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"Will you promise again?" she asked, lightly. Here was Nell with arch eyes, yet not the old arch eyes, so full of fun and mischief. Her lips were tremulous; her cheeks seemed less round. "Yes," rejoined Belding; and he knew why his voice was a little thick. "Well, if you weren't such a good old blind Dad you'd have seen long ago the way Mr. Radford Chase ran round after me.
"I'm glad you did, Elsie, it was just right." "But I didn't mean it," she said pitifully, "and it wasn't fair of me. I didn't know you felt like that." Belding stared at her astonished. "You must have known." "Then possibly I did, I wasn't sure. I I didn't think of it much, but, Jimmy, I don't want to be married just now.
The malady had, at this time, made considerable progress. Belding's interest at length yielded to his fears, and this was the last journey which he proposed to make. Hence our impatience for the return of Wallace was augmented; since, if this opportunity were lost, no suitable conveyance might again be offered him. Belding set out, as usual, at the dawn of day.
If there was any sentiment in his make-up it had an outlet in his memory of Blanco Diablo and a longing to see him. Often Belding stopped his work to gaze out over the desert toward the west. When he thought of his rangers and Thorne and Mercedes he certainly never forgot his horse. He wondered if Diablo was running, walking, resting; if Yaqui was finding water and grass.
He made crosses and marks and holes, and as he drew the rude map he talked in Yaqui, in Spanish; with a word here and there in English. Belding translated as best he could. The raiders were heading southeast toward the railroad that ran from Nogales down into Sonora. It was four days' travel, bad trail, good sure waterhole one day out; then water not sure for two days.
"Tell Aunt Jinny to make it in the flowered teapot I fancy the flowered teapot to-day and the blue-striped cups and saucers. "Do you know, Miss Belding, what the complete delight of wealth is? It is an ability to see variety about one in the home. You need not use the same old cups and saucers every day! If I were rich I would have the furniture changed in my room every few days.
Shore you get quieter all the time. Did you see any sign of Jim out Sonoyta way?" Then Belding led the lame horse toward the watering-trough, while the two rangers went toward the house, Dick was telling Ladd about the affair at Papago Well when they turned the corner under the porch. Nell was sitting in the door. She rose with a little scream and came flying toward them.
The visitors played with the congealing mutton, poked at forbidding potatoes, absorbed large quantities of scalding tea and then hastened back to the big stove. Belding felt a hand on his shoulder. "It's my fault. We should have let them go to the hotel. I suppose we're used to it, they're not." Presently, Wimperley began to yawn. "I'm going to bed."
The loose sandy soil had yielded readily to shovel; there were no rocks; as far as construction of a ditch was concerned such a blast would have done more harm than good. Slowly, with reluctant feet, Belding walked toward a green hollow, where in a cluster of willows lay the never-failing spring that his horses loved so well, and, indeed, which he loved no less.
"A young woman, whose name I hardly know, came to me in the garden this morning to ask for help to get some lady-like work to do. After discussing that subject threadbare, she came in here for a rose, and, apropos of nothing, made me a declaration and a proposal of honorable wedlock, dans toutes les formes." "The forms were evident as I entered," said Mrs. Belding, dryly.
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