Nell stood straight up, letting the lapful of garments drop unheeded on the floor.

She had seen that handwriting before, but where?

It was a habit of hers to stand up when any problem hard to solve forced itself upon her attention.

As she stood erect, staring straight before her, she saw the letter which a little while before she had found in the lining of her grandfather’s old coat, and at once she remembered that the writing on the envelope was identical with that on the slip she held in her hand.

With a bound she reached the table, and, seizing the envelope, dragged out the enclosure it contained.

She had felt no interest in it before, and no desire to pry into business which did not concern her. Now, however, all this was altered, and she deemed it her right to know what the letter contained.

Like the slip of paper in the box, it was curt and threatening, with no beginning in the usual way, but signed at the bottom with a great flourish.

Nell gasped in her astonishment, for the man who had arrived at the Lone House yesterday in such a condition of exhaustion, had told her that his name was Bronson, Dick Bronson.

Was it possible that he had come to spy on her grandfather? Of course the story that he was travelling through the great forest on a pleasure jaunt might have been a fiction, only, somehow, her late visitor had struck her as being truthful and honest in his statements, and it was very disappointing to find herself mistaken in him. The names Bronson and Brunsen were so much alike that they might be the same, the difference lying only in pronunciation, for Mr. Bronson had only told her his name, he had not spelled it for her.

A long time she stood pondering over the matter, but quite unable to arrive at any definite conclusion concerning it. Then, warned by the slanting rays of the sun, she set to work preparing supper, in readiness for her grandfather’s return.

The letter she put in a prominent position on the supper-table. He would be sure to ask her where she had found it, then she would tell him all about it, and ask him why he had tampered with her property, which was contained in the box.

The sunset faded out in splendours of crimson and gold; then a cold wind stole across the ridge, rustling the millions of crisping leaves on the great forest trees, and night came brooding down.

Never during the years of her life at the Lone House had Nell felt so solitary as on this night. Hitherto, when her grandfather had remained away, she had had Pip for companionship and defence. But now the dog was breathing its last, no longer able to recognize her when she stooped to pat it, or to wag its tail in response to her voice.

The night was weird in its silence; she had no watch or clock to beguile her with its ticking, or to let her know how the slow hours were passing.

To-night she did not go upstairs to her loft, because she could not leave the dog. So, keeping the fire burning for the sake of companionship, she wrapped herself in the coat she had been mending, and lay down on the settle to rest.

But she had kept vigil on the previous night, from a fanciful dread lest harm should befall the stranger guest beneath their roof. She knew her grandfather’s disposition well, and that the old man would be quite capable of turning the stranger out in the night if the idea came into his head, so she had kept awake, in order to frustrate any design of the kind.

On this second night she also decided to keep watch, to see that Pip wanted for nothing. But healthy girls of seventeen cannot keep awake always.

Very soon the Lone House grew more silent still, the fire sank to a bed of red coals, which turned by slow degrees to white ashes. The laboured respiration of the dog grew intermittent and feeble, finally ceasing entirely. But Nell slumbered on in blissful unconsciousness until the morning sun threw broad beams of light across the uncleared supper-table, the spent fire, and the dead dog; then, with a little cry, she started into wakefulness.

CHAPTER IV
What the New Day brought

NELL sobbed and cried in a childish abandonment of grief when she found that Pip had died whilst she slept. But as no tears could restore the animal to life, the womanliness in her presently re-asserted itself, and she set to work to make the house clean and tidy, pending her grandfather’s return. After that she would dig a deep grave for poor faithful old Pip, in which she would lay the creature in readiness for burial, when Doss Umpey returned.

The exercise did her good, and as the sun was shining more brightly than ever, her mood grew almost cheerful as the day went on.

While sweeping under the settle, her broom⁠—⁠a home-made affair, consisting of rushes bound together⁠—⁠brushed out from under the settle a little leather case, which she had certainly never seen before.

Picking it up, she brushed the dust from it with her sleeve, then opened it to examine the contents.

At first sight it seemed to be quite empty, and the leaves of the memorandum book inside were innocent of pencil marks or writing of any description. There was a pocket in the case behind the book, however, and from this Nell drew out the photograph of a middle-aged lady, with the sweetest face she had ever seen. Something else the pocket contained also, and this was a packet of three clean ten-dollar notes.

