“Help me quick, robbery, Camp’s Gulch, alone, shed threatened, valuables—Nell.”
“Help me quick, robbery, Camp’s Gulch, alone, shed threatened, valuables—Nell.”
It took Gertrude two minutes to gather the sense of it all; then, dashing to the door, she seized the depot bell standing outside and rang it vigorously. The noise would rouse the place, she knew, but she dared not leave the office, as more messages might come, and she must be ready to take them down.
In a moment there came a rush of hurrying feet, Sam Peters, the station-master, and half a dozen miners coming at a run, to know what was the matter, their first and most natural idea being that she had set the office on fire.
“There is trouble at Camp’s Gulch; a robbery threatened. Miss Hamblyn says she is alone, and wants help. What can you do?” jerked out Gertrude, who was very white in the face, and trembling from head to foot.
“Send the engine that’s waiting for Roseneath, to Camp’s Gulch instead,” said Sam Peters, whose eyes appeared ready to bolt out of his head, as he turned his gaze on the station-master.
“That would be easy enough if there was any one here who could drive an engine, which there isn’t now that Tompkins has gone and got himself in such a plight,” snarled that official, angrily. “It is downright tempting Providence to have that doddering old stupid, Joey Trip, at a place like Camp’s Gulch, and that with only a bit of a girl-operator to help him. It is a couple of strong men that are wanted there, and so I’ve said often and often, and may say it again and again, until my breath gives out before any one will take notice of what is wanted.”
“What is the use of talking; it’s doing we’ve got to look after,” snapped out Peters, angrily. “Here’s an engine standing in the depot with steam up; we could be at Camp’s Gulch in twenty minutes or half an hour at the outside, if only we’d got a driver.”
“Ah, that’s where we are beaten,” growled the station-master.
“Can’t the stoker drive?” demanded Gertrude, impatiently.
“He ain’t fit for anything only to look at,” the station-master answered, in extreme wrathfulness. “He was a dry goods clerk, or something of the kind, in England; came out here, got within sight of starvation, then was taken on as stoker this morning to fill a gap, and he only just about knows a chunk of coal from a fire-shovel. He’s run away now, I believe, because he was frightened.”
“Oh, can’t something be done? Won’t somebody go to help poor Nell? Just think how good she was to you all. If only I were a man I’d take that engine safely up to Camp’s Gulch, whether I knew how to drive or not,” cried Gertrude, in hysterical breakdown, standing with clasped hands, while the tears streamed down her face.
“I can fire, but I can’t drive,” began Sam Peters; but just then there came an interruption. A brisk voice called out to know what was the matter, and, elbowing the group of miners aside, Dr. Russell strode into the office.
Some one began to tell him of their dilemma, but Gertrude had turned to the instrument table, for the sounder was calling again, and another message was coming through.
“Listen!” she cried imperatively. “They have sent me word from Lytton that there is trouble at Camp’s Gulch, and are asking if the Roseneath engine has gone; if not, I am to send it to Camp’s Gulch at once. Now what is to be done?”
“I can drive an engine a little—that is, I can start her and stop her, and all that kind of thing, but I don’t understand firing,” said Dr. Russell, slowly.
“I can fire, so I guess we shall do. Come along, let’s get off. We ought to have a crowd of ten or fifteen with us. Who’ll help?” asked Sam Peters, moving now towards the engine, and gripping the doctor by the arm as if fearing he might run away.
It was not so much a question of who would go as who would consent to be left behind. However, it was settled in a very few minutes, and then the engine and the freight wagon slid away from the depot until it seemed to shoot through the darkness, a flare of red light which dashed like a lurid streak across the pale moon-lit spaces.
Sam Peters fired as if he had been used to that sort of thing for the last five or six years, doing it with a regularity that suggested clockwork; while the doctor stood hanging on to the levers, peering ahead into the night, with the corner of his eye always on the indicator, for he and Peters both knew that the engine was an old one, and not over safe for such a speed as they were making.
“Open her throttle; we’ve passed the half!” yelled Peters. With a nod the doctor pushed down another lever. A hideous screech sprang out, keeping up its terrifying blast as the remaining miles sped by. In the freight-car there was silence save for an occasional ejaculation as some unwary one was dashed from his place by the violent rocking and jerking of the flying engine.
Suddenly Sam Peters ceased his firing, and, peering over the side, seemed to be looking for landmarks.
“Shut her down, quick!” he yelled, and at the same moment, dashing open the furnace-door, began raking out the firing, which only a little while before he had been shovelling in with such painstaking energy.
The doctor dragged down the lever, applied the brakes, then hung on for dear life, expecting nothing less than an awful crash, for, in the absence of signals, and with but the scantiest knowledge of the track over which they had been travelling, what was more likely than that he had not pulled up in time? It was a space of awful suspense, measured by seconds, but in point of strain seeming like hours; then, with a grinding and groaning of brakes, the engine came to a stand a little distance from the depot.
