Part 19 (2/2)
Ephraim looked up, surprised, answering, rather crisply:
”At home. Why not? When I heard about Nimrod I wasn't silly enough to bring another.”
”So if I hadn't brought him we'd been short a mount?” insisted the reporter, teasingly.
”One of us would had to foot it to the ranch, and that one wouldn't have been me. Huh! Does me good to hear your nonsense gabble again. I declare it does. When did you get my telegraph?”
”This morning.”
”This--morning! Why, I sent it day before yesterday, no, the day before that. Let me see; to-day's one, yesterday--the funeral, two--the one--yes, three days ago. John Benton himself gave it into the telegraph man's hands. Himself.”
They mounted and started toward McLeod's Inn, Ninian doing very well, considering the impatience of his steed and his own limited experience of the saddle, and the sharpshooter sitting as composedly upon the back of as restless an animal as could readily be found. It was a bay, and pranced and curveted to the extent that Nimrod seemed a door-mouse beside it, and Ninian finally observed:
”That's an undecided sort of beast you have, yourself. Seems to be as much inclined to go backward as forward.”
”Hale's. Name Prince. Was on the mesa with Pedro till he died.”
”Pedro dead? I'm sorry. Was it his 'funeral' you meant?”
”Yes. Terrible pity he couldn't have held on till Christmas, his Navidad, that always meant so much to him. But he couldn't. Things have changed at Sobrante since you was here. I'm glad you've come. I'm powerful glad you've come.”
”Any new trouble, Ephraim?”
”H'm! I should say. Ghosts, the women think, and scamps for certain.
But it's a long story, and here we are at Aleck's. We mustn't spoil that good supper of his and talk will keep. We've thirty miles 'twixt us and bed, 'less you change your mind and stop here, and that should give time enough to turn a man's mind inside out.”
”Were you so certain of my coming that you ordered a special supper, without hearing?”
”Sure. I took you to be a man and I put myself in your place. In your place I should have come if I could; and if I couldn't I should have sent word. Light.”
Aleck came out to meet them, and Janet followed, of course. Where one of that worthy couple was the other was sure to be; and both extended to the city man such welcome as made him more impressed than ever by that ”home feeling” which had possessed him all day. He returned their good wishes with heartiness and did full justice to his supper, adding as a thankful tribute to Janet's fine cookery:
”That's the first thing has pa.s.sed my lips that hadn't the flavor of ashes, since many a day. The doctor was right.”
”Glad to hear any doctor ever could be right,” returned the innkeeper, who had never been ill, and attributed his health to his distrust of physicians. ”Fresh air, wholesome food and a clear conscience--them's to long life what the three R's are to 'rithmetic. Powerful sorry you can't pa.s.s the night. I'd admire to talk over the political situation with an intelligent man.”
The side glance toward himself with which the Scotchman said this sent Ephraim off into a mighty guffaw, in which presently they all joined; and in the midst of the merriment a stable boy led up the horses, and the Sobrante-bound riders loped away. Yet, just before they were out of hearing, Aleck's stentorian voice sent after them the warning advice:
”Keep a sharp lookout, by, and your hands on your guns. That spook's. .h.i.t the trail again! Watch out!”
Ninian laughed, and ”Forty-niner” tried to do so, but the most he could accomplish was a feeble cackle, which, his companion fancied, betrayed his age as nothing heretofore had done. It was a nervous, irritated laugh, and was matched by the altered voice in which its owner presently remarked:
”If I can't stop this fool business any other way, I've a notion to ride round the country and shoot right and left, everybody I see, promiscuous. That's the sure and certain way to hit the spook, too.”
”Heigho! This grows exciting! Spooks? Mysteries? Mail robberies! What next?”
There was no answer from the sharpshooter, who had gotten his horse into a steady trot and was putting the road behind him in a manner that needed all Ninian's efforts to match. If Nimrod had been as little used to the trail as his rider was to him the s.p.a.ce between the two animals would have widened irretrievably; but he was the better bred of the two, and though he didn't waste his strength in a first spurt, as Prince did, he fell into a steady, easy gait, that soon told to his advantage.
It was one of the perfect moonlight nights which come in that cloudless region, when one can easily ”read fine print,” if so inclined, or see across country almost as well as in the day. The swift motion, the exhilarating air, the sense of freedom from city walls and cramped s.p.a.ces, started the reporter into singing, and later into the silence of wonder over the astonis.h.i.+ng power of his own voice.
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