“Oh, how could the case have come there?” she cried, peering under the settle to see that no more treasure-trove was lurking in the obscurity there.

But nothing else remained, not even dust, so effectually had the rush-broom done its work.

“Mr. Bronson must have dropped it from his pocket in the night. He was a bit restless some of the time,” she muttered, shivering a little as she thought of her uncomfortable vigil, sitting on the floor of the loft.

Then she wondered how she could possibly restore his property to him without the knowledge of her grandfather. There was an uncomfortable feeling in her heart that, if her grandfather knew of the money, he would want to keep it, and that course of procedure did not march with her ideas of honesty.

So she resolved for the present to hide the money. Perhaps Mr. Bronson would write to her. He had spoken of doing so, and of sending her some books, in which case she would be able to write to him in return, and send the packet.

“Only I’ll post the letter myself, even if I have to walk to Button End and back,” she said, with great decision. Then she returned to her work with a will, being anxious to have the house as clean and tidy as hands could make it before the old man’s return.

She had dragged the mat, with Pip’s dead body resting on it, to the cool shade at the back of the house; and there, in the hot noontide, she dug the grave, perspiring a great deal, but working with great energy, to get her task completed.

The hole was ready at last, and she climbed out of it with a sigh of relief, dropping on to the ground for a brief rest.

Then she heard sounds of talking⁠—⁠a woman’s voice high-pitched and complaining, children’s tones eager and excited, and the tramp of horses’ feet.

With a fluttering at her heart, she ran round to the front of the house. As a rule, hardly one person in a month passed along the trail, except in winter, when lumbering was being carried on⁠—⁠even then it was only men and boys who came; but these arrivals, by the sound of their voices, were plainly womenfolk, or at least there was one woman.

When she turned the corner of the house she saw a little procession of three horses, just halting under the big Valparaiso oak. A woman, lean and shrewish of aspect, was mounted on the first animal, in company with many bags and bundles, among which a fryingpan and two new tin saucepans showed conspicuously.

Two children⁠—⁠a boy and a girl⁠—⁠shared the next horse, their steed also being hung round with trappings of the same description; while the third horse was heavily laden with more household stuff.

A man and a big boy completed the party, which looked hot and tired, as well they might after the ten miles’ journey from Button End, for in this glowing September noontide the forest trail was hot as a furnace.

Nell approached with a bewildered look on her face, and some dismay in her heart, wondering how she could contrive to offer hospitality to so many people. Her household stores were at a painfully low ebb at the present moment⁠—⁠indeed, she had neither tea, sugar, nor coffee to offer them, and the remaining flour in her barrel had been made into bread that morning⁠—⁠two small loaves, which would not half suffice to feed this party of five.

Then she remembered the great basket of berries which she had gathered two hours before, and that the early apples were already quite eatable, so she quickened her steps to greet the arrivals, a little comforted on the score of hospitality.

“Are you Doss Umpey’s gal?” called out the woman, in high-pitched, querulous tones.

“I am his granddaughter,” Nell answered, with as much dignity as she could muster, yet all the while conscious that her dreadful old clothes detracted very much from the cold aloofness of her bearing.

“It’s about the same thing in the end, I guess,” rejoined the woman, with a cackle of harsh laughter. “Well, there’s a letter from the old man to tell you why we’ve come, and are going to stop.”

And she tossed a smudged envelope to the ground, directed in Doss Umpey’s straggling writing, to “Miss Nell Umpey, at Blue Bird Ridge.”

It was really too bad, and poor Nell could have cried with vexation, that her grandfather, who was too lazy to spell his own name properly, should call her by it also. But when she had read the letter, she was thankful indeed that he had not addressed her by her right name.

Nell was so long in getting at the sense of the old man’s badly written letter that by the time she had done, the three horses had all been unladen and hobbled so that they could feed in the open space before the house, and the woman was carrying the bundles in at the door, assisted by the children.

“Have you come here to live?” asked Nell, in a bewildered tone.

Although she had read the letter, she could not yet comprehend its meaning, or realize that the old life was gone, and that she was suddenly thrust upon her own resources, with no one to care what became of her.

