"I'll plug over to the house and telephone. Where'd he say he was going?—er to timber something. I wonder what his telephone number might be."
"Try Information. She should know."
But Information knew of no timber number, but when the stuttering Englishman made clear to her that there was a dead baby at Bar Q, she connected him swiftly with the Provincial Police Station at Cochrane, and a voice at that end promised after a series of impatient questions to "look into it," and "Bo" hung up.
The charm of "rawnching" was over for the Englishmen. All the rest of that afternoon they sat in somber silence in the bunkhouse, carefully averting their eyes from the small covered head. They had no heart for their usual evening meal, but contented themselves with strong tea and smoking steadily upon their pipes.
It was nearly dark when the sound of a motor along the road was heard, and then the labored panting of the engine as it made the steep grade to the ranch. The two young men hoped the police had come, not knowing that the solitary mounty who had been despatched upon the case was coming by horse twenty-eight miles from the ranch, and could not arrive for several hours. When the Englishmen opened the door of the bunkhouse, they were surprised to see a woman running swiftly ahead of the fur-coated doctor, whose acquaintance they had already made.
Their first thought was that Angella was the mother, and indeed she might well have been as she threw herself down beside Nettie's baby, and burst into uncontrolled, despairing sobs over the little dead body.