“Oh, please don’t!” Hilda got up; Mrs. Marchbanks got up with her, still talking urgently as they started slowly back.
“You could make anything of this boy of ours. A little wild—any high-spirited boy is—but he only needs steadying down. You be nice to him, Hilda. Be kind to him.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE CLOSING OF A DOOR
The six young people on their ponies came stragglingly together at Alamositas headquarters. They checked there a little awkwardly, as though waiting for the big family carriage to come up.
Pearse had ranged his horse up to Hilda’s as they left the picnic place on the Caliente, and without invitation or permission, or anything being said one way or the other, had ridden the whole twelve miles beside her. Maybelle, in an excited, defiant mood that Hilda had never seen in her before, laughing loud and playing tricks, skylarked with Lefty and Sam, galloping, all dust and noise, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind the other three. Fayte hung persistently at Hilda’s other side. He looked black, but said nothing. It was clear to her—and the assurance thrilled her—that he was afraid of Pearse. The Mexican boy ran out and opened the front yard gate, and Maybelle, leading the way, called gayly:
“Come in, all of you. Mr. Masters, stay and have supper—the boys are going to,” paying no attention to her brother’s angry, astonished glare. But Lefty and Sam rode on, with hasty, muttered excuses. Pearse shook his head at the supper invitation, but moved with them slowly through the gate.
“I’ll run on ahead and get things started.” Maybelle jumped from her pony. “Come on, Fayte—you help me.”
“I’m only waiting till the colonel gets here, Miss Maybelle”—Pearse’s tone was cool and civil—“I’ll be on my way then—thank you just the same for your invitation.”
Pearse’s words covered the fact that, having come on Alamositas land against a settled understanding, he had no intention of seeming to run away before he had shown himself here to the man who had issued that order. Maybelle stopped where she was, the rein of her pony over her shoulder; Fayte didn’t even dismount; they waited in silence, drawn back to the edge of the gravel so that the big carriage, when it came, would have room to turn. In it rolled finally, and it seemed to Hilda that every one riding in it was staring at Pearse, as it made the sweep and the colonel threw his lines to the waiting Mexican boy, got out and turned to help out his wife, Miss Ferguson and the children.
“Well, Pa,” Maybelle strolled forward with this new, jaunty air of hers, “aren’t you going to speak a word? I don’t even remember hearing you say back there at the creek that you were much obliged to this young man that shot the steer and kept your oldest daughter from getting killed. You are obliged to him—aren’t you? Even if you could spare me pretty easy—there’s Hilda to think about. What could you have said to Mr. Pearsall if she’d been killed?”