“It looks like it, don’t you think?” said the woman, with another cackling laugh. “Now then, girl, what’s your name⁠—⁠Nell? Don’t stand there staring as if you was short-witted; stir round lively, and help me get these things inside.”

Nell came to assist in a half-mechanical fashion, still doubting the evidence of her own senses. The man and the big boy had not spoken to her, had hardly glanced in her direction indeed, but were absorbed in looking round their new premises, grumbling loudly because the clearing about the house was not so big as they had supposed.

The small boy and girl had likewise disappeared on a journey of exploration, so Nell and Mrs. Gunnage were left alone.

“What! haven’t you got a cooking-stove?” cried the woman, in shrill consternation.

“We did have one, but it dropped all to bits in the spring, and I’ve had to bake bread in the ashes all summer. Granfer had said that he would get a new one in the fall,” Nell answered.

“Well, it’s fall now, and I must have a stove, for I can’t bake bread in the ashes, if you can. Joe will just have to go over to Button End to-morrow, and get me one. What is up that ladder?” demanded Mrs. Gunnage, sharply, having just caught sight of the rickety ladder in the corner behind the door.

“It leads to my room,” Nell replied, then was instantly indignant because Mrs. Gunnage prepared to mount and inspect the loft without asking permission.

But the swaying, creaking ladder proved too much for the woman’s nerves.

“I will just have Joe make me a firmer ladder before I go up there, for a fall would about shake me to bits. Is there any furniture up there?”

“An old camp bed and two boxes,” Nell answered, with characteristic brevity. She had come to the conclusion that she simply detested Mrs. Gunnage, and that nothing should induce her to remain at the Lone House as hired girl to such a woman.

“I thought as much! But, my word! to hear Doss Umpey talk of his furniture, a person might have looked to find marble-topped tables and mahogany chairs. A downright swindle it is, to call this old truck furniture.”

To this pronouncement Nell made no reply; she was quietly reserving herself for what must come later, trying also, in some way, to shape and plan her future, yet feeling all the time in such a whirling confusion of mind as scarcely to be capable of meeting the needs of the moment.

“It is a puzzle to me where we are all going to sleep. Why, the house isn’t big enough to swing a cat in!” exclaimed Mrs. Gunnage, scornfully; and indeed the small interior did seem rather crowded, now that the lading of the three horses had been brought in and dumped upon the floor.

“For to-night the little girl can come to sleep with me in the loft. The two boys would be very comfortable in the stable, for there is quite a nice lot of hay there that I have been cutting and collecting for Blossom in the winter, and the nights ain’t cold yet,” Nell answered, with a desire to make things as pleasant as she could for these interlopers, who had come into such sudden and unexpected possession of her home.

Mrs. Gunnage turned upon her with an air of exasperation.

“To-night, indeed! Well, I’ve more than one night to think and plan for, and I’m sure I don’t know how Miranda would manage to climb up that shaking ladder. I shall keep her down here with us for to-night, and after that we must see what can be done. I’m willing to keep you on through the winter as hired girl, if you like to stay, for your board; but, by the look of you, I shouldn’t say you’d be worth wages at present.”

“Thank you, I could not stay for my board, and I will go away to-morrow morning,” Nell said hurriedly.

“But where will you go? Your granfer said you hadn’t any friends, that was why I sort of offered to take you out of charity,” the woman said, measuring Nell’s lean length with her eye, and mentally resolving to make her so-called charity a very paying investment indeed.

Nell flushed an angry red. To her, charity was the most hateful word she knew, and synonymous with everything horrid and unkind.

“It is true that I have nowhere to go and no friends. But I am strong, and can work, so that does not matter, and I have no need of charity,” she answered, with her head held at a proud angle.

“Oh, stuck up, are you? Well, a little hard work will soon take that out of you, I reckon. Where are you off to now?” demanded Mrs. Gunnage, as Nell moved towards the door.

“I am going to finish burying our poor old dog, which died last night. I was digging a grave for it when you came,” Nell answered.

“Dead, is it? I remember Doss Umpey told my Joe the creature was pretty bad. Well, there ain’t no need for you to go out fussing about burying it. The men folks can see to that, and do you just stay here and help me get a bit straight. I could fancy a cup of coffee and a bit of food if it was got ready for me.”

