Chapter XXV: Disappointment

BEFORE that week was out, a howling storm of wind and rain swept across the prairie, and for three whole days it raged without ceasing. There was discomfort in plenty for a little while in the small house at Duck Flats; for the melting snow, piled high against the sides of the house, found its way through various ill-stopped crevices, streaming through the walls in little trickles of wet, which in time became big puddles of water on the floor, despite the constant activity of Bertha in wiping them up. The children took bad thaw colds, which was not to be wondered at, seeing that from the time they dressed in the mornings until they went to bed at night they were damp-footed from running about in the half-melted snow. But this was a yearly occurrence, and Grace was not unduly worried by it all the time that the colds could be kept well in hand, although it added not a little to the daily burden of work and care which rested upon Bertha. However, the snow would soon be gone at this rate, and then the discomfort would be over.

Meanwhile, there was the smell of spring in the air, and that in itself was something of a compensation for the misery of the dampness, the dirt, and the dismal look of everything indoors and out. At last Eunice succeeded in getting away, and Bill Humphries drove her over to Duck Flats one mild afternoon, when the brown earth was showing in patches here and there.

“It was good of you to come to-day; now I can get away early to-morrow morning,” said Bertha, and she was just going to turn from Eunice in order to arrange with Bill Humphries to come over in the morning and drive her to Rownton Police Barracks, when Eunice said to her, with a laugh:

“It is not to-morrow morning that you are going, but in about two hours, so you had better make haste and get ready, while I take hold of things here and get used to the babies. I expect that there will be sadness and sighing with the twins and Noll, but they will soon get used to me; and Dicky and Molly will be a great help in letting me down gently into the bosom of your big little family.”

“But I can’t go to-night; I cannot be spared for two nights away,” objected Bertha.

“My dear, you can be spared for a week if it is necessary,” replied Eunice quietly. “The fact is, Mr. Humphries has business of his own in Rownton to-morrow, only he must get there early, so he would rather take you back to-night, which will save him two hours, perhaps more, in the morning. And having business of his own, he will be able to take you to Rownton without charging you a cent, which is a consideration in these poverty-stricken days.”

“It is, indeed,” laughed Bertha, “although I feel quite rich just at the present moment; for a dear, kind editor has seen fit to pay me fifteen dollars for a story, and I feel about an inch taller in consequence.”

“How delightful!” Eunice patted her on the back in kindly congratulation. “In your place, Bertha, I am afraid that I should be so tall as to topple over from sheer giddiness at having reached such a lofty height. But run away and make your preparations, child, while I go and explain the situation to Grace, and begin to take hold a bit.”

Bertha was thankful that Eunice had not volunteered to come and assist her in dressing for the hasty journey, for it was necessary to hang the case of stones in a little bag round her neck under her clothes, and she did not want even the eyes of her friend to see that. The coat had been made into a bundle, which was rolled round with a piece of coarse canvas and securely tied with string.

“It will seem dreadful to be away from you, even for two nights, Grace,” she murmured, when the time came to say goodbye.

“Don’t worry, dear, it will do you good to be away, and you will come away with a load gone from your mind, and I shall have a load gone from mine also,” answered Grace, who mostly contrived to put the best face possible upon any situation.

Bertha nodded; the relief would be tremendous. She had felt so much like a thief with regard to that case of stones, and she was always afraid lest in some way she might lose them, which would be disaster indeed, since in such a case she would never be able to make the rightful owner believe that her intentions had been all right.

“It is just about time that you had a holiday, I should say,” remarked Bill Humphries, when at length they were really under way, and the two horses were floundering along through the soft mud of the trail. “You have shown real grit in the way you have stood by the Ellis lot, and if that poor woman ever gets better she will owe her life to you, for she has had more than nursing. She has had peace of mind, and I guess that beats doctor’s stuff into fits.”

A thrill of positive rapture swept over Bertha. It was beautiful to think that she had been able to do things. And there was not in all the wide west a happier girl than she was, as the wagon bumped and swayed through the slush of the surface thaw, and over the chunks of frozen earth which lay beneath. She would have been flung out of the wagon half a dozen times before Pentland Broads was reached if it had not been that she clung tightly to the side of the wagon. How Bill Humphries managed to keep his seat, seeing that he held on to nothing but the driving lines, was a problem, but he did it; and after being jolted, bumped, and shaken until she was sore all over, the end of the journey was finally reached in safety, and Bertha received a riotous welcome in the household of the Humphries.

