his hands in his pants pockets, cool as you please. “Where is she?” Alice murmured out of the side of her mouth.
“Behind a bunch of crates near the gangway. Any minute now …”
They got halfway across the field between the cargo ship and Lady Lucy when they heard a shout. Turning, they saw Alan leading Lizzie by the hand as if she were four years old and they were learning to cross the street.
“Captain Chalmers, looks like you forgot something,” he called.
“Sorry, Alice,” Lizzie said in a breathless voice about five years younger than her normal one. “That ship is just so big I couldn’t resist seeing if it were as grand inside.”
“Lizzie, you rascal.” Alice shot an apologetic look at Alan. “I appreciate this, sir. She loves the airships. I can’t keep her out of them.”
He laughed and handed Lizzie over. “She reminds me of my granddaughters back home {izedth="2em">. Their mother can’t take ’em into the big houses with the laundry, without them running upstairs to see how the rich folks live.”
Alice laughed, as if she could see it. “You sound like a Texican man. What part? I’m from down Resolution way, myself.”
“Santa Fe is where I hang my—” He was cut off by a yell from his companions. “Nice talkin’ to you. Good-bye, Lizzie. Stay out of trouble, you hear?” He jogged back the way he had come.
“Alice, they—”
“Not yet, Lizzie. Wait until we’re back on the Lass, if you please.”
She hustled them aboard and made sure the gondola hatch was good and shut.
“What’s the matter, Alice?” Lizzie wanted to know. “You’re awf’ly pale.”
Alice chewed the inside of her cheek. “Maybe I’m making a river out of a raindrop. Maybe it’s nothing that don’t happen all the time up here. But I’d sure like to know what Texican men are doing aboard a ship this far north in the Canadas.”
“I’ll tell you wot they’re doin’,” Lizzie said. “They’re tellin’ you fibs.”
Alice nodded at her to go on.
“Soon’s you were out o’ earshot the fat one said to that Bob, ‘Better send word someone’s askin’ about ’im’ and Bob says ‘Maybe she’s kin, maybe she’s not’ and then the one ’oo brought me over, ’e says, ‘We don’t owe them dadburned toffs nothing but a distraction’ and then they saw me sneaking up the gangway an’ that were that. Wot’s dadburned?”
Alice felt her stomach go cold, and goosebumps broke out on her arms.
“Summat you don’t need to say,” Jake informed her. “Sounds to me like they’re talking about someone ’oo’s actually ’ere. They know a man wi’ one blind eye.”
“It does, don’t it?” Alice said slowly. “But send word to who? Him or someone else? Why make such a secret of telling me where he is? And what kind of distraction?”
“And ’ere’s summat,” Lizzie said, digging in her pocket and removing a small piece of brass. “Look wot I found behind them crates, dadburn it.”
Jake cuffed her, but there was no energy in it. He took the object and frowned. “This ’ere’s a bullet casing. Not a bitsy engine casing like wot got shot at the count, but look.” He held the object up to the light from the gondola’s viewing windows. “M.A.M.W.”
“It must be an arms manufacturer, like Colt or Sharps,” Alice said. “But it doesn’t prove anything. Those bullets could be sold all over the territory.”
“P’raps.” Jake pocketed the casing. “T’Lady ought to know anyhow.”
Alice nodded slowly. “And I’d give a lot to know what the ‘toffs’ {e /font>
“Just wait,” Jake told her. “Our Maggie won’t let us down.”
Chapter 14
It did not take long to learn the lie of the land, but that did not ease Claire’s frustration in the least. On closer inspection, what she had thought to be a town turned out to be a series of long sheds set into the ground, so that one had to descend a staircase in order to enter each one. The mess hall hunkered in the center, and arrayed in neat rows around it were housing for the miners, supply sheds, the mine offices, and management quarters, as well as what she was informed were wash houses, equipment sheds, and storage.
“There’s no shortage of water here, of course,” said the young engineer who had been seconded by Lady Dunsmuir to show Claire and Andrew around. “Those larger buildings there contain great steam engines that produce heat and electricks for housing and offices.”
“But why is everything set into the ground?” Andrew asked.
“Because of the storms and the cold,