“I would rather bury the dog myself, thank you,” Nell remarked, and was passing out of the door when a shrill scream from the woman arrested her steps.

“Come back, I say, and do as I told you. When I speak, I expect to be obeyed.”

“I will come and help you presently, if I have time, but I am not your hired girl, please remember,” Nell rejoined, civilly still, but with her head held at a dangerous angle, and her eyes shining with the light of battle. Then she walked away, disappearing round the corner of the house, and set to work at covering Pip in the grave she had dug, shovelling with tremendous energy in order to get her task completed before any one should disturb her.

No interruption came, however, and when she went back to the house Mrs. Gunnage was sullen, but civil.

Nell made up the fire, boiled some water, and made the tired woman some coffee. But the two loaves of bread which were her own she quietly carried up to the loft and put with the clothes from her mother’s box. She would need that bread for her long journey next day, and did not mean that it should be taken from her, by accident or otherwise.

For the remainder of the day, until darkness fell, she did her best to help Mrs. Gunnage. She cooked supper for the family, and served them all as meekly as if she were in truth the hired girl. She even shared their supper, feeling that she had certainly earned it. When darkness fell, she mounted up the swaying ladder to the loft, and then set to work on her own preparations for the future. The night was moonless, and she had no lamp or candle, but one can do a great deal by feeling when the occasion demands it.

Only two of her treasured books could be taken,⁠—⁠the Bible, which had been her father’s, and Longfellow; the dictionary and Bacon’s essays must be left. Perhaps Miranda Gunnage or one of the boys would like to have them.

When her preparations were quite complete, and, by the sense of touch, she had taken leave of the few treasures she must leave behind, Nell lay down on the broken camp-bed for the last time and fell asleep.

No dreams came to disturb her repose. No fears of her future stuck thorns of unrest in her pillow that night, and when the first of a family of blue birds came to twitter and stir in the great oak outside her open shutter, Nell started up broad awake, quite prepared for her plunge into the Unknown.

It was not daylight yet, for that was the western world, and the towering heights of the Rocky Mountains blocked out the earliest splendours of the rising sun. But morning would soon be here, and meanwhile there was her toilet to consider; a great affair this, for she had resolved to cast off her rags and clothe herself in the attire found in her mother’s box.

Very softly she moved, through fear of waking the sleepers down below. Yet she could not avoid little gasps and gurgles of delight as she arrayed herself in the flowing, old-fashioned skirts, and buttoned the blue bodice across her thin chest.

She had rolled her hair into a big knot at the back of her head, and when the bonnet, with its bunch of pink roses, was tied on her head, Nell felt that her appearance left nothing to be desired, and could not possibly be improved.

By this time daylight had fully come, and she was able to survey herself in the cracked piece of looking-glass, which was all the mirror she possessed. The black silk cape she had packed in with the few garments she had to carry. Her cast-off clothing was folded into a neat little heap, and Nell was wondering how soon she might venture down the ladder, to make her start out into the wide world, when a harsh voice called up from below⁠—

“Now then, gal; when are you going to bestir yourself, or do you mean to lie there all day?”

It was the voice of Mrs. Gunnage, and, screwing her face into lines of stern resolution, Nell picked up the old canvas bag containing her clothes and the two books, then came slowly down the swaying ladder, her blue skirt folded closely round her, and the pink roses nodding in her bonnet.

“Well, you do look a figure of fun! What sort of game are you up to now?” demanded the woman, sharply; but there was an anxious look in her eyes, for she had counted rather considerably on retaining Nell as a household drudge through the winter.

“I am going away. I told you last night that I shouldn’t stay here, now that granfer has gone. And I’m obliged to start early because I’ve a long way to go. It is going to be very hot presently, then walking will be difficult.”

“You can’t go till you’ve had your breakfast.”

“Oh yes I can, thank you. I have two small loaves of bread, and I shan’t want anything else,” Nell answered, moving towards the door.

“Look here, it shan’t be said I turned you adrift. You stay here all winter, and I’ll give you a dollar a month for pocket money,” said Mrs. Gunnage, spreading her hands out to emphasize the magnificence of her offer.