Still she was too restless and anxious concerning the outcome of her visit to Edgar Bradgate to-morrow to be able to really enjoy the little change of spending an evening in the house of someone else. To her it was a dreadful ordeal to pay a visit to a man whom she scarcely knew, remind him that she had at one time saved his life, and that she had not received the money which he had emptied his purse to leave for her. How horrible it would be to be obliged to tell him that, and yet for her own sake she must do it, since not even to a stranger would she care to stand in such an ambiguous position.

It was freezing hard next morning when the start for Rownton was made in the faint light of dawn, and for the first few miles the horses could scarcely keep their feet at all, while Bill Humphries slid and slithered along at their heads, pulling them up when they went down, scolding and encouraging at the top of his voice, and guiding them on to the roughest part of the trail, so that they might have the better chance to keep their feet.

Bertha, sitting perched in the wagon, had more ado than ever to keep herself from being pitched out of the wagon. But it would never do to risk being damaged, seeing what she carried tied in the little bag round her neck, so she swayed and jolted with the wagon, determined that she would not go over unless the crazy old thing really capsized, which luckily it did not. Then, after a couple of hours of this sort of progress, the sun came out with dazzling brilliance, the top ice speedily became slush, and the worst of the journey was over.

Then Bill Humphries clambered into the wagon to ride, for there was no sense in using his own feet so long as his horses were able to stand on theirs, and the first question he asked Bertha, after he had taken his seat at her side, was the part of Rownton to which she wished to go.

“I’ve got to drive to the depot, but the stores are at the other end of the town mostly, so I can go in that way and drop you there before I go on to the depot,” he said, puffing a great deal from his recent exertions.

“It is the police barracks that I want to go to. Do you know which part of the town that is?” asked Bertha, and then flushed hotly because of the surprise which came into the face of her companion.

“I can drive you to the door, and as it is close to the stores, you will be all right until I come back from the depot,” said Bill. “I shall have to give these critters a couple of hours for rest, and then we’ll be starting back bright and early; for I don’t somehow fancy having to slip and slide on the way back same as I’ve had to do coming. It is a leetle bit too exciting for an old fellow like me.”

“I don’t think that you must call yourself old, for no one could have jumped about more briskly than you did,” replied Bertha, laughing softly at the remembrance of his gymnastic performances, as he helped his horses along that dangerous bit of trail.

“Well, I guess I am fairly nimble, though it is nearer sixty than fifty I am, and I’ve worked as hard as most men ever since I have been able to work at all,” he answered, with a sigh of satisfaction, and then he went on, “A good many men would have made their pile by this time, I reckon; but though I have earned a good bit of money, it has never seemed to stick to me, so I guess that I have got to be a poor man to the end of the chapter. But I don’t know as I would have that altered, provided that I can always pay my way, for the life of a poor man suits me best. It is what I am used to, you see, and there is a mighty deal more in habit than you may think. Ah, there is Rownton showing up on the edge of the prairie! Can you see it?”

Bertha shook her head. Her eyes were still weak from the glare of the snow, and the sunshine was trying her very much, for she had forgotten to bring the coloured spectacles, which, by the way, she most cordially hated. But there was not much to see in the town—a couple of grain elevators, straggling groups of houses dotted over the level plain, and the railway track running at this point due east and west.

The sight of the railway brought a lump into the throat of Bertha. She had not been to Rownton since the day that Tom had met her on her arrival from the east. Her misery of homesickness had been so dreadful that day as to make even the remembrance of it a pain. There were even tears in her eyes, which she was trying hard not to shed, and Bill Humphries, seeing them, wondered mightily what cause she had to cry. In fact, he wondered about it so much, that he forgot to be curious as to her errand at the police barracks.

Bertha’s courage failed her when at length she stood before the long, low framehouse which was the headquarters of the Rownton division of the police, and instead of asking to see Mr. Bradgate she asked for the superintendent, who fortunately chanced to be at home. He had to keep her waiting for a few minutes, and during that time Bertha’s courage was oozing and oozing, until she felt fit to turn and run away, if only running had been possible, or there had been anywhere to run to.