“Shall I drive her right in?” the doctor asked, conscious that there was an odd sense of strain in his tone, while he panted for breath.
“Better leave well alone, I should say. My word! it was a near shave. If I hadn’t reckernized the Gulch brook shimmering in the moonlight a mile back, we should never have pulled up in time, and then there would have been an awful smash,” said Sam Peters, in a jerky tone, as he wiped his streaming face with a handkerchief which had been clean once, but was certainly not so now.
“Thank God we came safely through!” the doctor said reverently, thinking of the lives of the men in the freight-car.
Then they all tumbled off the train and ran towards the depot, which looked so quiet and deserted in the bright moonlight.
“Why, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. Has it been a hoax after all?” said the doctor, wonderingly, as they reached and passed the depot building and arrived at the big shed, which appeared to be safely shut up and secure.
“Looks like it!” exclaimed Sam Peters, blankly.
“What’s that?” said one of the volunteers, suddenly darting across the railway track to where something dark showed, lying on the ground near to the derelict freight-wagon.
The something was Nell, who moaned when they lifted her up, and appeared to be bleeding from a wound on her cheek or her ear.
“Doctor, where are you? Here’s something in your line,” shouted the man who had first found Nell, but who feared to lift her up lest he might hurt her more.
Dr. Russell came up at the run. “There’s more on hand than we thought for. Some one is shut up in that shed, and making a fine row, but he will have to wait until we are ready to let him out,” the doctor said grimly. He then sent four of the men to watch the doors of the big shed, asked another to carry Nell across the track to the telegraph office, while he went in front to open the door.
Nell was not unconscious, but she seemed unable to speak, or was, perhaps, too dazed from the blow she had received.
The other men, at the doctor’s suggestion, spread out to have a look round, but nothing could be done or settled until Nell was able to explain the situation.
“There is certainly some one in yonder who is pretty anxious to get out,” remarked one of the volunteers. “Just hark at him, whining and crying like a whipped schoolboy. It’s a rum go this; we come tearing up here fit to break our necks to catch the robbers, only to find when we get here that one seems pretty securely caught.”
“Luckily for Miss Hamblyn the doctor stopped wide of the depot, for she was lying too near to the track for safety,” said one of the miners.
“I thought we were going to be smashed up every minute; never had such a ride in my life, and I can’t say I want another,” remarked his companion, with a shudder.
THE RESCUE-PARTY DISCOVER NELLON THE RAILWAY TRACK
THE RESCUE-PARTY DISCOVER NELLON THE RAILWAY TRACK
“Doctor wants to know if any one has seen Joey Trip, or his wife?” called another man, coming up at a run.
“I haven’t seen any one except Miss Hamblyn. Perhaps it is Joey that is making all the row in yonder,” suggested one of the watchers.
“Not likely,” said the other.
“Well, I’m going to inspect his house; funny if there shouldn’t be any one at home,” remarked the man, who had come up with the inquiry.
“It is a funny business altogether,” replied the watchers. And they propped their backs against the wall, smoking in stolid patience, thinking, perhaps, of the supper they had missed, or listening to the thumping and shouting which was going on inside the shed.
Meanwhile Nell was lying on the floor of the telegraph office, her head resting on the doctor’s jacket, which he had rolled up to make a pillow for her, while he knelt beside her, trying to investigate her hurts.
Her right hand hung helpless at the wrist, her right cheek had a disfiguring weal from chin to ear, from the broken skin of which the blood was slowly oozing. But it was the look in her eyes, and her inability to speak beyond an inarticulate gurgle, which bothered the doctor most.
“Some dislocation of the jaw, I’m afraid. Ah!” and a sympathetic shudder went through the doctor’s frame, because of the anguish which leaped into Nell’s eyes.
“I wish we’d got a woman here to help,” he muttered irritably, as his assistant, a burly miner six feet high, and broad in proportion, shook and shivered, nearly dropping the lamp in his agitation. “Hold that light steady, will you. If you are not careful you’ll be setting the poor girl ablaze with her clothes soaked in kerosene, and she has got quite enough to bear already.”
“Can’t help it, doctor. I never could stand seeing any one suffer; it sort of turns me sick,” said the sturdy giant, collapsing into a nerveless heap, to the imminent danger of the lamp.
“You great baby, I mean you lubberly idiot, get out, and send in one of the other fellows!” said the doctor, wrathfully, springing up and seizing the lamp, which he put on the floor for safety, then hustled the quaking miner out of the office. “Go along to the engine, and send Sam Peters to me; but you must stand by the engine while he’s away, for there is too much mystery in this business for us to take risks anywhere.”
“I’ll stay by the engine; I’ll do anything, only I can’t stand that,” said the man, his voice breaking in a great gasping sob, as, with a jerk of his head in the direction of the girl on the floor, he fairly bolted from the office.
The doctor sent an uncomplimentary ejaculation after him, then was relieved to see the dim ghost of a smile about Nell’s white lips.
