"Tell me again, Ming Soy, just when Mrs. Courtlandt started and what she said to you."
In her excitement Ming Soy's English kept tripping her up, but Benson was able to get a fairly clear idea of what had happened.
"I watched her rode—not to the flield she tole me—no—down the road. I listened for shoots. No shoots. No noding. No noding in flield. When Ming Soy see you way down road, Ming Soy bleat glong."
Benson's mind had been working with machine-like speed while he listened. The girl beside him drew a long, ragged breath. He laid his lips upon her hand for a moment.
"Don't worry! I'll find her, Peg-o'-my-heart. She has probably dropped in at Bear Creek ranch to see that new arrival and has forgotten the time. Women are like that when there's a baby." He advanced the theory with a light-hearted laugh which he flattered himself was a marvel of its kind, but it merely drew a long, quivering sob from the girl. "Just for company, I'll ride down to meet her."
"I'll go with you," announced Peggy eagerly.
"Nothing doing! You'll go back to the house with Ming Soy. Don't let Hopi Soy work off any of his thrift ideas on the dinner. If Jerry has been riding all afternoon she'll be famished, and I—I feel as if I could eat a raw mountain lion this minute. I'll take the horses back to the corral and get a fresh mount."
"Please—Tommy—take me?"
Benson closed his ears heroically against the wiles of his own particular Circe. He shook his head; his grave eyes met the girl's squarely.
"Be a good little sport, Peg. I can go faster without you. Besides, Jerry may be back before me and she would be anxious if you were not here."