“I can’t stay, thank you. I’d rather go. Good morning,” jerked out Nell. Then, stepping across the threshold, she went out to face the future, and all that it might bring.

CHAPTER V
Summoned Home

BRATLEY JUNCTION was a small depot on a branch line, and it was rather a stretch of the imagination to call it a junction at all, since it ended fifteen miles farther on at Camp’s Gulch, while the one little branch was the bit of line running up five miles into the mountains to the Roseneath Mines.

There were mines everywhere in that district. Down on the plains, up in the hoary sides of the towering hills, and tucked away in gloomy cañons the human family dug, delved, and toiled, wresting coal, iron, copper, and even silver, from the covering earth.

Then, when man had done his best, or worst, in upheaving and making desolate what Nature had intended should be wild and beautiful, another sort of man⁠—⁠only sometimes it was a woman⁠—⁠set to work at bringing order out of chaos, and levelling the heaps flung up by the human moles, laid out little fields and fruitful gardens in the sunny hollows of the western hills.

A very different class of settlers these from the dwellers in the middle west, who till their ground, harvest their crops, and thresh their corn by machinery. It was mostly hand work here, and, in many cases, very hard work. No great fortunes were possible, but a living could be wrested from the soil, and a race of boys and girls, self-reliant and clever, were growing up to carve careers for themselves, and to win honourable names among the powerful of the earth.

The Bratley depot was a long wooden shed divided into offices and storerooms, while half a dozen houses, also of wood, clustered near.

The work of the girl telegraph clerk was not heavy, nor yet tremendously important, so it was usually a beginner who was stationed there, and very dull work most of the beginners found it.

Gertrude Lorimer was no exception, and she had groaned fully as much as her predecessors in office over the boredom of life at Bratley.

But she was in her second year now, and hoping for speedy promotion, more especially as her duty had been so thoroughly done, that she had never been reprimanded for any sort of neglect.

She was leaning over the slab where her instrument was fixed, tidying books and papers on the shelf above. The September morning was warm and sunny, while Gertrude’s mood was of the happiest, for a holiday of a very special sort was in prospect, and she was putting the office in nice order for the deputy, who was to arrive by the noon train to supply her place for a fortnight.

Her holiday was to be spent in New Westminster, and the thought of two weeks in a real city with business blocks, river steamboats, trams, and all the other luxuries of civilization compensated Gertrude for not going home this fall.

Lorimer’s Clearing, where her people lived, was a lonely farmstead lying almost close to the American frontier, a difficult journey from Bratley, which took a whole day to perform.

Gertrude had suffered many a fit of home sickness since she had been at Bratley, for she was one of those girls to whom home is everything, and neither by nature nor training was she fitted to stand alone.

But one could not see the world at Lorimer’s Clearing, so the summer holiday this year was to be spent in the city, with a view to enlarging her understanding, and as she was to stay with a sister of her father’s who lived at New Westminster, she would still be among her own kinsfolk.

Presently, in through the open door of the telegraph office came a stout, bustling woman, with a cast in her eye, who held up her hands in amazement at Gertrude’s activity.

“Well, Miss Lorimer, if you don’t just beat everything; turning the place inside out, as if it was regular spring-cleaning time instead of a fall holiday!”

“Oh, I’m only having a dust down, Mrs. Nichols. I could not leave the place in a muddle for my deputy, or I should deserve that she, in her turn, would leave it so for me,” Gertrude said, as she flourished her duster along the high shelf, raising a great dust.

“Don’t flick your duster so, child; just pass it gently along, sort of wrapping the dust into it as you go. What you are doing now is to set all them atoms in active circulation for a few minutes, then back they settles again thicker than ever,” expostulated Mrs. Nichols, who was a notable housewife, and hated to see work done in an improper fashion.

“That is what my mother always says, but I’m afraid that I am not a domestic genius; my ambitions don’t lie that way,” laughed Gertrude.

“It is of little use having ambitions, for you’ll never realize them if you don’t set out to do everything first class as you go along,” retorted Mrs. Nichols, with a wag of her head.

Gertrude was beginning a laughing reply when a call clicked out from her instrument, and she dropped her duster to take down the message which was arriving.