“I’m glad you can smile; I feel more like heaving a book or a boot at his head,” grumbled the doctor. Then kneeling down again, he said quietly, “Shut your eyes once for ‘yes,’ and twice for ‘no.’ Are you in very great pain?”
Slowly Nell’s eyes closed—once, a great tear forcing itself from under her dark lashes and rolling down her cheek.
“Is your jaw worse than your wrist?” he asked, stroking his own right jaw to show what he meant.
Nell’s eyes closed twice; but before the doctor could frame another question, the door was pushed open, and Mrs. Trip was thrust hurriedly into the office.
SOME of the miners, in prospecting round the depot, had ventured to try the door of Joey Trip’s house, and had found to their surprise that it was unfastened and yielded to the touch.
Pushing it cautiously open, two of them entered, to be greeted by a tremulous old voice from the darkness, “Is that you, Miss Hamblyn? And has Joey come home yet?”
“No, mother, it ain’t Miss Hamblyn; she has been and got herself rather bashed up, and doctor is looking after her a bit,” said the man who had entered first, and who spoke in a deep, big voice.
“I’m rather deaf,” faltered the feeble tones out of the darkness, with such unmistakable terror in them now, that the men were concerned to know how best they could manage to let the poor old woman understand that their intentions were friendly.
One of them struck a match, and, seeing by the light of it that a lamp stood on the uncleared supper-table, proceeded to light it.
When this was done, Mrs. Trip was discovered to be sitting crouched into the remotest corner of the room, a shrinking, frightened creature whom anyone might have pitied.
“There ain’t nothing to be afraid of, mother. Won’t you step round to the depot, and lend the doctor a helping hand with the young lady?” asked the man who had lighted the lamp, and who, in addition to his deep voice, had a thick moustache which hid the movement of his lips.
“I—I am a little hard of hearing, gentlemen,” faltered Mrs. Trip, in greater terror than ever. It was plain that she took them for robbers, and was in fear of her life.
“The poor old thing is stone deaf, Jim; whatever are we to do with her?” asked the man, with the big voice, turning to his companion who chanced to be clean shaven, and who spoke with a pronounced movement of his lips.
“I should sling her on my back, and carry her off by force. Doctor would be glad of her, no doubt.”
“No, no, don’t use force, gentlemen, I beg of you. I’ll do anything in reason that you want; but I haven’t got the key of the big shed, and my husband isn’t in just now,” wailed Mrs. Trip, in piteous tones, shaking worse than ever.
“Rum business, this, Jim; the old lady can understand what you say, though your voice ain’t bigger than a tin whistle, so to speak. But you’d better step forward and explain the situation a bit,” said the big man, retreating to the background.
Jim stepped forward, holding out his hand in a friendly fashion, while he spoke very slowly.
“Look here, missus; you’re Mrs. Trip, I suppose? Well, we’ve come along from Bratley with an engine and a freight-wagon to-night, because we had word there had been some idea of a robbery taking place. But it is a pretty mysterious bit of business so far, and we can’t get light on the subject nohows.”
“Hurry up, Jim; you’re taking as much time as a preacher who has got the whole evening before him,” growled the big man.
“I was bound to quiet her down a bit first; you can’t do nothing with women when their fears is uppermost,” retorted Jim, with a quick turn of his head. Then, facing Mrs. Trip again, he went on, “Miss Hamblyn has been a bit hurt. She has had a nasty fall or something. Could you step across to the office, and help doctor look after her a bit?”
“Miss Hamblyn hurt? Oh, I am sorry. Yes, gentlemen, I’ll come at once,” said Mrs. Trip, coming out of her corner, trembling still, but somewhat more easy in her mind concerning these unknown visitors, who looked so rough and fierce.
“Catch hold of my arm, mother; you’ll get along quicker so,” said Jim, crooking his elbow with great politeness.
“Why, you are quite kind, and I thought you were both robbers!” exclaimed the old woman, in tremulous tones.
“I don’t wonder at that, for I expect we do look a bit rough; but you should see us when we are dressed up in our Sunday clothes, biled shirts and all that sort of thing,” said Jim, in friendly fashion, as he escorted the old woman across the open space to the telegraph office.
“I can’t hear what you say, except when you turn your face to me,” she said querulously.
So he held his head round towards her, and repeated his words in order that she might gather the sense of what he was saying. When the door of the office was reached, he just opened it and pushed her in.
“Oh, my dear Miss Hamblyn, what is the matter? Can’t you get up? Did the robbers hurt you?” cried Mrs. Trip, in great distress, crouching down by Nell, and trying to take her hand.
But this the doctor was quick to prevent, for it was Nell’s broken right wrist which Mrs. Trip had been about to touch.
“Can’t you see that the poor girl is hurt, that she can’t talk, and is in dreadful pain?” said the doctor, sharply.
“I’m a little hard of hearing, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Trip, meekly.
“Miss Hamblyn has hurt her wrist. Can you get me something to bandage it with—a towel that I can tear into strips, or that sort of thing?” roared the doctor, at the top of his voice.
