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When the dense gloom of the pass lightened, and there was a wide space of sky and stars overhead, Ladd halted and stood silent a moment. "Luck again!" he whispered. "The wind's in your face, Jim. The horses won't scent you. Go slow. Don't crack a stone. Keep close under the wall. Try to get up as high as this at the other end. Wait till daylight before riskin' a loose slope.
The curve of the iron shoes pointed westward. An intersecting trail from the north came in here. Gale thought the tracks either one or two days old. Ladd said they were one day. The Indian shook his head. No farther advance was undertaken. The Yaqui headed south and traveled slowly, climbing to the brow of a bold height of weathered mesa. There he sat his horse and waited. No one questioned him.
And then, with a little rush, a girl about his own age, or maybe younger he couldn't tell who came right up to him, and put out her hand, and gave him a grip with her hard little fist, just like a boy, and said, "I'm Joyce Ladd." "Pleased to meetcha," mumbled Buzz. And then he found himself talking to her quite easily. She knew a surprising lot about the army.
Ladd had gone back to the next waterhole, or maybe he was hiding in an arroyo to the eastward, awaiting developments. Gale turned his horse, not without urge of iron arm and persuasive speech, for the desert steed scented water, and plodded back to the edge of the arroyo, where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted.
Then there was Adam Ladd, waiting at thirty-five for a girl to grow a little older, simply because he could not find one already grown who suited his somewhat fastidious and exacting tastes. "I'll not call Rebecca perfection," he quoted once, in a letter to Emily Maxwell, "I'll not call her perfection, for that's a post, afraid to move. But she's a dancing sprig of the tree next it."
"I want to know, for one thing, how she knew your name." "Oh that." He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. You remember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter and shot the horses from under some of the Southerners." "I remember." "Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'd been my classmate at the Point, and he recognized me.
Presently Miss Ladd pointed with her finger the following registration: "Pierce Langford, Fairberry, Room 36." Miss Ladd and Katherine occupied Room 35. "Anything you wish, ladies?" asked the proprietor, who stood behind the desk. "Yes," Miss Ladd answered. "We want another room." "I'll have to give you single rooms, if that one is not satisfactory," was the reply.
Of all the foolishness I ever heard of, that lamp beats everything; it's just like those Simpsons, but I didn't suppose the children had brains enough to sell anything." "One of them must have," said Miss Ellen Burnham, "for the girl that was selling soap at the Ladds' in North Riverboro was described by Adam Ladd as the most remarkable and winning child he ever saw."
"She was coming, but at the last minute she had to go home. Phyl and I are going over for her a little later and, darling mother of mine, we will bring her over here to call on you if you promise us hot cinnamon toast and cake to go with tea." Mrs. Ladd laughed and pinched Sally's cheek. She was a tall and strikingly handsome woman with flashing black eyes and the jolliest laugh in the world.
Yes, it was over, and after the crowd had thinned a little, Adam Ladd made his way to the platform. Rebecca turned from speaking to some strangers and met him in the aisle. "Oh, Mr. Aladdin, I am so glad you could come! Tell me" and she looked at him half shyly, for his approval was dearer to her, and more difficult to win, than that of the others "tell me, Mr. Aladdin, were you satisfied?"
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