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Musq'oosis rose, and Sam pulled up. "Come aboard," invited Sam. "What are you waiting up here for?" "Waitin' for you," replied Musq'oosis. He climbed into the wagon-box and Sam chirruped to his horses. The nervous little beasts stretched their flanks and were off at a bound. The whole outfit was in a hurry. Sam was hoping to be the first to arrive at the stopping-house.
The wind was whistling down the Black Creek Valley, carrying heavy flakes of snow that whirled and eddied around them, as Rance Belmont and Evelyn made their way to the Stopping-House. The stormy night accorded well with the turmoil in Evelyn's brain. One point she had decided she would go back to her father, and for this purpose she asked her companion if he would lend her one hundred dollars.
After rounding the shoulder of the hill, the thick line of poplars and elms which fringe the banks of Black Creek comes into view, and many a man and horse have suddenly brightened at the sight, for in the shelter of the trees there stands the Black Creek Stopping-House, which is the half-way house on the way to Brandon.
The banks, which are of a spongy black loam, grow a heavy crop of coarse meadow grass, interspersed in the late summer with the umbrella- like white clusters of water hemlock. About a mile from the Stopping-House there stood a strange log structure, the present abode of Reginald and Randolph Brydon, late of H.M. Navy, but now farmers and homesteaders.
Frank Shefford up at Nine-Mile-Point is going to lend me his team and mower when his hay is put up; and I'll put up hay myself." The boy's eyes glowed, as he announced his brave plans for the future. "Next winter I'm going to keep a stopping-house for freighters. I've got a good location here, and stable room already for eight teams. I'll build to it later.
At the Black Creek Stopping-House the real business of the year had begun, for every day heavily-loaded wheat wagons wound slowly over the long trail on their way to Brandon, and the Stopping-House became the foregathering place of all the farmers in the settlement.
Fred asked, abruptly. "I want to get to the Black Creek Stopping-House. How far am I from there now?" "About three miles," said Fred. "Well, I guess I can walk that far if you'll show me the road." Fred hesitated. "I am going to Brandon," he said. "What is any sane man going to Brandon to-night for?" the stranger cried, impatiently. "Great Scott!
He was confident that Evelyn's father would not recognize him with his crop of whiskers and sunburnt face. His mind was full of conflicting emotions. "Maybe you know him," said the old man. "His name is Brydon. They live somewhere near the Stopping-House." "I've not lived here long," said Fred, evasively, "but I've heard of them."
God help us! What will she do in the long drizzle in the fall, when the wheat's spoilin' in the shock maybe, and the house is dark, and her man's away what will she do?" Mrs. Brydon spent many happy hours that summer at the Stopping-House, and soon Mrs. Corbett knew all the events of her past life; the sympathetic understanding of the Irish woman made it easy for her to tell many things.
Three hours later he drove in before the stopping-house, and, hitching his team to the tree, left them a little hay to while the time. The "resteraw" was empty. Other breakfast guests had come and gone. "Oh, Bela!" he cried. She stuck her head in the other door. Her expression was severely non-committal. "Bela, my stomach's as empty as a stocking on the floor! I feel like a drawn chicken.
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