“What does it mean?” asked Nell, in a bewildered tone, as she stared at the message she had written down.

“You’ve got to stop the cars, of course; run, or you will be too late,” said Miss Simpson, pointing to the door with a hasty gesture.

Nell made haste to obey, returning five minutes later very much out of breath, and rather curious concerning the message.

“Did it mean that the supplies for Camp’s Gulch had got on to the Roseneath cars by mistake? or what did it mean?” she asked, panting still from the haste she had made.

“I don’t know, and as it is not my business, I don’t care,” returned Miss Simpson, languidly.

“But I care; I want to know what everything means, or else how can I do my work properly?” Nell asked, with an inflection of dismay in her tone.

“Oh, a few months’ work as an operator will soon cure you of any tendency to curiosity, and take away some of your superfluous energy as well,” replied Miss Simpson, with a superior air. “But here comes another message; look sharp!”

Nell turned to the sounder, writing down the words as the machine ticked them out, and when the message was all through, she heaved a great sigh of relief.

“There is my mystery explained, and I am so very glad,” she said, with a laugh.

The conductor of the Roseneath train came into the office at this moment, anxious to know why his train had been prevented from starting, and she read the message to him.

“I said it was a mistake when they were put on, only no one would believe me,” said the conductor, wrathfully, as he turned to go and take the misladen freight from his cars, shouting loudly for the baggage clerk to come and help him, and so shorten the delay in starting.

But the baggage clerk, who was also pointsman and a good many other things as well, had already gone off to some other duty, and was not available.

“I will help you,” said Nell, impulsively, running after the harassed conductor, who was fuming and irritable with the delay.

He stared at her for a moment in astonishment; then his face cleared as if by magic.

“Thank you, miss; it will make five minutes’ difference, perhaps more, and it all counts in the day’s work,” he said. But he lifted his hat to her with a ready chivalry that showed he respected her none the less for her offer of help.

Five minutes of really hustling work, then the packages were all off the train, the whistle sounded, and the cars moved off towards Roseneath, just as the baggage clerk came running back to see what was amiss.

Nell explained the situation to him, putting the freight in his care for loading on to the next Camp’s Gulch cars, then returned to the office, very warm and rather untidy from that spirited wrestling with rice bags and boxes marked “fragile.”

“Oh, how could you do such a thing?” cried Miss Simpson, holding up her hands in horror.

“There was no one else to help, and it didn’t hurt me, only I’m rather dusty,” Nell said, with a rueful look at her brown coat.

“The cars might have waited until to-morrow morning before I would have soiled my fingers by helping to take off freight. Such a fearfully unladylike thing to do,” rejoined Miss Simpson, severely, pursing her thin lips, and looking very prim and proper.

“Was it unladylike?” asked Nell, opening her eyes very widely. “I’m very sorry; but, if the same thing happened again, I expect I should do just the same.”

“I expect you would. Some people are made so,” rejoined Miss Simpson, slightingly. Then, with a change of tone, she said briskly, “As you are here and settled in so comfortably, there is no reason why I shouldn’t go off duty at once. I shall have time to dress myself nicely before the cars come in.”

Nell looked a little blank. She had expected to have Miss Simpson’s help all the evening, especially as her own actual coming on duty was not supposed to begin until the next morning. However, it was of no use to protest, as the young lady had so plainly made up her mind to do no more work at Bratley.

The evening was a busy one. So many calls from the instrument, some of which had to be answered, others merely going through to other places. Nell’s breakfast, and the luncheon she had taken on the cars, had become dim memories, and she was feeling tired and faint when, about six o’clock, Mrs. Nichols came puffing and wheezing into the office, laden with a basket and a small tin can.

“Feelin’ half starved, ain’t you? If not, you ought to by this time. A burning shame, I call it, to leave you here in charge, while she is curling and frizzing her front hair, and you with no chance to feed comfortably all day, while your duty properly doesn’t begin until to-morrow morning. But I’ve brought you a drop of tea and a doughnut, so that you shan’t starve outright before supper.”

“It is very kind of you,” said Nell, gratefully, as she sipped her tea and nibbled the doughnut. Then, remembering a problem which had been bothering her several times that evening, she said rather anxiously, “Now that you are here, will you tell me how I am to find your house? It will be quite dark at eight o’clock, for the moon does not rise until nearly midnight.”

“I’ll come and fetch you myself. It is lucky that the weather is frosty to-day, or a nice time I should have had of it tramping through the mud. There is that telegraph again. What a nuisance the thing is!” Mrs. Nichols said, as the warning machine ticked out its third summons while Nell drank her tea.

