y. "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, and even if she isn't particularly amiable you'll be in safe
hands."

Hamilton laughed. "Oh, yes," he said. "She's Scotch--old type
Calvinist at that. No frivolity about that woman. Married a
Scandinavian, and was just breaking him in when he was killed back East
along the track."

"We'll consider it as fixed, but in the meanwhile you're to stay with
Mrs. Hastings for the fortnight," said Wyllard. "Sproatly"--and he
signed to the man in the skin coat--"will you get Miss Rawlinson's
baggage into your waggon?"

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
up 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," said Wyllard half-aloud.

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

"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 axe along."

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

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

Sproatly assured her that this was not the case, and in a few more
minutes the girl, who went into the house, got into the waggon again,
with relief in her face.

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

Sproatly laughed. "You're not exactly singular in that respect, but
you had better hold tight. These beasts are rather less than half
broken."

He flicked them with the whip, and the