Mrs. Nichols waited until this was done, filling in the pause with an active raid on the next shelf. As she stood with her back to Gertrude, she did not know that anything was wrong, until she was startled by a faint moaning cry, and turned quickly to find the girl’s face had turned ghastly white.

“Law, child, whatever is the matter? Has bad news come over the wire? Sure it ain’t another big fire in the city?” cried the good woman, in alarm.

Her husband had lost his life in the great conflagration which had swept over the city some years previously, and since then her main idea of trouble had been some similar disaster.

“No, no, it is a message from home; there is great trouble, and I must go. Oh, what a mercy it is that my deputy is coming to-day, because now I can get away this evening!” Gertrude said, with panting breath.

“What sort of trouble?” demanded the widow.

“My eldest brother Percy, the one next to me, is not expected to live; Arthur is very ill too. My poor mother must be nearly distracted, for she just dotes on those two.”

“It won’t be any use your going to-night; you will just be dumped out at Blakeson’s somewhere about midnight, and there you’ll have to stay till morning. No, the only thing you can do is to send a message that you’ll be home to-morrow afternoon; then they’ll send the wagon to meet you at the depot, for you won’t want to walk seven miles when you get out of the cars,” said Mrs. Nichols.

“Oh, I can’t wait; it will be dreadful! Think of the torture of lying awake all night, and wondering what is going to happen to those poor boys,” wailed Gertrude.

“You will be very foolish to lie awake. It is some one to help that your mother will want, not a poor worn-out creature, only fit to be put to bed and nursed like a baby. I only hope it ain’t nothing infectious, for I’d just hate for you to go home and get sick.”

There was anxiety in the tone of Mrs. Nichols now, for she had grown really attached to her young lodger in the months that Gertrude had boarded with her.

“I don’t care if I do get sick; I don’t care what happens to me at all, if only the boys get better!” wailed Gertrude. “Why, they are just the life of the home⁠—⁠and so clever, too.”

“They will get better, don’t you fear. Boys can pull through anything; it is girls that want most taking care of. Well, well, but this is a damper for you, and you just starting off to the city for your holiday, too!” sighed the stout woman, in kindly concern.

“I’m thankful I hadn’t started. Oh dear, how shall I get through the hours until to-morrow morning?” And Gertrude’s sobs broke forth afresh at the thought of the long wait in front of her.

“You’ll get through right enough; and, after all, it is only a minute at a time, you know. But you had better send a message to your aunt to say that you are not coming. Then, when your deputy comes, and you are off duty, just you come right home and go to bed.”

“What, in the middle of the afternoon?” cried Gertrude, aghast.

“Why not? You have nothing else to do, and the more rest you get before you start the more help you will be when you get home.”

The sound wisdom of this suggestion commended itself to Gertrude, who knew her own limitations pretty thoroughly, and was perfectly well aware that she would be of no use at home if she were worn out with worrying and want of sleep.

The deputy arrived in due course. This time the operator was no raw hand, but one who had somehow failed to get on, and was, in consequence, thankful to get chance work for a time. This was a great comfort to Gertrude, as probably the deputy would be willing to do duty longer than the fortnight if required, and so the post would be kept open for her.

She had to leave Bratley by the first train, which was very early. Several changes of cars were necessary, and there was a long wait of two hours at Blakeson’s, where she had to change from main-line cars on to a branch line again. It was the middle of the afternoon when she stepped out of the cars at the depot nearest to her own home, and saw her father waiting for her with the wagon.

Abe Lorimer, a meek, quiet-looking man of fifty years, had a bowed, broken look that Gertrude had never noticed before. Her heart gave a sudden throb of pain as she saw him, and when they stood face to face it was her eyes, and not her tongue, which asked the question she could not, from very fear, put into speech.

“He’s gone, poor lad; died this morning at the dawning,” jerked out the stricken father.

“Dead⁠—⁠Percy?” gasped Gertrude, turning white to the lips, and reeling as if she were about to faint.

“Get into the wagon, and let’s be off sharp; seems as if I can’t bear the neighbours coming to tell me how sorry they are,” said Abe, with an apprehensive look at a group of loungers, who had strolled up to see the cars come in.