“There is a clerk at Lytton who seems to find time hang heavy on her hands to-night, for she keeps calling me up, and asking me if I won’t talk; but I don’t know what to say to her,” replied Nell.

“Tell her so, then, and she will soon leave off. Well, I must go now and see if Miss Simpson is through with her frizzing and curling. If she goes on torturing her poor hair like this for another ten years she won’t have any left;” and away went Mrs. Nichols, puffing and wheezing like a laden locomotive on an up-grade track.

“I wonder why she stares at me so much?” Nell said to herself, when the stout woman had gone, for the scrutiny of Mrs. Nichols had been very close and keen, making her feel vaguely uncomfortable.

Just then there was a call from the sounder. Nell had to take down a list of instructions from Camp’s Gulch, then send a message to Roseneath. After that Lytton called her up again, and so the evening went on.

Ten minutes before the cars for Lytton came in, Miss Simpson sailed into the office in all the glory of her frizzed hair, her best hat, and smart new winter coat.

“Thought I’d just look in and see how you are getting on, though it is rather a shame to come and make you envious,” she said, with a laugh at her own wit.

“Why envious?” asked Nell, simply, thinking the envy was to be called forth by the splendours of Miss Simpson’s array.

“Because I’m going away, of course, and you have got to stay on here in this dull hole. Wait until this time next week and see if you don’t find yourself longing to be in my shoes.”

“Perhaps I shall if that tiresome Lytton girl keeps calling me up and wanting to talk, only I’m afraid your shoes would pinch me rather badly, they are so much smaller than mine,” Nell answered, with a merry laugh, looking from her own stout footgear, bought from the store at Nine Springs, and eminently suitable for country wear, to the high-heeled, pointed-toed shoes with great steel buckles which Miss Simpson was wearing.

“That isn’t a girl at Lytton; but Claude Hale, a friend of mine. I didn’t tell him I was going away to-day, so, of course, he wonders why I am so unresponsive. Pray don’t tell him I am gone, then he’ll be puzzled to death at my coldness,” giggled Miss Simpson, in a high state of glee.

“I shall not tell him anything, but I hope he will soon leave off worrying,” replied Nell; then, as the cars came rumbling down the valley, she went to the door of her office to see Miss Simpson get on board.

“If nothing is harder than to-night has been, I shall be able to manage all right, and I will write to Gertrude to-morrow and tell her so,” murmured Nell to herself, as she stood at the door watching the retreating figure of Miss Simpson.

A wave of homesick longing came over her as, with a screech, a roar, and a clatter, the train of cars moved on out of the station. Lorimer’s Clearing was not her home, but it was the only place in the wide world which had given her a home feeling, and she yearned to go back to the toil and the drudgery, if only with these she could have the love which had surrounded her there.

In her generous heart she had quite overlooked and forgotten Mrs. Lorimer’s first hard treatment of her, and although it was quite possible that she would never feel the same warm love for the mistress of the house as she had felt for all the others, there was no danger of her remembering, as a grudge, that Mrs. Lorimer had been unfair, nay, positively unkind.

Punctually on the stroke of eight came puffing, wheezing Mrs. Nichols, who subsided on the one chair which the office contained, to wait while Nell shut everything up safely for the night.

Even in the pauses of her work she was conscious again of that same close scrutiny which had bothered her so much before.

“Perhaps it is her way, or her squint,” she said to herself, with a shrug, as she locked the office door and put the key in her pocket, then plunged with her guide into the frosty dark.

The baggage clerk had taken her box earlier in the evening, and in a very few minutes Nell found herself in a warm, cosy sitting-room, in darkness at present save for a ruddy glow from the half-open door of the stove.

“You stay right there while I light the lamp, then you won’t fall over anything,” said Mrs. Nichols; and Nell did as she was told, feeling very thankful that the long exciting day was over at last, and that she had nothing more to do but to sit still and rest.

The lamp, when lighted, revealed a well-spread supper-table, and a most inviting armchair, into which Nell was promptly hustled, and ordered to take her boots off.

“What a nice room!” she exclaimed, her attention being immediately attracted by a row of books on a long shelf in the farther recess.

“It is comfortable; but then, I’ve been used to being comfortable all my life,” Mrs. Nichols said, with a laugh, as she poked up the fire, drew the coffee-pot nearer to boil up again, and then, opening the oven door, lifted out a dish of delicately-browned sausages, surrounded by a rampart of mashed potato.