Mrs. Trip shook her head with a worried air. “I can hear that you are making a great noise; but with all that hair over your face, I can’t hear what you say.”
“Was any one ever in such a plight?” cried the doctor, thoroughly exasperated. “A patient who can’t talk, and a nurse—save the mark!—who can’t hear!”
Again there was the flicker of a smile on Nell’s pain-wrung face; but the doctor did not stay to see it. He had sprung to the door, and was shouting for the man who had brought Mrs. Trip in.
“Here I am, doctor,” said Jim, who had been propping his back against the wall of the depot, and thinking of his supper—a meal that appeared to be very much in the future still.
“Whatever did you mean by bringing that poor old woman in here? I can’t make her hear anyhow, and I want bandages, splints, and several other things,” said the doctor, testily, for the situation was beginning to get on his nerves.
“I can talk to her, and without making much noise about it, either. Shall I come in, doctor?” asked Jim, with alacrity, for anything was better than hanging round with nothing to do, save to think of the supper he could not have.
“Yes, come along, and be quick about it,” said Dr. Russell, striding back to his patient.
Jim followed, and, repeating the words as the doctor spoke them, succeeded in conveying to Mrs. Trip a clear idea of what was wanted of her.
“I understand now. I will go at once and get the things you require,” she said, turning to the doctor, and speaking with gentle dignity.
He nodded and smiled reassuringly, told Jim to go with her, then himself turned back to Nell, whose eyes were asking for something.
Failing to make him understand, she began to move her left hand over the floor, as if she were writing, then pointed towards the place where pencil and paper might be found.
“You want to write something of importance?” he asked, as he brought writing materials.
With a movement of her hand, she signified that he must lift her up. When this was done she began to write with awkward slowness, the doctor holding the paper for her, and picking up the pencil every time she dropped it.
“I threw the key of the shed on the railway track. Send some one to find it. There is a live man in the coffin—a robber!”
When she had written so much, she looked at the doctor questioningly, to see if he understood.
“Why did you throw away the key? Did someone try to take it from you?” he said, beginning to get light on the situation, when her eyes answered him yes.
“Did that someone hit you a blow which dislocated your jaw, and another that broke your wrist?”
Again her eyes flickered out yes.
“The brute! It would give me great satisfaction to serve him likewise. I would cheerfully do the necessary repairs afterwards without charging him extra for it,” growled the doctor.
But Nell seized him by the arm, shaking it urgently and pointing to what she had written.
“You want this key found at once? Where is the coffin—in the shed?”
To this also she signified yes. Then, stepping to the door, the doctor issued the order that the railway track was to be searched up and down, as far as a girl would be likely to throw, for the key of the shed.
There was instant activity now, and every one set to work on the search, saving the man in charge of the engine, Jim, who acted as interpreter to Mrs. Trip, and Sam Peters, who had to serve as the doctor’s assistant.
The broken wrist was set first. The doctor half hoped the pain of the setting would cause Nell to faint, so that he might put the jaw-bone back into its place before she recovered from her swoon.
But consciousness never left her, though no sound, save a sob, broke from her when the fractured wrist-bones grated together, and were bound up in splints made from a broken starch-box. The doctor winced himself, when handling the dislocated jaw; but it would have been cruel kindness to delay the doing of what was so necessary to be done, and in three minutes it was over.
“There, there; I shall not have to hurt you any more,” he said soothingly, turning his head away from the sight of the suffering in Nell’s eyes, and grumbling at Sam Peters, who was wiping his tears away on his coat-sleeve, and sniffing like a schoolboy who has just been caned.
Nell shut her eyes for a few minutes, as if to blot out the memory of the torture she had just passed through; but she opened them with a start two minutes later, when there was a knock at the office door, and some one in a sibilant whisper announced to the doctor that the key had been found.
“Yes, it is all right; I will see to things. There is no need for you to worry about anything. I am going to wrap you in these blankets; and then you can rest until we are ready to take you back to Bratley,” he said, with authority in his voice, for there was a touch of wildness in her eyes, which gave a hint of possible delirium later, resulting from the strain and the pain she had endured.
Rolling her in blankets, which Mrs. Trip and Jim had brought from the house, and slipping a comfortable pillow under her head in place of his own jacket, the doctor left her to rest on the floor, watched over by Sam Peters.
Mrs. Trip and Jim were then packed off to prepare some sort of supper for the hungry men, while the doctor and the others went to see about opening the big shed.
The key and the lock of the small side door were both of peculiar construction, and it took them a few minutes of fumbling before they could get the door open.
“It is what they call an unpickable lock. Skeleton keys are no sort of good for this kind of job,” remarked one of the miners who ought to know, as back in the past—a past long since expiated by honest repentance and subsequent upright living—he had served an apprenticeship at the risky business of burglary.
“The door is made of pretty good stuff too. It would not be easy to stave it in, I guess,” said another, who had been a carpenter, as he passed his hand admiringly over the stout timbers of that well-made door.
