“It’s no use, Lightning,” she said at last. “Father’s never been late like this. It’s been dark more than two hours, and the bluff isn’t more than a half-hour away. Ther’s not a thing to keep him. Jane and Blue Pete should have hauled him to home nearly two hours ago. I just can’t stand it. That’s all. Beat it and hook up the cutter. Hook up my pinto. She’ll get us out to the bluff quicker than the other beasts. Get a great big move on. I—I—can’t stand waiting around. And his supper’s baking itself to death.”
“Won’t you give him another haf-hour, Molly gal?” Lightning urged. “I can’t ever see reason to jump in till you need. Your father’ll raise hell with us. Guess he’s a hunch for folks keeping tight to their own business, an’ not buttin’ in wher’ they ain’t needed. Won’t——”
Molly’s gaze came back abruptly from the dark direction of the invisible snow-trail. And there was a cold look in her eyes which silenced the man instantly.
“Beat it, Lightning, an’ do as I say,” she cried sharply. “Get your old fur coat on, and a robe. You’ll need to come along. I’ll fix the rest I need.”
The man offered no further protest. He realised something which before he had not rightly understood. This girl was in a complete state of panic. Had he been more imaginative he would perhaps have understood. George Marton should have returned to his supper at the proper hour. Never within his daughter’s memory had he failed to do so before.
Lightning went off in a hurry, and this lean, queer creature’s hurry was something astonishing. He was back at the door of the homestead with the pinto mare and the cutter before Molly had completed her preparations.
She came to the door carrying a small wicker basket. She stood clad in a long beaver coat, with a fur cap pressed low down over her ears. Her storm collar was turned up and secured about her neck by a long woollen scarf, and with her darkly-fringed grey eyes anxiously peering out into the night, she was a vision that warmed the old choreman’s heart under his tattered buffalo coat.
“No sign?” she said a little hopelessly. “Still no sign.” Then she sighed deeply. “Something’s happened, Lightning. I just know it.”
Lightning cleared his throat.
“I’m not worrying, Molly, gal,” he said, with a poor attempt to restore the smile to her anxious eyes. “But I sure am feeling bad about the thing he’s goin’ to hand us when we meet him on the trail.”