DISTURBING NEWS
Magnus Thorlakson was in the habit of routing out his men early. The
Roadmaster had made no mistake when he handed the stolid Icelander the
responsibility for nine miles of the Company's line in the middle of
one of the loneliest divisions. In the discharge of his duties there
was no more conscientious section foreman in the employ of the C.L.S.
He timed his slumber by the sun and his waking hours were filled with
the roll of hand-car wheels, the ring of spike-mauls and the tamping
grate of spades.
On this particular morning the big Swede, Svenson, had polished off his
second plate of fried potatoes and was grinning in anticipation of a
third helping and another couple of fried eggs, when a startled
exclamation from the good woman of the house, and the smash of the
plate which dropped from her fingers to the floor sent her husband's
chair scraping back from the table with some suddenness. Callers whose
clothes stamped them as city people would have been sufficiently
surprising at any time to the inhabitants of that humble dwelling in
the wild country and particularly so at that early hour; but the sight
of a broad-shouldered young man in his shirt-sleeves, carrying a young
woman in his arms up the embankment to their door, was ample
justification even for the breaking of precious porcelain.
Thorlakson muttered profanity as he stared out the window. The big
Swede looked up with mild enquiry, at the same time reaching for
another slice of bread, while the other two men stopped eating
altogether and gazed expectantly at the door.
"Good morning, Mrs. Thorlakson," greeted Kendrick. "May we come in?"
The girl stood beside him, huddled in the coat, her face white and
drawn in the cold light of early morning. The woman bobbed her head in
some uncertainty, then spoke in her own language to her husband who
thrust himself into the doorway and leaned a heavy, flanneled shoulder
against the jamb.
"Hello, Thorlakson! There's a sprained foot here that requires rest
and attention and we would like some breakfast."
Then the Icelander recognized him, turned to his wife with quick
commands, waved them inside with eager hospitality, suspicion no longer
mingling with curiosity in his keen, light-colored eyes.
"_Farthu ut_! Out!" snapped Mrs. Thorlakson, clapping her hands
sharply, and a touseled head withdrew hastily from the door of the
little bedroom off the kitchen. It shut with a rattle. She placed a
chair for the lady close to the fire, blew out the lamp on the table
and after lifting it to its place on the shelf, got a broom and began
to sweep up the fragments of the broken plate.
The two Norwegians at the table stared unblinkingly. The Swede paused
for an instant at his breakfast, his jaws motionless during the few
seconds required for one long look. At sight of Kendrick his wide
mouth had expanded to a grin of welcome which exposed the food on his
tongue, but as his glance fell upon the young lady and he noted that
she was smiling at him he reddened bashfully to the roots of his pale
hair and, as if to make up for lost time, fell to with augmented
diligence.
In spite of the painful ankle and the strangeness of her surroundings
Cristy almost laughed aloud at the comical expression on the big
fellow's homely face. She slipped out of Kendrick's coat and shuddered
close to the fire, holding her fingers gratefully over the hot stove.
Briefly Phil explained what had happened to them, aware that the
recital would not have been very convincing if he had been a complete
stranger to these simple foreigners with their natural tendency to
suspicion. He made no mention of the envelope that had brought him
back to the scene of Podmore's capture just a few days ago. It was
enough to say merely that the young lady accidentally had fallen off
the step of the train and he had jumped off after her.
But Thorlakson was only anxious to show that he was grateful for the
young man's recent generosity in connection with the fifty dollar
reward. He nodded as he listened.
"Yaow, that vould be other side Spruce Walley. Yaow. She slow opp
down thar. Wery good, Meester Kendrick. Ve glad to have you stay so
long as you like. Sit down thar. Planty wittles."
But Mrs. Thorlakson willed otherwise, bustling about as she spoke.
"My voman--she say vait avile," he explained. "Planty more--nice and
hot."
Phil thanked him and smiled across at his companion who was cheering up
wonderfully under the benign influence of the stove.
"Yaow, that vill be tventy-five cents--each vun, tventy-five cents.
Yaow, that vill be suffeecient."
Having thus dismissed further responsibility in the matter, the foreman
got up from the table and spoke to his men, who followed him outdoors
to the day's work. Svenson lagged behind to gulp the remainder of his
coffee and as his heavy boots clumped noisily across the rough wooden
floor he ventured to look again timidly at the very pretty young lady
who sat beside the stove. Her friendly nod and smile sent him
stumbling clumsily out over the doorstep with reddened face and a huge
grin of ecstatic delight.
