Aunt Anna seemed to have suffered little harm from the midnight flitting, and was sleeping late after the excitements of the night before. She had been made comfortable at once in the one room that was in tolerable order; for the girls had only to make up the couch with the bedding they had brought, to build a fire out of the pine cones that lay so thickly under the trees, and the apartment was ready for the invalid. Christina had taken charge of the place for the former occupants, and had left it very clean and in order. In the dry Montana air, no house, even when closed for months, grows damp, nor, in the clean pine woods, even very dusty. Aunt Anna had remained long awake, however; for, two hours later when it was almost dawn, Beatrice had stolen in and found her staring wide-eyed at the fire.
“Can I do anything for you? Aren’t you very tired?” the girl had asked, but her aunt only smiled and shook her head.
“I am very comfortable,” she said. “I think we are going to be very happy in this strange little house. I am glad you had the courage to bring me here, my child.”
Beatrice stood beside the bed and straightened the coverlid.
“Won’t you tell me why you wanted so much to stay?” she begged. “I wish I might know.”
“I used to think,” she said at last, “that you might never know, but perhaps, since last night, I have changed my mind. Yes, whatever happens, I believe I will tell you, but not just now; for I am too weary to go through with such a thing. Move my pillow a little, my dear; I am going to sleep. The music of that waterfall would make anybody drowsy.”
Before they had finished breakfast, Christina had appeared, with Sam, heavy-laden, following her, bringing more of their things from the village.
“I just packed everything that I thought you would need and had Sam fetch it up,” said Christina. “No, you can’t go down to the town until things have quieted a little. There was fighting last night, and Dan O’Leary has been shot.”
“Just through the leg,” Sam reassured them, seeing Nancy’s horrified face. “Dan has been foreman of one of the ditching gangs, but he owns the livery-stable and one of the stores, so being a property holder makes him more careful than the rest. He’s hot-headed enough, though, and was leader of all the workmen until this fellow out of Russia, Thorvik, came to town. He goes Dan one better, and there is no knowing what he won’t stir up.”