"Is that what you are, then?" asked Elsie, with a demureness that rivaled Tilly's best efforts. "You're driving mules, you know."
"Well, you better not call me that," laughed Genevieve. "See, they've stopped to speak to Father. I reckon we'll have to stop, too."
"I 'reckon' we shall," mimicked Elsie, good-naturedly.
"They've got all their household goods and gods in those wagons," said Genevieve, musingly. "I can see a tin coffeepot hanging straight over one woman's head."
"I shouldn't think they had anything but children," laughed Alma, as from every wagon there tumbled a scrambling, squirming mass of barefoot legs, thin brown arms, and touseled hair above wide, questioning eyes.
Long minutes later, from the carriage, Cordelia Wilson followed with dreamy eyes the slow-receding wagons, now again upon their way.
"I feel just like 'ships that pass in the night,'" she murmured.
"I don't. I feel just like supper," whispered Tilly. Then she laughed at the frightened look Cordelia flung at Mr. Hartley.
On and on through the shimmering heat, under the cloudless sky, trailed the carriage and the ranch wagons. Mr. Tim had long ago galloped out of sight.
It was when they were within five miles of the ranch that Cordelia, looking far ahead, saw against the horizon a rapidly growing black speck. For some time she watched it in silence; then, suddenly, she became aware that, large as was the speck now, it had broken into other specks—bobbing, shifting specks that promptly became not specks at all, but men on horseback.