"Oh, but we wouldn't tell her unless they were very nice."
"You couldn't help her knowing if they knew first. I don't think I'd like to have Jo Poker for my father, no matter what his family happened to be. Did he talk like a gentleman, Mary Lee?"
Mary Lee was obliged to confess that he did not, though she insisted that he spoke much better than O'Neill. "He may have been a gentleman once," she said, "for he was very polite and helped me over the hard places. He has lived so long among rough people perhaps he has forgotten how to speak correctly."
"Well," returned Nan, "I don't see what we can do about it anyway. We can't go off alone and search him out and put the question to him point blank."
"All we can do is to tell Mr. St. Nick."
"Yes, we can do that, and he will advise us. Come, do let's get in bed. I am tired all over. Our mountain rides at home are nothing to the one we have had to-day." And though Mary Lee tried to resume the subject after they were in bed Nan was sound asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, and was dreaming of a water ousel which insisted upon talking about the señorita's father.
Yet, while she pretended to laugh at Mary Lee's idea of claiming Jo Poker's possible relationship for the señorita she was not at all sure that he might not prove to be that undesirable parent, and it worried her not a little, so that she was anxious to take the matter to Mr. Pinckney as soon as they should reach home.
Therefore they had scarcely unburdened themselves of their first enthusiasm over the trip before they left Miss Helen to tell their mother the details and were off to Mrs. Roberts'. They found Mr. Pinckney in his favorite chair on the veranda. "Don't get up," they cried as he attempted to rise. "We came over to tell you about our trip. It was perfectly glorious. We saw acres and acres of flowers, such great thistles you never saw. Carter measured one that was two feet around and an alder bush was a real tree. We saw a water ousel, too."
"And a Douglas squirrel," Mary Lee put in, "at least I did."
"And the mountains are wonderful, the cañons so dark and deep sometimes, but I was afraid I would fall when we came down those narrow, narrow mountain paths," Nan was the speaker.