“The shed altogether is the soundest bit of building to be found this side of Lytton,” announced a third; and just then the key turned in the lock, and the door opened.
“Help! help! Get me out of this, quick! I thought you were never coming!” exclaimed a smothered voice from somewhere.
“Seeing that you have waited so long, it won’t hurt you to stay as you are for half an hour longer,” the doctor said calmly, as he flashed the light of his lantern round the big shed, and made an examination of things generally.
“Who are you, then, and how did you get in?” asked the man hidden away in the coffin, with surprise and anxiety in his tone.
“That is just the question that occurred to us about you. Were you in a trance, that they packed you up in this sort of box to ship you off to the Flowery Land?” asked the doctor, with a twinkle in his eye.
“You just let me out of this, and I’ll tell you all about it,” whined the man, in a pleading tone.
“How many revolvers have you got in there with you?” the doctor asked; and then, with a motion of his hand, he showed his companions the manner in which the chain had been twisted about the coffin, most effectually imprisoning the person inside.
The prisoner returned no answer to the doctor’s question, until it had been twice repeated; then he sulkily answered—
“Two.”
“Well, that is about as many as one man can use at a time,” the doctor remarked coolly.
“Seems as if I had heard that fellow’s voice somewhere before,” remarked one of the miners to the man standing beside him.
“So have I,” replied the other; then both were silent, as the doctor began to speak again.
“Now, first of all, before we set about getting you out of this fix, we want to know what made you choose such a means of conveyance, why you came, and what you came for,” said the doctor.
But the imprisoned man made no reply to this; and after a minute or two of waiting, the doctor went on, in a calm tone—
“If you don’t choose to tell us what we want to know, you can stay where you are until morning. The police will find it very easy to convey you to Lytton, trussed up in that fashion, and I dare say they will be able to make you speak, though we have failed to do it.”
“I’ll speak fast enough, if you’ll only let me out,” pleaded the prisoner, who appeared to be in a regular panic regarding his position.
“Say on, then, for we are in a hurry to get our supper; you might almost call it breakfast, as it is past midnight, only we have not been to bed yet,” the doctor remarked, looking at his watch.
“We were hard up for provisions, and, for reasons of our own, we couldn’t get away from the neighbourhood on the cars, and we couldn’t tramp it over the mountains without food,” the prisoner said.
“I wonder you didn’t strike across the frontier,” remarked the doctor.
“We had made the States too hot to hold us,” explained the prisoner, who spoke like an educated man. “We thought of being able to rig ourselves out with necessary stores from here, and then tramp to some point on the railway, where we should not be recognized. But this shed was a hard nut to crack. Night after night we’ve been round here at the business, and have always failed, until we hit on the idea of borrowing Li Hang’s coffin, and getting in here that way. The plan answered all right, but the hitch came after, for that girl with the soft voice, who is telegraph operator here, must needs dump something on the lid that I couldn’t lift off. I suppose the poor little idiot was afraid the Chinkie’s ghost might wander round in an uncomfortable fashion after dark.” And the prisoner cackled feebly at his own poor wit.
“Your companions, where are they?” asked the doctor.
“Oh, clear away by this time; you won’t catch them, so you need not expect it.”
“Well, we’ve got you, and that is better than nothing,” the doctor remarked cheerfully. Then he went on, with a look at his companions, “Now I think we will go and get some supper, and leave this gentleman to meditation a little longer. It may lead him to reflect on how much easier it is to get into a coffin, than it is to get out again.”
The men all tramped out of the shed at this, the doctor locked the door, put the key carefully in his breast-pocket, then they all went off to Mrs. Trip’s bright, clean kitchen to get some food, and discuss what was best to be done.
“I know who that fellow is!” exclaimed the miner who had spoken of the prisoner’s voice as being familiar. “It is that Dick Brunsen, who swindled the syndicate with that faked copper-vein. I guess if some of the fellows he made dupes of got to understand about his being here, you would have hard work to protect him, doctor.”
“Then they must not know that he is here, for we don’t want any Judge Lynch on this side of the border; it is not the States, you know,” the doctor replied, with a trifle of sternness in his tone.
Another man, standing at the back of the room, remarked, in a mutinous tone, that if it were really Dick Brunsen in the big shed, hanging was too good for him.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders, and instantly made up his mind as to the best thing to be done.
“I must take Miss Hamblyn to Bratley as soon as possible, for she has had a bad shock, in addition to the knocking about she has received. I would put the coffin and the prisoner in the car, too, and take the fellow to Bratley, for his own safety; but I don’t dare excite my patient, and when I’m on the engine, I can’t be taking care of her. So the only thing to be done is to leave him where he is until I can send the police to take charge of him; but, for his own safety, I had better take the key with me, then, as you say, some of you, the lock is unpickable, he will be all right, until we can hand him over to the authorities.”
There were a few growls of dissent at this; but, on the whole, the men seemed satisfied with the doctor’s decision, and fell in readily with his plans.