Nell enjoyed her supper, and the unaccustomed sensation of being waited upon; but she was conscious all the time of being held in close scrutiny by her hostess, who kept dropping into strange silence.

“You said your name was Eleanor Hamblyn, didn’t you? Was your father a preacher on the American side years ago?” the good woman asked presently.

“Yes,” replied Nell, but with a sudden shrinking, for with her grandfather’s injunction to secrecy fresh in her mind, it was rather embarrassing that this woman should recognize her.

“I was sure of it, for you are just your mother over again; poor Nell Gwynne, with her great dark eyes and her sweet low voice,” said Mrs. Nichols, then burst into a fit of hearty crying.

CHAPTER XII
Nell Learns her Family History

NELL jumped up in great consternation at this unexpected emotion on the part of her hostess.

“Oh, please, I am so sorry; but I think there is a mistake. My mother’s name couldn’t have been Gwynne, because her father’s name was Humphrey, Doss Umpey he always called himself.”

“Of course, of course, I knew I couldn’t be mistaken,” cried Mrs. Nichols, with a gurgling gasp which threatened to choke her. “But your mother’s name was Gwynne, my dear, though you might not have known it, and Doss Umpey was not her father at all, but only her mother’s second husband.”

“Are you sure, quite sure of that?” asked Nell, eagerly, going rather white, and standing with one hand clutching at the mantelpiece, as if she were afraid of falling.

“Quite sure, and I ought to know if any one did, seeing that I was your mother’s greatest friend until she married the preacher, and went away with him to her new home. She dropped her old friends a bit then⁠—⁠felt she didn’t want any one but her husband, I expect, which is natural, but not always wise.” And Mrs. Nichols heaved a heavy sigh.

“Tell me about my mother, please,” said Nell, her colour coming and going, while she tried to realize what it would mean to her not to have Doss Umpey for her grandfather.

“Your mother was a sweet, pretty creature, my dear, much prettier than you, for she was plumper, and had more colour; but you’ve got her eyes and her voice, and that brown hat and coat do suit you amazingly well. Doss Umpey drove the stage then between George Creek and Mutley town, and his wife⁠—⁠that was your grandmother⁠—⁠kept a store at Mutley with Nell to help her.”

“Was mother called Nell too? Father spoke of her always as Eleanor,” said Nell, doubtfully.

“I know he did, and I expect your husband, when you have one, will call you Eleanor too, for it is a fine, stately name, well suited for grown-up folks; but it isn’t fitted for children, so I suppose that is why they don’t get called by it.”

“Was granfer kind to my mother?” asked Nell.

“I don’t think he was unkind; but your mother couldn’t bear him, and it was when he tried to make her marry Dick Brunsen that she revolted openly, and wouldn’t stay at the store when Doss came home, but always used to come over and sleep at our house, where she met the preacher, your father.”

“Dick Brunsen?” said Nell, faintly. She was thinking of the man who came to the Lone House for succour the day that Pip got hurt, and who had said that his name was Dick Bronson.

“Yes; Dick Brunsen was a widower with one child, a boy of five or six, and he was called Dick too. Brunsen was very thick with Doss Umpey at the time; they two and Ned Logan were inseparables, until that scandal about robbing the stage, then, of course, Logan had to go to prison, and the other two quarrelled, though, if strict justice had been done, the three of them would have gone to penal servitude together.”

“Tell me about it,” murmured Nell; and there was a throb of pleasure at her heart because Doss Umpey had been only stepfather to her mother.

“It was believed, only it couldn’t be proved, that Brunsen planned the robberies, and paid Logan to carry them out, Doss Umpey being, of course, a consenting party. This is how it was done. Brunsen, who lived in a big house at Mutley, pretending to be a rich man, used to order all sorts of expensive goods from the city to be paid for on delivery; then they would be sent on from the depot at George Creek by the stage, and always on those occasions the stage was held up and robbed when crossing the iron plains, which was a desperately lonely bit of high ground between George Creek and Mutley.”

“But didn’t any one suspect?” asked Nell.

“Naturally they did after the first time or two, but it was difficult to get proof, for they could not catch the thieves, you see; but a watch was set, and Logan was caught in the act, tried, convicted, and sent to penal servitude. He died in prison, I believe, and did not give information as to where he had hidden a lot of the stuff he had stolen, and which Brunsen was, of course, anxious to get hold of, since he had paid Logan to steal it for him. Then Brunsen forced Doss to give up driving the stage. That was just about the time that your mother was married, and her mother died a few months after.”