"Delicious!" she laughed softly.
"Snf! Snf! Well now, you're saying something, Miss Lawson," enthused
Kendrick who had been watching the frying-pan with fascination. "I'm
as hungry as a bear."
Such an unusual breakfast as that was! Such wonderful home-made bread!
Fried potatoes straight from the stove, piping hot and done brown;
sizzling pork and eggs that were fresh laid by those hens they could
hear clucking outside; buns and molasses; even doughnuts and
good-natured looking wedges of pie with the knife-cuts far apart--a
wonderful meal of the substantial sort favored by those to whom eating
at any hour is a serious business. And they ate it with hunger for
condiment, chatting and laughing in their enjoyment.
Mrs. Thorlakson beamed. It was the finest compliment they could have
paid her. Afterwards with many duckings of tongue and shakes of the
head she bathed the swollen ankle in cold water, put some liniment on
it and bound it up. She was an adept in such matters.
During these ministrations Phil strolled down to the water-tank; but,
as he half expected, he found the fungus gone from the top of the
hollow stump and no sign of the envelope inside. Somebody had been
there before them, Podmore probably. He would question Thorlakson
about that later. Not that it mattered greatly. The sagacious Hughey
was due for a severe jolt when he opened the precious envelope to which
he was devoting so much attention.
On returning to the house he found that Miss Lawson very sensibly had
retired for much needed sleep. He climbed the hill to the woods behind
the log shanty and stretched out luxuriously on a fragrant heap of
spruce boughs with the idea of indulging in pleasant retrospection.
The sun was well past its zenith when he awoke and his watch told him
that it was nearly three in the afternoon. He rubbed his eyes, knotted
his muscles in a satisfying stretch and leaped to his feet with a
laugh. He found the girl in equally good spirits, the injured foot
encased in a mocassin that belonged to one of the foreman's children.
It was not a bad sprain; the pain and swelling had subsided, but it
would be well to rest it for two or three days, Mrs. Thorlakson had
told her. If they could put up with roughing it, she would be glad for
them to stay as long as they liked.
"I've promised to show her a new crochet pattern and knit a pair of
pullovers for little Skuli," smiled Cristy. "The poor thing is
lonesome and I've half a mind to make a little visit for a few days.
Do you know, she hasn't seen a white woman to talk to for six months?"
"You couldn't do a more charitable act, Miss Lawson, and I hope you'll
allow the bell-boy to linger within call. I happen to know that
Wolverine River down there has some fine trout in it and I confess I'd
like awfully to rustle an Indian canoe somewhere and do a little
exploring. Isn't this air simply great?"
They had wandered to the edge of the embankment and seated themselves
for a sunning. She searched quickly for his expression, but he had
turned and was gazing far up the track, his tanned face alight with
boyish enthusiasm.
Time never passed so swiftly for Phil Kendrick as it did during the
next two days. In the big roomy birch-bark canoe that Svenson had
built he went fishing and exploring to his heart's content--with Miss
Cristy Lawson. He initiated her into the mysteries of speckled trout
and helped her to land triumphantly a three-pounder. She was
interested in botany and he climbed all sorts of inaccessible places to
pick strange plants for her. On these expeditions they took Mrs.
Thorlakson and the children along; there was room for them all in the
big canoe and with the men absent all day it was possible for them to
make a picnic of it. He even enjoyed the evenings with the men while
they smoked their pipes in the doorway through which it was possible to
see Cristy, her sleeves tucked above a charming pair of dimpled elbows,
helping Mrs. Thorlakson with the dishes.
But on the afternoon of the third day as they sat out at the edge of
the clearing on a pile of balsam that he had gathered for her she began
to talk of leaving. They would be wondering back there on the paper
what had become of her and there was work to be done.
He could not take his eye off the diamond ring on her finger as she
spoke. "They" she had said; but it was probably "he" that she thought,
and he chucked a stone clean down to the water-tank, surprised that he
could throw that far. The injured ankle was no longer an excuse for
delaying their departure. So they planned to leave next day, boarding
a chance freight and riding down the line to some station where they
could catch the Toronto Express.
Several trains passed every day each way. Even as they sat there they
heard the familiar rumble somewhere far off among the low hills
westward. They listened to the growing noise of its approach.
Presently the smoke of the engine became visible and around the curve,
far up the track, the train trailed into view, a freight, the cars
swinging into line and hiding behind the black front of the locomotive.