The engine was brought on as far as the depot; then Nell, all wrapped in blankets, was carried into the freight-car, and made as comfortable as circumstances would permit. Six of the miners remained at Camp’s Gulch to take charge of the premises until morning, and the others, getting into the freight-car with Nell, the return journey to Bratley was begun.
But the engine was running backwards now, and the amateur driver had his hands full in doing his work properly. However, there was no need for haste this time, so they crept along at about twelve miles an hour, whistling themselves into Bratley depot between two and three o’clock in the morning.
WHEN the volunteer party started for Camp’s Gulch, Gertrude resolved to remain at her post all night, or, at any rate, for as much of it as there was a need for the office to be open.
She replied to Lytton, telling of the accident to the driver, and that Dr. Russell had volunteered to take the engine up to Camp’s Gulch, with Sam Peters acting as volunteer stoker. When this was done, and Lytton’s inquiries were satisfied, she wired to Roseneath, on the chance of finding the office open, to explain why the engine and freight-wagon had failed to put in an appearance.
Then, when everything had been done that was possible, she set herself to face a dreary watch in the depot while the slow hours crept by.
The station-master also remained on duty. At least, he lay on a bench in the little waiting-room of the depot, and snored with persevering industry, the sound of his slumber reaching to Gertrude’s office, and adding a fresh weirdness to the night.
About midnight Mrs. Nichols walked in at the office door, wheezing and puffing even more than usual. She had been helping Miss Gibson to look after the scalded engine-driver, and from there had gone to console Mrs. Peters, who was frightened half out of her senses at the thought of Sam firing the engine up to Camp’s Gulch and back again. When these neighbourly duties had all been performed, she came on to the depot to stay with Gertrude as long as it was necessary for the girl to remain on duty.
“How different it has all turned out from what we had planned!” sighed Gertrude, who was pale and worn with the excitement of the evening.
“Life is very often like that,” moralized the stout woman. “We get to what we think is a nice easy bit, only to find it is fuller of kinks than any of the rest. I wonder what sort of tribulation that poor Nell is in to-night?”
“It is very strange that she should have wired to us, yet we can get no message through to her,” Gertrude said, in a musing tone.
“Perhaps the wire got cut after she had sent her message,” suggested Mrs. Nichols. Then she burst out vehemently, “Oh dear, oh dear, how I wish I had been on the depot when the message came, then I would have gone up to Camp’s Gulch with the men, and seen for myself what was the matter!”
“But you would have been afraid, surely, to go on such a risky expedition,” said Gertrude.
“I should have been as safe as the men, anyhow, and my life is not of any more value than theirs; besides, we shall none of us die until our time comes. It would have been a comfort to Nell to have a woman there to help her, for poor old Mrs. Trip can’t be much good to anyone, seeing that she is stone deaf,” sighed the stout woman.
“How fond you are of Nell! I believe you love her better than you do me,” said Gertrude, with a short laugh, and a very pronounced stab of jealousy at her heart.
“I’m fond of you both, and if I make more of Nell than of you, I am sure you have no reason to complain, for think of the difference between you. She is, so to speak, nobody’s child—at least there is not one of her own folks left alive to care for her, while you are just the cherished elder daughter of a family,” Mrs. Nichols said warmly.
“Everyone seems to get on with Nell; I wonder why? for she is not pretty, although she has a nice face. She is not well educated either, yet there is a sort of refinement about her, which, as a rule, one finds only in very cultured people.” There was a little envy in Gertrude’s tone now, as if she knew herself to be lacking in the quality which she so much admired in her friend.
“Parson Hamblyn was a gentleman, a real one,” replied Mrs. Nichols, with emphasis. “Dr. Russell reminds me of him sometimes, with his fine manners and educated speech; but the doctor is an active man, and is going to be a successful one if only he can get a chance; while the parson was a dreamer and a thinker. He was a saint too, if ever there was one. But, taken all round he was too good to live, and I suppose that is why he died.”
“Is anyone too good to live?” asked Gertrude, opening her eyes widely, and thinking of her own harassed father, with his gentle uncomplaining patience under heavy tribulation.
“I don’t fancy I shall be in any danger of dying from that complaint yet awhile,” said Mrs. Nichols, with a shrug of her ample shoulders. “But there are some people who are so unworldly, that they seem more fit for heaven than this earth, and Nell’s father was one of them. She gets her refinement from him, but all her kind helpful ways come from her own good heart, poor child! I wish I had been there to help her to-night.”
“What is that?” cried Gertrude, springing from her seat and hurrying to the door.
“I didn’t hear anything, except that man snoring. A deal more noise he makes asleep than he ever does when he is awake,” Mrs. Nichols said scornfully, as she also rose and followed Gertrude to the door.
The night was calm and still, with a touch of frost in the quiet air, which would turn the maples crimson and gold the next time the sun shone down upon them.
A minute or two they stood listening at the door; then Gertrude said eagerly—
“It is a train coming, I am sure of it. Oh, will you wake the station-master, and ask him to see if the points are all right? Sam Peters always attends to that, you know, so it may be forgotten.”