Nell nodded. “Yes, I know; I’ve heard father talk about that, because it made mother so ill, and he used to do the cooking,” she said, with a little laugh.

“I dare say he did, for Parson Hamblyn was a good husband, and a good Christian, too. Ah, my dear, you have a lot to be thankful for in your father, even though he was cut off, as it were, in his prime, and I dare say you can’t remember much about him.”

“Oh, I remember a great deal; I was eleven when he died, and I was with him so much, you know. We boarded with Mrs. Chapman at Lewisville then, and he was ill so long.”

“I heard of his death, and that the child⁠—⁠that is, you⁠—⁠had been taken by relatives, but I knew nothing beyond the bare facts. Who were the relatives, child? Where have you been living since? And how did it come about that you are here, doing deputy for that nice Miss Lorimer?”

Nell’s head dropped a little. It hurt her pride a great deal to have to speak of those years she had spent at the Lone House on Blue Bird Ridge, in the home of Doss Umpey.

“I’ve lived with granfer ever since; that is, until last fall,” she said, in a low tone.

“With Doss Umpey? It isn’t possible, surely!” Mrs. Nichols held up her hands in very real amazement. “Why, he was a horrid, vulgar old man, and you are a lady, only your hands are so rough.”

Nell laughed. “I don’t think it matters whom you live with⁠—⁠if you can’t help it, that is. Father meant me to stay with Mrs. Chapman until I was old enough to earn my living, and he thought there would be enough money to do it; but when he died it was found there wasn’t any. Then granfer offered to take care of me, and so I had to go.”

“Where did you live?” asked Mrs. Nichols; but when Nell told her of the isolated house in the wide forest, she held up her hands in fresh dismay, declaring that such a life was too dreadful even to think about.

“I didn’t mind the loneliness so much, not after the first, for there were mostly horses and dogs for company, but it did worry me because I could not get to know things, and every year made it worse,” Nell said, with a sigh, remembering her limitations.

“Where is Doss Umpey now⁠—⁠dead?” demanded Mrs. Nichols, with a sharper note coming into her voice.

“He went away. I don’t know where he is now,” Nell replied briefly.

“Leaving you to shift for yourself?” cried the good woman, wrathfully.

“I have done very well, and learned a great many things⁠—⁠not book-learning, you know; I have had no time for that, but perhaps I shall have now. You have a fine lot of books here; would you mind if I read them in the evenings and on Sundays?” she asked, with a wistful look towards the shelf in the corner.

“You can take one with you to the office every day, to read in your waiting spells. I’m only afraid that they’re not educating sort of books, being mostly interesting reading. But here have I been talking, talking, talking, and you so tired that you look fit to drop. Come away to bed directly, child,” said Mrs. Nichols, getting up in a great hurry on discovering how late it was.

“Shall I clear supper for you first?” asked Nell, who was unaccustomed to be waited upon.

“Did any one ever hear the like? You are not my hired girl, remember, but a young lady boarder; and I’ve got to make you comfortable, or there’ll be ructions somewhere.” And Mrs. Nichols laughed at her own cheerful wit, as she piloted Nell into the bedroom prepared for her.

Such a cosy, cheerful little chamber it was, with wooden walls, wooden ceiling, and wooden floor; and there was a white curtain drawn over the window, and a red-and-white spread on the bed.

Nell fell asleep directly her head touched the pillow, for she was just worn out with the manifold excitements of the day, and she did not wake again until Mrs. Nichols called her at half-past six o’clock the next morning.

Snow had fallen during the night, and Nell had to wade ankle-deep through the soft whiteness on her way to the depot; but it was only a short distance, and she was vigorous from her long night of deep, untroubled slumber.

There was a new zest in her life this morning, which made all things look different. Her limitations in the matters of training and education were as apparent to her as ever; but a great burden had been taken from her shoulders by the revelations of her hostess last night. It was something to know that Doss Umpey was not her mother’s father, and that she owed him neither love nor duty on the score of kinship. Some gratitude might be due to him for those years in which he had given her the semblance of a home; but Nell had quite sufficient common sense to see that the old man would not have taken her if he had not seen that she would be no expense to him, and he had not hesitated to leave her at the mercy of the cold world when it suited his purpose to go into hiding.

