"This is my night," she declared. "What you don't understand about railway construction doesn't need to be worried about. Anyway they're gone. It isn't often a man's wife drops in on him from four days of wandering, when he thinks her two hundred miles away as the crow flies."
He looked about the room with an apologetic smile. "It isn't the place I'd choose to bring you to, Helen, though Williams has done a lot in the couple of hours since you arrived. It doesn't seem the same old room. If you'd believe me, he wants four days off to scare up some luxuries worthy of the event down at Saskatoon . . . and I can't convince myself it's part of our duties. He got quite huffy when I refused. That's the worst of marrying a woman every man falls in love with. The only redeeming feature is that we've lots of room; there's bedroom space enough for half Medicine Hat—though I wouldn't recommend it to my friends. . . . I believe bohunks do bathe—they must have a human trait or two—but I've never happened to see it. The nearest approach was two semi-civilised fellows down at the river one evening sheepishly dipping their hands in the water and wiping them on a discarded shirt. And shirts aren't discarded here until they're past wearing. It wasn't promising for results, but it showed good will."
He pushed across a plate of abnormal raspberries. "Try another sample. Our mutual friend, 'Uggins, hand-selected them from a thousand miles of laden bushes. I believe he and Murphy almost came to blows over them because, after finding fault with the china in which they were to be presented, Murphy contended that he knew a spot where larger ones grew. 'Uggins was undecided whether to look for the spot and give Murphy a chance to forestall him, or to insult you by offering you something not reputed to be the best."
She nibbled at the berries that, ever since the seed had been borne hither on the winds, had been reserved for birds and bears. But her husband was not at ease. Twice in the next ten minutes he went to the door and listened up the track.
"They must be stopping at Torrance's," he said, throwing wide the door and leaning against the side as he talked. "It'll make some excitement, at any rate, for a nice little girl who's going a bit to seed. No . . . they're coming back!" He paused to listen, his brow wrinkling. "That's quick work, whatever they did."
The roaring putter was rushing back toward them at a speed that sounded foolishly desperate.
"There's no sense in going like that," he said irritably. "I wonder what they were doing. I'll find out."
He ran into the darkness and stood on the track between the rails, flashing an electric torch toward the approaching speeders. But they came on without a sign that they saw. He shouted. Fifty yards away the noise of the engines burst into a louder torrent of sound, and he had but time to leap out of their way as they whizzed past, the second speeder so close to the first that he could do nothing to stop it.
Before Mahon, thoroughly angry, could think of anything worth doing,
Helen stood beside him, thrusting into his hand his Police revolver.
Almost with the touch he fired above the retreating speeders.
Two spurts of flame jabbed at him through the darkness in reply, and
Mahon jerked his wife to the ground.