Free Rainbow Cottage by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

down the track. There was no time to waste in caution. She must catch that train or all would be lost. It was her only hope. She knew it would be of no use to appeal to Mrs. Higgins for help because Buck was her overseer and could turn her out of the job at the restaurant also if he chose. There was no one nearer than ten miles upon whom she had the slightest claim and that was a woman who had once been kind to her mother. She was old and poor. She could do nothing to protect her. Since the teacher of Sheila’s school had died two years before, Sheila and her mother had been strangely by themselves. The people about there who would have been friendly were not to their taste and they had held aloof. Those whom they would have liked to know looked askance at them because of Moira’s singing at the dance hall. So they had kept apart from humankind, and Sheila had no friend to turn to now in her distress. She
must
catch this train.
    Desperately, she slid down the rest of the way to the edge, swung herself hurriedly over, holding on with a nervous grip, gave one dizzy look at the space below her unable to calculate the distance in the dim twilight, told herself she must remember to bend her knees and spring on her toes to break the jar of the fall, as they used to tell them to do in a school jumping, then she closed her eyes and dropped.
    There was an instant of dizzy fright, and the ground came much sooner than she had expected. She gave a weak little spring from the ground and then dropped again in a heap, stunned for a second or two, strangely weak and trembling, stupid with fright and the shock of the fall. But the steady oncoming of the train brought her back to her senses again, and she stumbled to her feet. She had a bruised feeling all over and felt dizzy. She wondered vaguely if she could have struck her head against the house as she dropped. But she managed to crawl around the corner of the lean-to to where her valise lay and then dragging it softly, crept on under two more windows and down behind some big bushes that bordered the track. If she could only get across to the other side before it was too late! For people would be coming out on the platform, and it might even be that Buck would be there now awaiting the coming of the train. He often did that. And she could not hope to escape notice if she tried to cross close to the house.
    Breathless, she rushed along through the weeds and tall grass, carrying the valise that seemed to her shaking arms to weigh a ton. She dared not look behind toward the Junction House till she was under shelter of the bushes. Then a quick glance told that she had been right. There were people out there. Mr. Higgins with the mailbags. Tony, the man from the nearest ranch. A woman from over at the cabaret, her mother’s old rival! She would tell Buck at once if she saw her. No, she dared not risk going across in front of the train even though there was plenty of time, for the brightness of the headlight from the engine would show her clearly in silhouette, and all eyes were turned in that direction with nothing else to do but look.
    No, she must wait till the train had passed and then rush across and back along the other side of the track behind the train. She remembered that there was a pretty steep bank built of cinders on the other side of the track. It would be hard to climb up with her baggage. Perhaps she would have to tie the rope to her valise again and swing it up after she was on the step of the train. Oh, she would have to hurry, hurry! The train stopped only ten minutes for supper. She was not safe even yet.
    The train swept along, blinding her with its brilliant light, taking her breath with its near swiftness, and pelting her with a tornado of dust, cinders, and stinging particles of hard earth. She had to stand with down-bent head and closed eyes till it was past. And then it seemed to have gone so much farther up the platform than usual tonight, and she had all that long