“But the past is past, and I’ll get on now,” she said to herself, in a gleeful tone, as she raked out the ashes from the office stove and kindled the fire. “I’ll get some education too, as soon as I can afford to have lessons. Meanwhile I’ll just learn everything that comes my way, and every little helps.”

Her heart was singing the same blithe song all the morning, while she swept and dusted the office, which Miss Simpson had not troubled to leave tidy on quitting the post.

“Every little helps,” she murmured, as she responded to insistent calls from Lytton, from Camp’s Gulch, and Roseneath, sending back the proper replies, or calling them up when she had tidings to send through.

It was a busy morning over the wires. Sometimes she became confused, even a little uncertain of herself, in the strange newness of it all; but on the whole she managed very well, her natural quickness and adaptability standing her in good stead, while her determination to succeed was a great factor in her success. Noon had passed before there was a sufficient lull in the business of the day for her to find time even to open the book which she had taken at random from Mrs. Nichols’s bookshelf that morning.

But the rest of the day was comparatively easy. There were long spells of quiet time in which she read peacefully, sitting in luxurious comfort by the office fire.

The man in charge of the depot was elderly and taciturn, while the baggage-clerk, owing to the varied character of his duties, was rarely visible, save when the cars came in. But this state of things suited Nell perfectly; and if she had not missed the Lorimer children so badly, that first day at Bratley would have been marked in her memory as a red-letter day, ushering in, as it did, a new era for her.

Her book was interesting, too, being a record of the growth and greatness of the Dominion whose daughter she had become. So few new books had come her way in these last six years, and she had previously no knowledge of the big young land which, like some giant baby, was stretching its limbs and making its influence felt among the weary old nations of the world.

“I’d no idea books could be as interesting as that. It beats the dictionary,” she said to herself, with a little laugh. “But perhaps if I hadn’t been shut up to the dictionary first, I shouldn’t have been so well able to understand other books now,” she added, as a conviction came to her that perhaps those years at the Lone House had not been quite lost, after all.

“Fond of reading, are you, miss? Would you like to see a paper?” asked the conductor of the Roseneath cars, who had benefited by her kindly offices on the previous day.

He had looked in at the half-open door as he passed Nell’s business sanctum, and seeing her absorbed in a book, had sought, by the offer of a paper, to show his appreciation of her helpful kindness.

“Thank you; I should like to see it,” she answered.

But just then came a call from Lytton, and she had to take down a lot of instructions about the lading of some freight cars, which were to go right through to New Westminster.

By the time this was done there came other demands on her attention, and it was not until Mrs. Nichols had brought her tea and gone again that Nell remembered the paper left for her by the friendly conductor.

For a time she sat turning it over, amused by the advertisements, and wondering if the person offering boots and shoes at half their cost price were a philanthropist or a rogue, but inclining strongly to the latter view, even deciding in her own mind that he must have stolen the goods, since he could afford to sell them so much under their value.

Then her attention was caught and held by a paragraph in an obscure corner of the paper, and she sat staring at it for a long time with frightened eyes, only recalled to the present and its needs by the loud clicking call of the sounder.

Putting the paper aside with a quick movement of distaste, as if it were something to be afraid of, she went to the sounder, and began, half mechanically, to take down the message which was coming through.

It was a long message; but before it was half down on paper she had become quite painfully alert, waiting for the next word with every sense on the strain.

But for the paragraph in the paper it might have conveyed no meaning to her. As it was, the whole fitted together with the accuracy of a child’s puzzle, to which one has obtained the clue.

This was the paragraph⁠—

So it was this find that Joe Gunnage was riding to acquaint the Canadian police with, on the day when he halted at Mrs. Munson’s farm, but refused to enter the house through fear of catching the fever. If he had crossed the threshold and had seen Nell, it is very probable that he would have reported her to the police also, when she might have found it an extremely difficult and unpleasant task to establish her complete innocence and ignorance of the whole business.

She felt quite sure that Doss Umpey knew nothing concerning the buried treasure, or he would most certainly have dug it up and disposed of it. Her thoughts went back to the story told by Mrs. Nichols, on the previous evening, of the stolen things hidden by the man Logan, which no one had been able to find, and she was wondering if this might not have been the very hoard, when the sounder bell aroused her, and she had to take down this message⁠—

Perhaps, if she had not heard the story told by Mrs. Nichols so recently, and had not seen the newspaper paragraph just before taking down the long telegraphic message, Nell would not have been able to understand the whole situation so completely; even now there were blanks that her imagination could not fill, but in the main the matter shaped itself somehow after this fashion.

