“If I’d known sooner that you were here, Hilda, you bet I wouldn’t have stayed down there on the border eating frijoles and operating in wet horses.”
The queer silence that followed made Hilda a little nervous, and she asked, smiling uncertainly:
“What are ‘wet horses’?”
“Don’t be a bigger fool than you have to, Fayte.” The colonel scowled at his son. “If you’d really been mixed up in all the things you pretend——”
“Shall I tell Hilda what wet horses are, mamma?” Fayte interrupted unconcernedly, speaking to his stepmother, ignoring his father.
“Tell her whatever you please, honey,” Mrs. Marchbanks said easily. “She’ll know you’re only fooling. Jinnie,” to the child in the high-chair, “quit pounding with your spoon.”
“Well, then, Miss Innocence,” Fayte turned that mocking look on Hilda, “wet horses are, technically, animals that have swam the Rio Grande—in the night—and the good reason for their dampness is that they owe Uncle Sam a duty, which they haven’t paid.”
Hilda understood that Fayte meant them to believe that in the weeks he’d been away—sent from home by his father for bad behavior—he had been helping smuggle horses across the Mexican border. They all took it in their different ways, his stepmother not believing a word against him; Miss Ferguson interested, but puzzled; Colonel Marchbanks angry, as Fayte intended he should be.
“Whether you did or didn’t do what you’re hinting at, young man,” he said finally, “it’s a cinch you ought to be locked up for talking too much.” And he left the table.
“Father’s right,” said Maybelle dryly. “Pass me the butter, Fayte. Don’t pay any attention to him, Hilda. When he brags about those sort of things we all know he’s trying to string us.”