“But you must go, on, on!” she protested. “They may not be deceived, no. They may have you to overtake here.” She held out her hand. “There, this path, you follow it to Tampico. Good bye. Yes, yes, you have not one minute!”
Driscoll took the little gauntleted hand readily enough. He saw that the lines of her face were drawn, but her manner was inexorable.
“How do you like your dress?” he inquired.
Had she been on her feet, she would have stamped one of them. “Monsieur,” she cried, “here is no time to observe the replenishment of a lady’s wardrobe. Do you go? I insist. I wish you bon voyage to your own country, monsieur.”
“But it’s so far away. I reckon I’d better rest a spell first. A month or so, prob’bly.”
She watched him clamber down and tie Demijohn to the low branch of a live oak on the river’s bank.
“There you are, getting stubborn again,” she said. But the lines in her face had vanished.
“Of course I mean to see you back to your friends,” he explained.
“Merci bien. But you will not. You will have this river straight to Tampico. I say yes!”
203She turned her horse as she spoke, whereat he started to remount his own.