“I’ve been thinking, Arthur,” she said seriously, her pretty dark brows drawn in concentration. “Four thousand dollars! It isn’t much with which to found and build our church. You know our Society asks a lot of us. In a way they’re right. We should give all there is in us. But—but—it’s a pity money has to come into our lives at all.” She sighed. “Still, so it is. Beyond the barest necessities I don’t want us to touch that money they’ve given us for the actual building. I want to stir up the right spirit in our Indians, and the white folks on the lake. Surely the lumber can be felled, and hauled, and the whole church can be carpentered voluntarily? Can’t we stir up a spiritual pride that will rise above mere—— What’s that?”
The woman broke off and a quick apprehension lit her questioning eyes. Arthur Steele turned instinctively to the window beside him. The hold of the brakes under the car had suddenly been taken off. There had been a queer jarring and clanking under them. Then the train seemed to leap forward at great speed down the steep gradient.
Steele was gazing at the wooded slope which lined the track. In a moment it seemed the dark green of the trees had started to race by and become a mere continuous verdant smudge.
There was a restless stirring throughout the car. Every eye contained a look of sharp inquiry. A few passengers had risen from their seats the better to gaze out of windows. Then, too, a sound of urgent voices had risen above the rattle of the speeding train.
A railroader flung open a door. He hurried down the aisle of the rocking car and passed out at the other end. The door slammed behind the man’s overall-clad figure.
“Something’s—wrong!”
Helen spoke in a low tone, and her eyes searched the face of her man.
“We’re running—free,” the missionary replied. “It’s a gradient of one in forty.”
“And there’s a bend at the river bank.”
“It’s nearly two miles to the river. And by—I wonder?”