Part 15 (1/2)

”You can fix her all right, I suppose?” he said to the driver

The latter said so, and when Daly stooped over the engine the light of a la, handsoreedy eyes For a iving way to a fit of rage The fellow had it in his power to bring disgrace upon upright people and drag an honored name in the mire He could humble Alice Featherstone's pride and ruin the brother she loved

Lawrence had done wrong, but had paid for it and ue who had learned his secret would drag hi his relatives to poverty Foster felt that Daly was not the ot; one saw a sinister hint of cruelty in his coarsely-handsome face It would have been a relief to provoke the fellow and throw hie, but Foster knew he s worse for those hefelt so full of prieness before, but he exercised his self-control

Standing in the shadow, he turned his head, looking down at the laan to take to pieces, and presently Daly said to the driver, ”You had better get some food; I'll want you soon”

Then he cah to touch Foster, went up the steps and through a door Foster put down the lae He found dinner ready at his hotel and when he had finished went to the s-room, which was opposite the office He left the door open and by and by heard a man enter the hall and stop at the counter

”Have you an American called Franklin here?” he asked and Foster snized Daly's voice

He had half-expected the visit, and the inquiry was cleverly framed

Daly had not asked about a Canadian, because the accent of Western Canada is that of the United States, and Franklin reseirl clerk to uest For all that, Daly was ignorant of the Scottish character, because the Scot seldom offers information that is not de with us”

Foster thought Daly opened the visitors' book, which lay on the counter, but as he had not yet entered his naht co-roo back in his chair held up the newspaper to hide his face After a few moments, Daly said, ”I don't know anybody here; it looks as ifthe hall, and when the door shut Foster put down the newspaper and began to think He iined that Daly hardly expected to find Featherstone in Hawick, but it was curious that he was going to Langholm, which was on the best road to Lockerbie in Annandale It was the police Foster had tried to put off the track at the clachan by striking west across theto do with theht on theof a relief to find the car had gone

XIII

FOSTER RETURNS TO THE GARTH

After breakfast nextFoster asked the hotel porter to take his knapsack to the station and get hiht come back to Hahen he failed to find him in Annandale but would be badly puzzled if he went to Carlisle, because it was an important railway center, where one would have a choice of several different routes This would give Foster a few quiet days, after which heDaly to resu Lawrence, and if he did not, no doubt concluded that Foster orking in concert with him, and to find one would help hi and the shts burned in the station, but the building was gloo the waiting passengers Soon after he did so, the train ca into the carriages

”Ye wanted a corridor, sir,” he said as he opened a door

Foster got in and stood at theuntil the porter went away

People were running up and down looking for places, but he had no ti the door on the opposite side, he went along the corridor and stood for a e He could not see the porter, and when two or three passengers ran up got down froine snorted, and the train rolled out of the station

As none of the porters spoke to hi neatly and made it look as if he had co been left behind For all that, he waited aa ti the hotel porter; and then made his way by back streets out of the town

For some miles, the road he took ran south up a well-cultivated valley, past turnip and stubble fields and sh stony track that climbed a hill

A turn shut in the valley when he reached higher ground, and a long stretch of ht these sharp transitions from intensive cultivation to the sterile wilds were characteristic of southern Scotland It had rained since he left Hawick, but now the sun shone down between the clouds and bright glea shadows chased each other across the waste To the south the sky was clear and shone with a leainst which the rounded hills rose, delicately gray In one place there was a gap that Foster thought was Liddesdale, and his path led across the latter towards the head of Tyne Not a house broke the sweep of withered grass and heath, and only the crying of plover that circled in the distance disturbed the silence

Foster liked the open trail and went on with a light step, until as he crossed the watershed and the country sloped to the south, he came to a wire fence and saw the black mouth of a railway tunnel beneath It was now about two o'clock, and feeling hungry, he sat dohere a bank cut off the wind, and took out soht at Hawick He did not know if he found the shi+ning rails and row of telegraph posts that curved away down the hillside out of place, but somehow they made him feel foolishly unconventional His boots and ingerbread, and did not knohere he would spend the night, although it would not be at a comfortable hotel Until he saw the tunnel, he had felt at hoht have done so yet, had he, for exa a flock of sheep; but the railas disturbing

In this country, people traveled by steaed a lawyer to defend the back to thethis properly, since the h those hills carried lances instead of a check-book, which was after all his best weapon He laughed and felt hihted his pipe

Then there was a roar in the tunnel and a North British express, leaping out through a cloud of shts on to another track His adventures had begun in a train, and it was in a train he irl arned him not to deliver Carmen's packet

He did not see what the packet had to do with hiht turn up again Then he wondered whether Daly was now in Annandale The felloas obviously determined to find Lawrence, and, if one adland for the purpose, did not e After all, black was a risky business and the Featherstones were not rich It looked as if DalyLawrence, but Foster could not see what it was Indeed, he was frankly puzzled There was a mystery about Carh, and inquiries about him were afterwards made, while Daly's keenness was not quite explained He wondered whether these things were soled clews that led nowhere Well, heup went on his way