“Prob’ly, he knows best and will come when he chooses. I hear the rumble of another train. I like, now, to feel the jar along the earth so long before they get in sight. I expect that’s a heavy freight.”
“Hear to her! Do ye mind, Miss Carlota, how scared ye was at a bit of a hand-car, that first night ye come? Blessed be the day! An’ as wise now about freights an’ sleepers an’ ‘overlands’ as the best. But look your fill at this one’s on the road now. Soon we’ll be beyant all such matters, if things go as they should.”
The girl had not listened to all the wordy fellow’s talk, but she had caught that statement about leaving the line of railway, and asked:
“Are they going to do that right away, Dennis?”
“So the misthress was sayin’, forby.”
“Then—I cannot go with them. I must either wait here for Carlos or try to find him. Dennis, Dennis! Some harm has happened my brother. I feel it, I know it!”
“Arra musha! What nonsense is this? Unless, belike, he was after some mischief or other,” returned the trackman, with an outward show of scorn and an inward conviction that her judgment was right.
“No. Oh! no, no, no. He was in no mischief. He? My brother couldn’t do anything—anything—wrong. No, Dennis Fogarty. Maybe he was silly to go but he’ll come back. The dear Lord won’t let any harm happen him, I know. And yet, I cannot go away to that Pass in the mountains without him. I—did you say this burro was mine? Really and truly my own?”
“Truth, did I. To have an’ to hold—if ye can—forever. But why’s that, me small Sainyereety?” quoth the Irishman, priding himself upon his fine Spanish accent.
“If I go a little way toward the north to look for my brother will you go with me, Dennis dear?” she coaxed.