The stranger blinked his solemn eyes as if debating something; then he related: "My name is Reginald Llewellyn Fordyce-Anstruther; from An-struther Hall one can drive a golf ball into either one of three counties—Surrey, Sussex, or Kent."
In retaliation each of the five presented himself at decorous length.
From the Victoria Carney strolled to the railway station and sent a telegram to John Arliss at Winnipeg. It was an ordinary ranch-type of message, about a registered bull that was being shipped. In the evening he had an answer to the effect that the bull would be well looked after.
Then Sergeant Jerry Platt paid several visits daily to the railway station for little chats with a constable who patrolled its platform from morning till night.
On the sixth day a gigantic, black-headed, drab snake crawled across the prairie from the east, and toward its tail one joint of the vertebras was numbered 6100.
Sergeant Jerry was on hand, and his eye brightened; the advice the Major had received was reliable, evidently.
The station master knew nothing about the car; it was through freight—not for Fort Calbert.
Bulldog Carney had wandered unobtrusively down to the station; a dry smile hovered about his lips as he listened to the argument between the amiable Jerry and the rather important magnate of the C. P. R.
"Lovely!" he muttered once to himself as he wandered closer to the discussion.
It was a case of when great bodies collide. The C. P. R. was a mighty force, and its agents sometimes felt the tremendousness of their power: the Mounted Police were not accustomed to being balked when they issued an order.