Brunsen, the elder, who had written the threatening letter to Doss Umpey, which she had found at the Lone House, must have somehow come to poverty or had to go into hiding. Perhaps this find at the Lone House had had something to do with his downfall; or it might have been, in betraying his old confederate to the police he had been implicated himself, and so had to fly. With him would go his son, who was the child of whom Mrs. Nichols had spoken.

Nell shivered as she thought of him. It was so dreadful that a pleasant and courteous gentleman like the stranger who had come exhausted to the Lone House, should be mixed up in trouble of this kind. Sometimes she thought there must be a mistake somewhere, in the identity of that exhausted stranger, and yet he fitted in to the story so completely that there seemed no possibility of his being other than the son of R. D. Brunsen.

The third man mentioned in the telegraphic message was, without doubt, Doss Umpey himself, although why he should be on friendly terms with a man who had systematically blackmailed him was a mystery that Nell’s imagination could not fathom.

A great shrinking and fear came upon her, as she thought of the old man coming into the neighbourhood and discovering where she was living. He had deserted her, going off and leaving her destitute to get on as best she could. But if he came back into her life now, it would be to drag her down to his own level again, from the little height of respectability to which she had so laboriously climbed.

What should she do? What could she do?

For a brief space, wild visions came to her of throwing up her work and going off somewhere out of reach of any chance encounter with Doss Umpey.

Then wiser thoughts prevailed. To begin with, she was in honour bound to remain at her post for Gertrude’s sake; while to turn coward and run away from duty could bring nothing but shame and trouble to her.

So she resolved to stay where she was, and not anticipate trouble. Only, to no one could she speak of her knowledge; that must be a secret buried in her own heart.

She showed the telegram to the people about the depot, as she was bound to do, then hung it up on a nail in the office, for further reference if required; but she hung another paper in front of it as if accidentally. Then, folding the newspaper carefully, she put that away also, wishing she could fold her knowledge away into forgetfulness likewise.

CHAPTER XIII
On the List

BUT for the secret care she carried, the weeks which followed Nell’s coming to Bratley would have been the pleasantest she had ever known.

After the isolation of Blue Bird Ridge, Bratley Junction was quite a gay and bustling place. It was true there were only about half a score of houses, scattered about in the vicinity of the depot, and the trains which went through were chiefly freight wagons or cars laden with miners, on their way to or from the mines at Camp’s Gulch and Roseneath.

But there were life and movement; she saw faces and heard voices; moreover, she was learning new things, and becoming every day more conscious of the strength that was in her⁠—⁠the power to work, to think, and to act as she had never done before.

At first the strangeness of having no hard drudging toil was very great, but it soon wore off, the sooner perhaps because she worked so very hard at the new duties which had come to fill her days, while her energy in the acquirement of all sorts of knowledge appeared to increase with her opportunities for learning.

By the time she had been at Bratley a month she had raised her time qualification to twenty-two words a minute, and had been put on the list of candidates for permanent posts by the inspector when he came his round.

It was a nervous moment for Nell when the inspector walked into her office one morning, accompanied by his assistant, for he was a big man with a dictatorial manner, and her courage oozed out at her finger-tips when he began to question her about her work, and to find fault with some irregularity in transmission between her office and Roseneath, concerning which complaints had been made at headquarters.

“The train men say that the trouble is owing to snow-laden branches of some spruce trees, that grow near the track, resting on the wires. It is only when there is fresh snow that we find irregularity,” Nell said quietly, though inwardly she quaked from fear lest this much-dreaded official should lay the blame on her, which would re-act upon Gertrude, whose deputy she was.

“How far is this place?” asked the inspector.

“About two miles up the valley,” replied Nell, promptly.

The big man opened his notebook, consulted it carefully, then spoke in a pleasanter tone.

“Yes; according to the reading of the galvanometer at Lytton, that would be about the distance. Now, how am I to get there?”

“Some freight cars go up in about two hours,” suggested Nell.

He shook his head. “Too long to wait; anything else to suggest?”

“Snow-shoes, if you can use them; the snow is fairly firm to-day,” she answered, with a look at the pair in the corner which the baggage-clerk had hunted out for her recreation.

“The very thing. Do you know anything about snow-shoes?” asked the inspector, turning to his assistant, a sickly-looking youth, who, like Nell, was a deputy.

“I have seen them,” replied the lad, with a nervous look at the pair in the corner.

“That is no answer. Can you use them?” asked the inspector, brusquely.