The engineer was bowling her down towards them full "lickety-belt" with
no intention of stopping to take on water--a through freight apparently.
With a deafening roar she swept in, the engineer jogging laxly on his
cushions. Kendrick stood up and hollered at him. The salutation was
acknowledged with a friendly wave of the hand. The long string of
brown and yellow cars followed rattle-de-bang over the switch and
rocked away eastward. The roar dropped off abruptly into diminuendo,
punctuated by the rattle of a loose truck at the rear of the caboose.
From the cupola a brakeman with a dirty blue bandana knotted about his
brown throat, waved to them and shouted something which they could not
hear. He held aloft a white stick from which he had peeled the green
bark, pointed to it, then cast it back towards them and pointed to it
significantly.
"There's a paper of some kind fastened to it," said Phil as he
signalled that he understood.
They gazed after the end of the caboose until the fluttering green
flags faded out in the swirl of dust that pursued into the distance.
Then Kendrick scrambled down to find the message. It was in a sealed
envelope, bound around the stick with twine. One glance at the yellow
telegram inside sent him back up the embankment towards the girl as
fast as he could climb.
"Of all things, Miss Lawson!" he called out. "It's a wire from the
Chief. I left a note for him, telling him where we were going, and
just read this, sent down from the operator at Indian Creek. What do
you make of it?"
She read it aloud, frowning in perplexity:
Philip Kendrick, Toronto, July 27.
at Thorlakson Siding,
via Indian Creek.
Is Cristy safe? Wire immediately you receive this. McAllister
anxious. Send Cristy back but remain there yourself till McCorquodale
arrives. Important work for you there. McCorquodale will explain.
Jimmy Stiles missing since day you left. Did you take him with you?
WADE.
"I should have sent a wire before this, I guess," admitted Kendrick
slowly. "But I thought we'd be back before Wade returned to town. I
didn't think to send it to McAllister. He's your--editor, isn't he?
I'll get Thorlakson to send one of his men----"
She interrupted him with a gesture of impatience.
"The question is, Mr. Kendrick, what's happened to Jimmy Stiles?"
"Yes, and what's happened to make Wade send McCorquodale up here?
What's this important work he's talking about?"
"If Jimmy Stiles has disappeared, it hasn't been of his own free will.
I'm sure of that, Mr. Kendrick,--positive!" She looked at him with
anxious eyes.
"He was all right the day we had lunch together," mused Phil. "The
wire says he's been missing since the day I left the city; so he must
have gone that night. You know him a lot better than I do, of course;
but from what you told me the other night he got away with fifty
thousand dollars once before in pretty slick fashion."
"That suspicion does you no credit, Mr. Kendrick," said Cristy in quick
resentment. "Jimmy hasn't absconded. He's been abducted!"
"You have a ready imagination," smiled Phil.
"I know Nickleby," she retorted.
Kendrick shook his head.
"Abduction brings to mind closed cabs and chloroform. Do they pull off
stunts like that nowadays--in Toronto? It sounds too melodramatic,
Miss Lawson."
"What about that assault in the park by Nickleby's hirelings the other
night? You saw that yourself. I don't say Nickleby would dare to harm
Jimmy Stiles; he's no fool. But I do think that he's had a hand in
Jimmy's disappearance."
"Have you any special reason for thinking that?"
"Yes," she replied after a moment's hesitation. "We--the
_Recorder_--Mr. McAllister has been expecting Nickleby to attempt a
clean-up of some kind, preparatory to dropping out of sight completely.
His present position with the Interprovincial Loan & Savings--control
of the stock and all that--will come to a sudden end as soon as Mr.
Bradford, the explorer, returns to civilization. Nickleby won't wait
for that, will he? It looks as if he were getting ready to pull out
and had found Stiles in his way. Jimmy knows too much."
"Well, speculating about things won't get us a hundred yards from
Thorlakson Siding," said Kendrick philosophically. "What's needed is a
train."
"There's no telling what may be going on back there while we sit here,
twiddling our thumbs." She got up and walked to and fro restlessly.
"Oh, if only we'd been able to go on that freight that just passed."
"We? Instructions are that I'm to wait here for McCorquodale and send
you back at once. We'll flag the first train going the right way and
you ought to get off by to-night. I'd better get busy and write out a
reply to the wire. Mr. McAllister is anxious about your safety and
it----"'
"Oh, drat McAllister!" cried Cristy impatiently.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Lawson," said Phil, "but please say that
again."