Inspector Grant, who was superintendent of the division, was one of the kindliest men alive, but his sympathies had been taxed to the uttermost during that winter following on the disaster to the wheat. So when he heard that Miss Doyne of Duck Flats was waiting to see him, he promptly made up his mind that it was some story of destitution, or fierce struggle with hardship, which he had to hear; and if he sighed a trifle impatiently he was surely to be forgiven.

When he entered the bare room, with its uncovered deal table well splashed with ink, and seated with wooden benches all round the walls, his first glance at the white face and trembling lips of Bertha confirmed his fears about her errand, and unconsciously added a deeper gravity to his manner.

“I am very sorry to have troubled you,” began Bertha, in a faltering tone.

“Do not mention the trouble, Miss Doyne; I shall be only too glad to serve you if I can. The worry of it all is that my powers are so limited in this respect,” said Inspector Grant kindly.

“Oh, we are not in difficulties of that sort,” said Bertha quickly, understanding all at once that this big burly superintendent supposed that she had come to beg for money or food. “I have come because I want to see Mr. Bradgate, only somehow my courage failed me, and so I asked to see you first. Mr. Bradgate does not know me, or at least he would not remember me, and it is so awkward to be obliged to recall one’s self to a person, and I thought that perhaps you would help me.”

“Mr. Bradgate has very good cause to remember you, anyway, seeing that but for your kindly offices he must have perished from cold,” said the inspector genially. He was feeling immensely relieved because it was no trouble of straitened means which had brought Bertha to ask his help that day. He felt himself equal to most other situations, but this long winter of struggle, following on the disaster of the harvest, had seriously impoverished him; since it was not easy for him to bear the sight of suffering while he had money in his pocket to relieve it.

“Oh, that was nothing!” broke in Bertha hastily. “And my errand to Mr. Bradgate has nothing to do with that either, but I have found out by a strange accident that he is the man whose boat was caught on the rocks at Mestlebury, in Nova Scotia, a year ago last fall, and something of value was left behind in my keeping which I have never been able to restore, because I did not know his name or where he came from. So I have come over from Duck Flats to restore his property to him, and—and I thought perhaps that you would help me to do it.”

“I would with pleasure if I could, but Mr. Bradgate is not here now; he went away three days ago,” replied the inspector.

A blank look came into Bertha’s face, and a horrible desire to cry assailed her. She had been so delighted at the thought of getting rid of the stones, and she had faced all the discomforts of that journey to Rownton with a cheerful courage, just because of the relief it was to bring her. Now it would all have to go on again, the waiting and the uncertainty, and, to make matters worse, she had those horrid stones on her person, and must of necessity carry them home with her again.

Pulling herself together with a tremendous effort, she managed to ask quietly, “Can you give me his address, then? It is very important that I should be put into communication with him as soon as possible, or I would not trouble you.”

“I am only too anxious to serve you in any way that I can, but I am very much afraid that Mr. Bradgate’s address is what they would call in some circles a negligible quantity. He has gone to railhead to work, and it is very difficult to make sure that a letter will reach him, although of course you can try. You will also have to take your chance of a reply being forthcoming, as pens, ink, and paper are almost unknown luxuries in a railway construction camp,” said the inspector.

A cold despair gripped at Bertha, and then an indomitable determination seized her to get rid of those stones at all costs, and she asked abruptly, “Where is railhead?”

“A few days ago it was at Wastover, about a hundred miles from Rownton, but it will have pushed on since then, and I expect that it will have nearly reached Brocken Ridge; it will stop there for a week or two, for there are three bridges to be built within the space of two miles, and that will take a little while,” answered Inspector Grant.

“Can you tell me how long it will take me to get there, and how much it will cost?” asked Bertha, thinking ruefully of the fifteen dollars which she had received for her last story, and deciding that if it all had to go, she would have to manage somehow to do without any new frocks next summer.

“Ah, you think of going to find Bradgate for yourself?” The inspector’s tone was grave, and Bertha read into it strong disapproval, which caused her to flush distressfully right up to the roots of her hair.

“I am afraid that there is nothing for me to do but to go,” she said faintly. “If I cannot reach Mr. Bradgate by a letter, I cannot let him know that I have something of his in my possession which he ought to have; and, you see, he does not even know that I have it, so I must find him somehow.”

