The Danger Trail | Page 6

pathetic and yet half-frightened appeal to him. He rose, his eyes
questioning her, and to his unspoken inquiry her lips formed
themselves into a round, red O, and she nodded to the opposite side of
her table.
"I beg your pardon," he said, seating himself. "May I give you my
card?"
He felt as if there was something brutally indecent in what he was
doing and the knowledge of it sent a red flush to his cheeks. The girl
read his name, smiled across the table at him, and with a pretty gesture,
motioned him to bring his cup and share her tea with her. He returned
to his table and when he came back with the cup in his hand she was
writing on one of the pages of the tablet, which she passed across to
him.
"You must pardon me for not talking," he read. "I can hear you very
well, but I, unfortunately, am a mute."
He could not repress the low ejaculation of astonishment that came to
his lips, and as his companion lifted her cup he saw in her face again
the look that had stirred him so strangely when he stood in the window
of the Hotel Windsor. Howland was not a man educated in the
trivialities of chance flirtations. He lacked finesse, and now he spoke
boldly and to the point, the honest candor of his gray eyes shining full
on the girl.
"I saw you from the hotel window to-night," he began, "and something
in your face led me to believe that you were in trouble. That is why I
have ventured to be so bold. I am the engineer in charge of the new
Hudson Bay Railroad, just on my way to Le Pas from Chicago. I'm a
stranger in town. I've never been in this--this place before. It's a very
nice tea-room, an admirable blind for the opium stalls behind those
walls."
In a few terse words he had covered the situation, as he would have
covered a similar situation in a business deal. He had told the girl who

and what he was, had revealed the cause of his interest in her, and at the
same time had given her to understand that he was aware of the nature
of their present environment. Closely he watched the effect of his
words and in another breath was sorry that he had been so blunt. The
girl's eyes traveled swiftly about her; he saw the quick rise and fall of
her bosom, the swift fading of the color in her cheeks, the affrighted
glow in her eyes as they came back big and questioning to him.
"I didn't know," she wrote quickly, and hesitated. Her face was as white
now as when Howland had looked on it through the window. Her hand
trembled nervously and for an instant her lip quivered in a way that set
Howland's heart pounding tumultuously within him. "I am a stranger,
too," she added. "I have never been in this place before. I came
because--"
She stopped, and the catching breath in her throat was almost a sob as
she looked at Howland. He knew that it took an effort for her to write
the next words.
"I came because you came."
"Why?" he asked. His voice was low and assuring. "Tell me--why?"
He read her words as she wrote them, leaning half across the table in
his eagerness.
"I am a stranger," she repeated. "I want some one to help me.
Accidentally I learned who you were and made up my mind to see you
at the hotel, but when I got there I was afraid to go in. Then I saw you
in the window. After a little you came out and I saw you enter here. I
didn't know what kind of place it was and I followed you. Won't you
please go with me--to where I am staying--and I will tell you--"
She left the sentence unfinished, her eyes pleading with him. Without a
word he rose and seized his hat.
"I will go, Miss--" He laughed frankly into her face, inviting her to
write her name. For a moment she smiled back at him, the color

brightening her cheeks. Then she turned and hurried down the stair.
Outside Howland gave her his arm. His eyes, passing above her, caught
again the luring play of the aurora in the north. He flung back his
shoulders, drank in the fresh air, and laughed in the buoyancy of the
new life that he felt.
"It's a glorious night!" he exclaimed.
The girl nodded, and smiled up at him. Her face was very near to his
shoulder, ever more beautiful in the white light of the stars.
They did not look behind them. Neither heard the quiet