Gertrude gathered her various belongings up in blind haste, her father lifted her trunk into the wagon, and the two were driving away from the depot before the loungers had time to make any further comment to each other than that Abe Lorimer looked pretty sick. But as he mostly had a melancholy appearance, no one paid special heed to it on this occasion.

Gertrude, struggling with her sobs, was trying to steady her voice enough to ask how it had all happened, yet she lacked the courage for her question, because there was something in her father’s face which warned her there might be still more ill news to follow.

They were out of sight of the railway track, and the two horses were going at a steady trot up the long two mile rise to the village, where the store and the saw-mills were, and then Abe broke into speech again⁠—

“Arthur is very low down; the doctor doesn’t think there is much chance of his pulling through, but if both the boys are taken, it will be my death-blow. I’ve got a sort o’ feeling inside me, that I can’t stand up against it nohows.”

Gertrude slid her arm through her father’s, and laid her cheek against the rough sleeve of his jacket. There was no word of comfort that she could say to him, but for the time her pity for his suffering was so keen, that she had no opportunity of giving way to her own sorrow.

Mounting the rise, the horses broke into a quicker pace, went down the hill through the village⁠—⁠the town, some people called it⁠—⁠tore round the corner, and, dashing past the saw-mills, took the next rise at a gallop.

“Father, how did the boys get sick?” Gertrude asked, after a long silence. She was growing desperate now, for the line of trees right in front of them marked the boundary-line of Lorimer’s Clearing, and she must know about the trouble before she reached home and met her mother.

“There’s a sort o’ malarial fever going about; it don’t amount to much if you stay in bed and keep warm when it’s on you. The boys took it, but there was no keeping ’em in bed, and one day they went bathing in the Black Cauldron⁠—⁠you know how cold the water is there⁠—⁠and that’s what did the mischief. Patsey looks poorly this morning, and your mother is keeping him in bed. It is a good thing harvest is over; if the sickness had come two weeks ago, it would have been pretty near ruin.”

Gertrude nodded. Having been brought up on a farm, she understood very well what a frightful disaster sickness in harvest time would be.

“Lots of folks are ill round about here,” Abe went on, as if he found it a relief to talk, now that the ice was broken. “The doctor said this morning that Giles Bailey’s aunt was very bad, so sick he didn’t think she’d pull through, and there ain’t a woman to be got for love or money to sit up with her o’ nights.”

“Giles Bailey’s aunt?” echoed Gertrude. “I don’t think I know them, either nephew or aunt.”

“Very likely not. The aunt, Mrs. Munson, has got a farm about five miles the other side of the boundary, and Giles works it for her. A good sort of lad, but slow. He used to come over to singing-school last winter at Pratt’s Corner, but the boys said school was mostly half over before Giles turned up, and that he’d no more notion of singing than a raven.”

Gertrude smiled, but a sob came up in her throat, and had to be battled with. Percy and Arthur sang so beautifully themselves, and had always been regarded as the stars of the winter singing-school.

“Father, there’s Flossie coming to open the gate; poor little girl, how lame she is!” Gertrude said, five minutes later, as the horses trotted swiftly down the last stretch of cleared cornland toward the house, which stood with its back to a forest-clad hill. Her eyes had caught sight of a diminutive figure coming, with a series of bobbing jerks, over the ground to open the field gate.

“She is lame, but she is uncommon useful, poor little maid, and has taken baby off your mother’s hands entirely, ever since the boys got sick,” Abe answered, with a sigh.

Flossie was nine, and suffered from some kind of hip trouble, which prevented her from going to school, or sharing the sports and pleasures of the other children, yet she was a very happy little maiden usually, despite these drawbacks, and home owed more of its brightness to her than any one would have suspected. But Flossie was under a shadow this morning, and, seeing the mute distress on the little sister’s face, Gertrude braced herself to a great effort of self-forgetfulness, and determined to be as brave as she could, for the sake of the others.

CHAPTER VI
A Strange Welcome

NELL was very tired. Since early morning she had tramped steadily, pursuing that apparently unending trail. Sometimes the way had been up steep ascents, over high ridges, where big boulders stuck up among the trees; then it would drop to lower ground, and skirt wide swamps, in one of which Dick Bronson’s horse had come to its untimely end.