“I have never tried,” said the lad, in a tone of deprecating apology. Then he coughed so long and badly, that all Nell’s pity was stirred on his behalf.

“If your assistant could operate for me, I would go with you, sir; and I can ask the baggage-clerk to find you a pair of snow-shoes,” she said eagerly, for the prospect of a few miles’ run on snow-shoes was alluring to her, after her long days of imprisonment in the warm, stuffy little office.

The inspector’s face, which had been gathering a frown of portentous blackness, instantly relaxed into a more genial expression.

“That will do very well. Robertson is quite capable of looking after your office, but it is plain that he would be of no use at all on snow-shoes. Can you be ready soon?”

“At once,” replied Nell, slipping on her coat and cap. Then, running out, she found the baggage-clerk, and asked him to bring a pair of snow-shoes for the inspector’s use.

In less than ten minutes they were off, speeding up the narrow valley by the side of the Roseneath track, and before they had gone a quarter of a mile, Nell found that she was by far the more expert on snow-shoes, and exulted accordingly.

“I suppose you are a country girl, Miss Hamblyn?” remarked the inspector, in a tone of query, as he succeeded in overhauling her again, after she had stood still to permit him to overtake her.

“Yes, or I might not have known how to use snow-shoes at all,” she replied, with a laugh. She was a little breathless from the sharp exercise in the keen air, and her cheeks were flushed to a bright red from the same cause.

“I would always rather have to do with young people brought up in the country. It is not merely that physically they are more vigorous, but mentally they have more grasp and capacity,” he said, as they went side by side up a long slope, in a part of the valley which ran like a deep crease between the wooded heights on either side.

“Town children have more advantages,” replied Nell, thinking of those empty years on Blue Bird Ridge, when no part of her seemed to grow except her body.

“Advantages, so called, are not everything, and sometimes one is better off without them. Look at that assistant of mine, brought up in a town, and coddled mentally and physically ever since he was born, the consequence of which is that he has not a scrap of originality or even initiative in his composition,” said the inspector, who had lost his official majesty of bearing under the influence of vigorous exercise, and was just simply genial and friendly.

“To me his great lack appeared to be in bodily strength, poor boy,” Nell said, in a tone of pity.

“He certainly isn’t very fit,” remarked the inspector.

Then for a few minutes no conversation was possible, for, with Nell going in front, they were speeding down a slope to a corner where the track wound with a sharp curve round a great cliff of ironstone. Tremendously valuable that cliff would be some day, for here and there on the bare precipitous sides, the ore showed in great red stains and patches.

The cutting running through this part of the valley was so narrow that the telegraph wires had been carried over the cliff, and it was upon this height that the interruption to proper transmission must have occurred.

“It will be a stiff climb,” remarked the inspector, in a dubious tone.

“We had better go up that way; the trees are thinner, and we shall not have to take off our snow-shoes so soon,” said Nell, pointing to an opening which promised a long round.

The inspector followed her without a word, and presently, after ten minutes of pretty stiff exertion, they found themselves on the top of the cliff, with the railway track far below.

But the telegraph wires were high above them, carried here on some dead spruce trees of which the branches had been lopped clean away, leaving only naked stems standing.

There were young trees growing beside these old dead stems, and their snow-laden branches sagging downward had wrought the mischief on the wires.

The inspector had brought a small handsaw with his other tools, and, mounting the post, he speedily cut away the encumbrance, while Nell watched him from below, dodging the debris as it came down.

“Another day of this kind of thing, and the wire would have been broken,” said the inspector.

“Then no messages could have gone through, which would have been awkward,” Nell remarked. She had been busy tying various articles to the string which had been lowered by her companion for the purpose, thus saving him the trouble and loss of time of a descent from his lofty perch.

“No message could have been sent unless the two ends were held in contact so that the current could pass. But if the wire were broken or cut here, I could send without an instrument,” he replied. Being by nature a teacher, and only by training an inspector, he instinctively sowed information wherever the soil seemed fertile.

“Could you? How?” Nell’s face, as she stood looking up, was tense and eager, so that, despite his official brusqueness, the inspector smiled as he glanced downward.

“I should tap the two ends together, so opening and closing the circuit; that, in reality, is all that a telegraph key does. An inexperienced person might have some difficulty in reading such a message, but it would be easy enough to a good operator,” explained the inspector; and then, from the top of his pole, he launched into a lecture on telegraphy, whilst he finished clearing away the spruce branches, so leaving the wires free from any danger of contact.

