"Why do you suppose they insisted on our waiting here?" said Deaves querulously.
"Can't say," answered Evan. "I have fancied that some of their orders were just thrown in to mystify us, to undermine our morale. Possibly they stipulated we must leave this point at eight-thirty so they would know exactly when to expect us."
"That man who just passed us, how he stared! Do you suppose he could have been one of them?"
"There must be a lot of them then. Everybody stares. Like ourselves, they wonder what we're waiting here for."
On the stroke of the half hour they gave the chauffeur word to proceed out Stonewall avenue. The village of Regina is not a beautiful hamlet. Its founders had large ideas; they laid off the principal street a hundred feet wide, but the city has its own ideas about the proper width of streets, and when in the course of time the municipality took over Regina it paved but two-thirds of Stonewall avenue, leaving a muddy morass at each side. The buildings that lined this thoroughfare were something between those of a city slum and those of a Western boom town. They had no difficulty in picking out Beechurst street; the big stone church in its muddy yard was a horror.
They alighted in the middle of the street, for the chauffeur opined that if he fell off the hard pavement he'd never be able to climb back on it. They dismissed him, and watched him turn and roll out of sight.
Deaves shuddered. "I wish I was safe inside!" he murmured.
Evan took careful note of their surroundings. On the corner where they stood was a stationery store, and across Beechurst street was a saloon. "Someone watching us from in there I'll be bound," thought Evan. If he had been alone he would have gone in. Across Stonewall avenue from the saloon was the church aforementioned, and the fourth corner was vacant.
They turned up Beechurst street, which was swallowed up in unrelieved blackness a few yards ahead.
"I feel as if there were watching eyes on every side of us," said Deaves tremulously.
"They're welcome to look at me if it does them any good," said Evan lightly.
"Aren't you afraid I might skip with it?" said Evan teasingly.
Deaves had no humour. He hastily took the package back. Evan chuckled.