Mrs. Nichols hurried off, nothing loth, for in truth the snoring was getting on her nerves. But Gertrude remained motionless, straining her ears to catch that distant hollow rumble which seemed so long in coming nearer.
There had only been the sleeping official, Mrs. Nichols, and herself on the depot through all those long hours of waiting, but as the rumble of the train sounded coming nearer and nearer, people hurried up by ones and twos, the women wrapped in shawls, the men with their shoulders up to their ears and their hands in their pockets, and stood in silent groups, waiting for that slow-coming train.
It was a relief when a whistle was heard; then the station-master waved a lantern to and fro, and the engine crawled slowly into the depot. The spell of silence was broken, and a perfect shower of questions burst upon the doctor and Sam Peters, who, by reason of their position on the engine, were of course the first to be interviewed.
“All in good time, friends; but it is business first. Will one of you go and wake Mrs. Nichols up, and tell her I am bringing her a patient?”
“She’s here, doctor,” shouted half a dozen voices.
“Miss Lorimer, is she here too?” asked the doctor, who was already off the engine and moving towards the freight-car.
“Been on duty all night, and is waiting to wire on to Lytton all the news you have brought,” said the foremost of the crowd.
“That is right. I will go to her in a few minutes and give her the details; but I must see to my patient first,” said the doctor.
By a series of energetic signs made with her left hand, Nell refused to be carried off the car as she had been carried on, and came tottering out, a strange-looking figure, her head bound up in a towel, her figure draped in a blanket, and her face so white and drawn with pain that it was difficult to recognize her.
“Get her to bed as quickly as you can, but don’t allow her to speak one word. She has a broken wrist, and her jaw is hurt. Give her a little broth, if you have got it, or some milk, but she must have nothing else to-night,” the doctor said briefly. And, escorted by the little crowd of sympathizing women, Nell was led off the scene.
Then the doctor went off to the telegraph office, where Gertrude, weary but alert, was waiting to send the news on to headquarters.
Sam Peters and the miners who had come back on the car entertained the remnant of the crowd with the story of that night’s doings at Camp’s Gulch, and vastly amusing the listeners found the recital, apparently, for they laughed and cheered when they heard how Nell had trapped the burglar who was hidden in the Chinaman’s coffin.
But there was no laughter in the office, where the doctor was writing details for Gertrude to telegraph.
There was no question of the miners who had come back from Camp’s Gulch going on to Roseneath that night, so they all lay down in the waiting-room, and snatched a little slumber so, and were snoring profoundly before Gertrude was ready to lock up her office and go.
The doctor had waited for her until Lytton had got all the information it required, and had sent her word that she might now go off duty until the morning, or rather, seeing that it was morning already, until the proper hour for commencing work had arrived again.
“What a strange sort of night it has been!” she exclaimed, as she went along the dark road with her escort.
“Yes, really an adventurous time for some of us,” he answered, with a laugh, thinking of that wild ride to Camp’s Gulch on the rocking engine.
Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. “I think I prefer monotony to adventure—at least, adventure of this sort. I am thankful I was not in Nell’s place.”
“I also am thankful you were not in her place either,” he answered gravely. With a little flutter at her heart, Gertrude asked—
“Why?”
“Because it would have been a moral and physical impossibility for you to do what Miss Hamblyn did. She of course has now got to pay the price of her doings in nervous breakdown and physical suffering, but you would doubtless have had exactly the same amount of prostration to endure without having been able to accomplish anything.”
“You are not exactly complimentary to me,” said Gertrude, in an icy tone, although privately she was perfectly aware of the truth of the statement.
“I did not mean to be uncomplimentary,” he said gravely. “I am quite positive that wherever you were placed, or in whatever circumstances you found yourself, you would do your very best, and it would not be your fault if you failed in any way.”
Poor Gertrude! Never in all her life had she been made to feel so small, so utterly insignificant; and the worst of it was that the doctor was so perfectly innocent of any attempt to hurt her feelings. Indeed, in his secret heart he was very much drawn to her, and had been ever since their first meeting, and if there had been a prospect of his being able to keep a wife in decent comfort he would have asked her to marry him, so that he and Sonny might have a real home again.
But Gertrude, not being endued with second sight or any specially keen intuitive faculty, had no means of knowing how nearly she realized her companion’s ideal, and, believing that he rather despised her, was miserable accordingly.
She did not even notice that he held her hand closer than usual at the parting, but went indoors with a dragging pain at her heart, which was destined to keep her company for many a long day to come.
Mrs. Nichols was waiting for her, and they had a cup of tea together, talking in whispers for fear of disturbing Nell, who lay in the next room trying to go to sleep.
The door was just ajar, and to her strained sensibilities the whispers were perfectly audible, causing her indeed no small amount of mental torture.
They were saying the kindliest things about her, magnifying her into a heroine, while she, lying there with her broken wrist, hurt jaw, and torn ear, where Doss Umpey’s stick had hit her such cruel blows, knew herself to be a coward, and in a certain sense a traitor to her duty, because she had not said who it was that had planned to rob the big shed.