“It is such wonderful work, and so interesting!” cried Nell, as, the work ended, the inspector buckled on his snow-shoes again, and the two set off towards Bratley once more.

“Properly speaking, all science is interesting⁠—⁠to a real student, that is; but electricity and all connected with it is positively enthralling,” replied the inspector. Then he launched into descriptions of the mystery and wonder of the science, which lasted, with few interruptions, for the whole way back to the depot.

So the dreaded visit of the inspector had gone off like a festival day, and the letter Nell wrote to Gertrude that night was rose-coloured all through, which was a fortunate thing, for the reply which came back in the course of a week was tinged with deep depression.

Nell sighed a little as she read the letter. Just in her heart of hearts, it did seem hard that she could not keep the Bratley post, now that she could fill it so well; and Gertrude was needed at home, in spite of all Mrs. Lorimer might say about it, for Abe Lorimer clung to his eldest daughter more than to any of his children, and if he were weak and ill he must need her all the more.

Mrs. Nichols said the same thing, when the letter was read to her.

“Miss Lorimer ought not to come back, that’s plain, and if she sent in her resignation now, they’d be sure to give the berth to you; then we could settle down as cosy as you please. But there is always a contrary person somewhere, and it is mostly a woman. That is how I have found it,” she remarked, shaking her head with a dissatisfied air.

“Mr. Lorimer was very ill when I was at Lorimer’s Clearing. For days the doctor did not think that he could get better,” Nell said, with a troubled look on her face, for she was wondering what would become of all that helpless little family, if the breadwinner were to be taken away.

“He hadn’t got the look of old bones, that time when he brought his daughter here, when she first came to take the post. A nice, kind sort of man he seemed, and I didn’t wonder at Miss Lorimer setting such store by him,” said Mrs. Nichols.

Nell’s eyes filled with tears; she was thinking of what Gertrude had told her about Abe Lorimer putting her in his prayers during those days of his sickness. No one to her knowledge had prayed for her since her father had died, and it thrilled her heart to feel that one good man felt sufficient interest in her to remember her when he knelt to pray.

“Perhaps I shall be able to get deputy work somewhere else by the time Gertrude is able to come back. If not I must take to housework, or nursing, or anything else that comes handy,” she said, with forced cheerfulness. “Only I won’t go into a big city, if I can get work anywhere else, for it would nearly choke me, I think, to be where there were acres and acres all covered with tall houses stretching right up to the sky nearly.”

“Big cities are all very well to them that like that sort of thing; but no one, not in this country anyhow, need go to live in them if they’d rather stay out in the open. Mind you, I won’t say but wages are better in the big cities, and the work is mostly more lively and cleaner; but the pushing and the struggling, and the dreadful competition, are enough to frighten any one into grey hairs before they’ve years enough to make them middle-aged,” said Mrs. Nichols, with a reflective sigh. Then she put her hand up to smooth her own hair, which showed only here and there a thread of silver; but life had been kind to her.

“Oh, I shall stay in the country, and be satisfied with a small salary,” laughed Nell. Then she added in a graver tone, “It has been delightful living here with you, just like one long holiday; but I shall not be sorry when I have work of my very own to do. I’m nothing but a stop-gap now, you see. Indeed, that is what I seem fated to be. When I was nursing Mrs. Munson, I was doing the work of some one else. It was about the same when I was at Lorimer’s Clearing; I was just filling up their places until they were all well enough to take their own work again, then I just had to move on and stop the next gap.”

“Well, it is honourable work, anyhow, even if the pay isn’t very great. Besides, if you do other people’s work the very best you know, you are morally certain to do your own work all the better when you come to it. But what puzzles me is where all your mother’s money went to, Nell, for Parson Hamblyn wasn’t the sort of man to make ducks and drakes of it,” Mrs. Nichols said, reverting to a subject already well thrashed out between them.

“I don’t think she could have had very much,” the girl said, a little wearily, “for we were always poor when I was a child; we weren’t really pinched, you know, but there was only just enough.”

“No, it might not have been very much, but even a little would make a difference to you, my dear, and if your father supposed you would be able to go on boarding at Mrs. Chapman’s after his death, it is a sure sign that he had not spent all the money. I’m afraid you’ve been tricked out of it somehow by that crafty old Doss Umpey.”

“Never mind, I’d just as soon be without it, for there is no money so sweet as what I earn for myself,” Nell answered cheerfully; but her cheeks paled, for just then she always shivered and felt bad when Mrs. Nichols spoke of the old man.