“What is it? Or would you rather not tell me?” asked the inspector, with the same interest he might have displayed if it had been his own daughter who was faced with a difficulty.

Again Bertha flushed hotly. How horrid it was that she could not speak right out and have done with this stupid mystery! She would have done it, if she had been quite sure that she would be able to reach Edgar Bradgate and restore the stones to his possession; but for the thought that in spite of her efforts she might be obliged to take the case back to Duck Flats, when poor Grace would have to bear the added burden of knowing that some outside person was aware of the exceedingly valuable property in their possession.

The inspector saw her hesitation, and hastened to reassure her. “Pray don’t trouble to tell me, Miss Doyne. I assure you that there is no need, and my curiosity was quite unjustifiable; but I thought that I might help you more effectually, if I knew the nature of the property you had to restore.”

“I can tell you part of it, anyhow,” said Bertha, with a rather watery smile, “then you will better understand the difficulties of my position.”

“That must be as you please, only do not feel bound to reveal more than is convenient,” replied the inspector, with a considerable lightening of his gravity; for Bertha did not look the sort of girl who would be likely to embark on anything indiscreet, and he was only too eager to help her in any way he could.

She nodded her head in a queer, shaky fashion and plunged into rapid speech. “On the day when Mr. Bradgate’s boat was caught on the rocks at Mestlebury he was in great danger of being drowned, and I swam out with a rope to be fastened to the boat, which was afterwards towed ashore. But when I reached him and he helped me into the boat, I shivered so badly that Mr. Bradgate pulled a coat out from under the seat and told me to put it on, which I did. We were capsized before we reached the shore, and he was unconscious when we were helped out of the water, so I left him to the care of the fisher people, while I ran home just as I was. Then I was ill for two or three weeks, and one day, when I was better, I found his coat lying wet and horrible in the corner of the room where I had dropped it before I was taken ill. I suppose that my sisters in their hard work and anxiety had been too busy to sort up the muddle in the little room where I slept when I was well. I picked up the coat to shake it out and dry it, but something dropped from the pocket which worried me a great deal. As soon as I could I went to the fisher folk who had taken care of the stranger and asked for his name and address, but I could never get either.”

“And it is the something which you found in the pocket that you wish to restore, I take it?” said the inspector quickly.

“Yes, and I shall have no peace until it is safely in Mr. Bradgate’s possession,” said Bertha, with a distressful pant in her breath.

The inspector frowned. He understood to the full the difficulties of Bertha’s position, and he was not disposed to be lenient to the man who had brought the trouble about.

“If the thing found in the coat were so valuable, why did not the man come to enquire for it, also for his coat?” he asked grimly.

“That is what has always puzzled me so greatly until the other Sunday evening, when I read the letter which Mrs. Fricker, of Halifax, wrote to her son; but since then I have thought that most likely Mr. Bradgate forgot that he had had his coat with him in the boat at all, in which case, although he might search for it in other directions, he would not think of approaching me on the subject,” answered Bertha, and then she poured into the ears of the sympathetic inspector the story of how Edgar Bradgate had emptied his pockets to reward her for helping him, and how Mrs. Saunders had kept the money, refusing to let her know the name or abode of the man with whom she so earnestly wished to communicate.

“The old lady was afraid of being bowled out, I expect,” said the inspector, with a laugh, and then he asked Bertha to let him have an hour in which to consider what was best to be done.

“If you have any business in the town, go and do that and be back here within the hour, by which time I may be able to tell you whether it is possible for you to be sent to railhead, and how long the journey will take,” he said.

“Thank you, very much,” replied Bertha, as she rose from the wooden bench on which she had been sitting, and then she said nervously, “You will not let anyone know what I have told you about the something being of value? Mrs. Ellis says that she would never dare to be left alone if anyone knew, and that kind of worry is so bad for her.”

“Your confidence is quite safe with me, have no fear. The police have to keep almost as many secrets as a lawyer, and to their credit be it said they mostly do keep them,” he answered, as he bowed her out of the bare room and reminded her to be back within an hour.

She had not gone the length of two blocks, when she met Bill Humphries coming to meet her with a very bothered look on his face, and at sight of her he cried out in great concern, “Here is a pretty business—a blockhead of a fellow hauling rails ran into me and smashed one of my hind wheels, and I can’t get the wagon back to Pentland Broads to-day! Whatever shall I do with you?”