When Doss Umpey had encountered her, as he came stealing through the quiet moonlight, he had said that this was Brunsen’s job, and he was bound to help it through, although he did not hold with law-breaking himself, because of the danger of it.
She had besought him to go away, to have nothing more to do with the Brunsens, but to get his living honestly if he could; she had even volunteered to send him a little part of her own earnings, to help him to keep clear of his undesirable acquaintances.
Then he had said that this thing must be carried through as planned; that it could not possibly fail. He did not seem to have noticed that distant whistle, which she had been hearing now for some minutes.
But she called his attention to it, and told him it was the help she had telegraphed for from Bratley, by using the cut wire at the top of the nearest testing pole.
Doss Umpey was thoroughly enraged with her then, and, closing with her, had endeavoured to search her pocket for the key of the big shed, she having incautiously told him that the man in the coffin could not possibly escape unaided.
But she was young and vigorous, more than a match for the old man from a muscular point of view. So, wresting herself free from his grip, she snatched the key from her pocket, and flung it away from her in the darkness, because she feared lest some confederate should come to his aid, and she should be completely overpowered. But she had been careful to toss the key on the railway track, because it would be easier to hunt for it there.
The screech of the whistle was rapidly growing nearer—they could even hear the roar of the engine; it was only a matter of minutes, and, grown desperate, Doss Umpey lifted his club and caught her a fearful blow on her right ear and jaw. She had cried out at the intolerable anguish it had caused her, and putting up her hand to ward off the next blow, had received its full force on her wrist. Whether he struck her again, or whether she just sank down to the ground faint and sick with her pain, Nell could not remember, as she lay in bed at Mrs. Nichols’s house, while that worthy woman and Gertrude whispered to each other of her bravery as they drank their tea.
Presently there was a pushing back of chairs, a little rattling of crockery, and then silence. No one had come near her. Gertrude had peeped in at the door, and seeing by the dim light of the lamp that Nell’s eyes were shut, had gone away, supposing her to be asleep.
But, between pain and unrest of mind, there was no sleep for Nell that night. She lay with closed eyes, certainly, but she was wide awake all the same. When the doctor came to see her before he had his breakfast, it was to find her feverish and excited, while the wildness in her eyes made her look like a hunted creature.
“I thought I gave strict orders that Miss Hamblyn was not to be allowed to talk, and that no one was to talk to her,” said the doctor, in a stormy tone, turning to Mrs. Nichols.
“The poor dear has not uttered a word—I don’t believe she could if she tried; and as to talking to her, this is the first time I’ve said a word in her presence, since you gave your orders last night,” replied Mrs. Nichols, rather indignantly; for she did not believe in being accused of doing injudicious things when she was entirely innocent of them.
“It is my fault, then, in not having given her a sleeping draught; but I felt so sure she would sleep naturally,” he said, in a worried tone. Bending over the bed, he proceeded to make a more careful investigation of Nell’s injuries than had been possible on the previous night.
When he had finished his examination he sat down by the bed, and began to talk to Nell with the uncompromising straightforwardness which was winning him favour among these people of the far west, whose lives are too full of toil and endeavour for them to tolerate a medical opinion which says one thing and means another.
“You are not so well this morning as I expected to find you; but that is largely your own fault, because, when you were helped to bed last night, instead of going to sleep, as you ought to have done, you commenced to worry about yourself, and kept it up until sleep became impossible to you.”
A faint smile curved Nell’s lips. She had been worrying, it was true, only the doctor was very much mistaken as to the cause of the worry.
“The reason you find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to talk,” continued the doctor, “is because the dislocation of the jaw caused much swelling and soreness of all the muscles of your throat; but if you are able to get some hours of restful sleep this soreness will largely vanish, and you will be able to talk comfortably.”
Again Nell smiled; but there was something in her eyes which made the doctor ask anxiously—
“You have no other injuries, of which you have not spoken?”
Nell’s eyes and hand said no for her with so much emphasis that the doctor’s fears on that score were completely set at rest. But as the look of trouble still remained in her eyes, he invented an errand for Mrs. Nichols which took her for a brief space from the room, and then he asked, in a low tone—
“If you are not worrying about your own condition, is it some other trouble that you have?”
Nell’s eyes drooped uneasily. She could not tell him, she could not tell anyone, how afraid she was that Doss Umpey would be found and arrested for being concerned with the two Brunsens in the attempt to rob the big shed.
“Ah, I thought I was right!” he exclaimed; then added, with a brusque gravity, “The pity of it is that there is so little sense in worrying; you can’t help or hinder things by lying and stewing over them, but you very seriously retard your own recovery. Now, are you going to be sensible enough to banish worry and go to sleep, or am I to dose you with a sleeping draught?”
For answer Nell turned her head slightly, closed her eyes, drooping into her pillow in such a fashion that the doctor went away satisfied as to her power to sleep unaided by drugs.