d dollars. In the meanwhile, if you have
no objections, we'll get back again."

CHAPTER XII

WISBECH MAKES INQUIRIES

A little pale sunshine shone down into the opening between the great
cedar trunks when Laura Waynefleet walked out of the shadowy Bush. The
trail from the settlement dipped into the hollow of a splashing creek,
just in front of her, and a yoke of oxen, which trailed along a rude
jumper-sled, plodded at her side. The sled was loaded with a big sack
of flour and a smaller one of sugar, among other sundries which a
rancher who lived farther back along the trail had brought up from the
settlement in his waggon. Waynefleet's hired man was busy that
morning, and as her stores were running out, Laura had gone for the
goods herself. Other women from the cities have had to accustom
themselves to driving a span of oxen along those forest trails.

The beasts descended cautiously, for the slope was steep, and Laura
was half-way down it when she saw that a man, who sat on the little
log bridge, was watching her. He was clearly a stranger, and, when she
led the oxen on to the bridge, tapping the brawny neck of one with a
long stick, he turned to her.

"Can you tell me if Waynefleet's ranch is near here?" he asked.

Laura glanced at him sharply, for there was no doubt that he was
English, and she wondered, with a faint uneasiness, what his business
was. In the meanwhile the big, slowly-moving beasts had stopped and
stood still, blowing through their nostrils and regarding the stranger
with mild, contemplative eyes. One of them turned its head towards the
girl inquiringly, and the man laughed.

"One could almost fancy they wondered what I was doing here," he
remarked.

"The ranch is about a mile in front of you," said Laura in answer to
his question. "You are going there?"

"I am," said the man. "I want to see Miss Waynefleet. They told me to
ask for her at the store."

Laura looked at him again with some astonishment.

He was a little man, apparently about fifty, plainly dressed in what
appeared to be English clothing. Nothing in his appearance suggested
that he was a person of any importance, or, indeed, of much education,
but she liked the way in which he had laughed when the ox had turned
towards her.

"Then," she replied, "as that is my name, you need not go any
further."

The man made a little bow. "Mine's Wisbech, and I belong to the
Birmingham district, England," he explained. "I walked