxious eyes refused her the tall familiar figure; and when the train pulled out without him, her disconsolate expression filled the aforesaid drummers with manly longings towards consolation.
Unpunctual? On such an occasion? And how silly she would look at Lone Tree! Slightly offended at first, she then grew alarmed. Perhaps he had suffered a relapse, was ill, dying! Be sure that her terrors compassed the possible and impossible during an hour's journey, and not until she saw a man come dashing across the tracks to the Lone Tree platform did she realize the fulness of his inspiration. He had taken the freight out the night before! If thinner, paler, he was very like the young man who had come to meet her three years ago. There, also, was the lone poplar that had christened the station; the ramshackle town with its clapboard hotels, false-fronted stores, grain-sheds, sitting in the midst of the plains that, flat and infinitely yellow, ran with the tracks over a boundless horizon. Lastly, there was Nels and his bleached grin, holding Death and the Devil, sleek, fat, and sinful as ever.
Carter's whispered greeting helped to keep her in the past. "Is this Miss Morrill?"
"Mr. Carter, I believe?" she had just time for the roguish answer, then their little comedy had to be laid aside till they were alone on trail. For the doctor came running from his office, the store-keeper plunged madly across tracks, Hooper, the agent, yelled, "Well, I swan!" and jumped to shake hands, while from a grain-shed emerged Jimmy Glaves, who had taken a lift in with Nels.