But from the open ground of the last ridge she had crossed, Nell had caught sight of what looked like a cultivated field right ahead, and she was walking on with more hope now that she might reach a house of some kind before night fell, and so be saved the weird experience of spending a night alone in the open.

Several times she had walked to Button End and back again to the Lone House in a day, which was a distance of twenty miles, so her long journey on this occasion had not been so tiring to her as it would have been to any one less accustomed to very long tramps.

It was thirty miles from Blue Bird Ridge to the nearest settlement on the long trail, Doss Umpey used to say; and Nell was beginning to wonder how near she was to that settlement, when she came to a broader cross trail, which showed recent wheel marks.

A few minutes she stood hesitating which way to take, then her quick eye caught sight of a handful of straws caught on a bush.

“A cart carrying corn to the homestead, that is what it was, and this is the way it went,” she said to herself, with the quick observation which comes to dwellers in isolated spots, who have only Nature for their companion.

Then, giving a jerk to the bundle in the canvas bag, which for greater comfort she carried on her back, she went onward again, following now the broader cross trail which showed wheel marks, and here and there fluttering pennons of corn.

For a mile she tramped wearily on⁠—⁠a long, long mile this was⁠—⁠and she would many times have yielded to her desire to sit down and rest but for her fear that night might come, finding her still without a shelter for the hours of darkness.

The trail ended suddenly in a gate that gave entrance to a fenced enclosure, in which stood a barn, some smaller sheds, and a wooden house.

A man was coming in at another gate on the lower side of the enclosure, and he had with him two horses and a cart laden with wood, while a scraggy dog of mongrel type circled round and round, barking wildly at some pigs, which tried to make a rush through the opening.

Nell stood leaning against the bars of her gate hesitating to enter. A fit of shyness had suddenly come upon her, and she was wondering what these people would say to her, or how she could account satisfactorily for rambling about the country alone, without betraying to curious outsiders the fact of her grandfather’s desertion of her.

“Come right in, will you, please, miss? I’d come and open the gate for you⁠—⁠it’s a bit awkward, I know⁠—⁠but I’m afraid of Spider bolting,” shouted the man with the cart. And as one of the horses began at this moment to plunge and rear, Nell understood which was Spider without further introduction.

She opened the gate then, and walked boldly into the yard, and was going across to the man when he shouted to her again⁠—

“Go right in, will you, please, miss? The door is unfastened right enough, only I had to shut it to keep the pigs out. Poor aunt is desperate bad to-day, worse than she has been all along, and she’ll just be downright glad to see you,” he called out. Then he had to give instant attention to Spider, as the creature was endeavouring to walk on its two hind legs, to the discomfort of the steady old animal to which it was yoked.

Nell’s heart gave a great bound of relief. If some one were ill in the house, they would be sure to let her stay and help, at least until daylight came again. So, with a nod to the man, she turned away, and walked up to the door of the house.

This opened straight into the family living-room, which was in a state of confusion such as Nell had never seen equalled. Dirty crockery was strewn on tables, chairs, and floor. Eatables of various sorts were also lying about in the same disorder. One pair of boots and a hat stood on the dresser, close to an untrimmed lamp and a basin half full of milk, while a loaf of bread, with a knife sticking in it, lay on a coat which had been flung down on a bench near the door.

“Oh, what a fearful muddle!” she murmured under her breath. And weary though she was she would have laughed at the scene before her, only she remembered there was a sick woman somewhere, and she had to find her quickly.

Three doors led out of this room, but instinct guiding her she opened the right one first, and walked into a stuffy chamber, the closeness of which seemed almost to choke her, coming as she did from the sweet fresh air of the forest.

A woman with a flushed face and tumbled grey hair lay on the bed, moaning and muttering. She took no notice when Nell bent over and spoke to her, but only moaned and muttered as before.

“She is delirious, that is what she is,” murmured Nell, pronouncing the long word with the careful satisfaction which she always seemed to derive from anything which came out of her much-studied dictionary. “Well, the other room must wait, and I’ll see to her first.”

Years before, when she was a little girl of eleven, she had helped to take care of her sick and dying father, so she was not so much at a loss, as some girls might have been, if thrust suddenly into a sick-room.