when she was left with
Wyllard, "I'll have to live here?"

Wyllard smiled. "I've seen to that, though if you don't like my
arrangements you can alter them afterwards. Mrs. Sandberg will take you
in. She's a Scotch Calvinist, and even if she isn't particularly amiable
you'll be in safe hands. We'll consider it as fixed, but you're to stay
with Mrs. Hastings for a fortnight. Sproatly"--he signed to the man in
the skin coat--"will you get Miss Rawlinson's baggage into your wagon?"

The man took off his fur cap. "If Miss Rawlinson would like to see Mrs.
Sandberg, I'll drive her round," he suggested. "We'll catch you in a
league or so. Gregory has a bit of patching to do on his off-side
trace."

"He might have had things straight for once," grumbled Wyllard
half-aloud.

Winifred permitted Sproatly to help her into his wagon--a high,
narrow-bodied vehicle, mounted on tall, spidery wheels--but she had to
hold fast to the seat while they jolted across the track and through a
sea of mire into the unpaved street of the little town. She liked
Sproatly's voice and manner, though she was far from prepossessed by his
appearance. Two or three minutes later he stopped before a little wooden
house, where they were received by a tall, hard-faced woman, who frowned
at the man.

"Ye'll tak' your patent medicines somewhere else. I'm wanting none," she
said.

Sproatly grinned. "You needn't be afraid of them. They couldn't hurt
you. I was talking to a Winnipeg doctor who'd a notion of coming out a
day or two ago. I told him if he did he'd have to bring an ax along."

Then he explained that Wyllard had sent Miss Rawlinson there, and the
woman favored her with a glance of careful scrutiny.

"Weel," she said, "ye look quiet, anyway." She added, as if further
satisfied, "I'll make ye a cup of tea if ye can wait."

Sproatly assured her that they had not time to accept her hospitality.
The girl went into the house for a few moments and returned to the wagon
with relief in her face.

"I think I owe Mr. Wyllard a good deal," she said.

Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly unusual in that respect," he
declared as he started the horses. "But you had better hold tight. These
beasts are less than half broken."

He flicked the horses with the whip, and they went across the track at a
gallop, hurling great clods of mud left and right, while the group of
loungers who still stood about the station raised a shout.

"Got any little pictures