NANCY 119 



right. So on the 7th of February I packed a cabin- 

 trunk and a hatbox, and on the 8th I sat waiting at 

 my writing-table for my brother to drive me in to 

 catch the transcontinental train. When I caught 

 sight of him coming up the stairs, I saw at once 

 that he was in trouble, and my thoughts flew to the 

 horses. 



" It's Jim," I said ; " is he dead ? " 



" Not Jim," he answered. " Jess. She seemed 

 quite all right when I fed and watered them early 

 this morning. I harnessed her twenty minutes 

 before I started, and I chose her because I thought it 

 would be a shorter stage for her, and Dick would be 

 faster to take us from the farm to South Qu'Appelle. 

 Before we had come half a mile she suddenly 

 stopped, rolled over, and when I got to her head 

 she was dead." 



My brother was so entirely upset about the loss 

 that I could only feign to make light of it ; but even 

 on that day I felt a kind of premonition that the 

 shadow which I had refused to recognize might 

 dodge me — the shadow of bad luck which I had 

 entirely omitted to take into my calculations. 



The misfortune brought us both to the face of 

 affairs. My brother told me that he had decided 

 to return to his homestead, and if we could possibly 

 manage to get the money together he would like 

 to put up a roomy shack so that he might take on 

 " stoppers " — passengers on the trail. The Grand 

 Trunk Railway were grading through just then 

 about seven miles north of his homestead, all the 

 supplies were taken over the trail on the edge of 

 his land, and he considered there was quite a fortune 

 in it. If I could lend horses and seed from the farm 



