Patterson immediately dropped upon a lounge, but continued to dust little portions of the furniture near, with a silk rag she pulled from her pocket and went nowhere without. But she suddenly ceased her labor and—waked up entirely!
“Hear this Associated Press dispatch. I was right. Those little ‘captives’ I saw are my Mary’s children. It all fits together like a sliced puzzle—when once you start it right. Hark!”
Then in her clear tones, still unimpaired by age, and in an excitement that was now really healthful, Mrs. Sinclair read to her old attendant the same account of the famous “Discovery” which the hospital nurse had read to her convalescing patient.
She read it once at almost breakneck speed, then again, more slowly; and at its conclusion, Patterson stood beside the door leading into the dressing room, impatient to be gone.
“Patterson, where are you? What are you about? Why don’t you—sit down? Where can you be going in such frightful haste? Eh? What did you say?”
“To pack our trunks. I’m going to Albuquerque.”
“Ha! Wide awake at last! You’re right. We are going by the first express, to Mary’s children at Albuquerque!”
CHAPTER XXXIII
REFUGIO ONCE MORE
Mr. Rupert Disbrow so excitedly sprang from his chair and threw down the evening paper that his father, calmly reading his own Gazette at the other side of the library table, ejaculated:
“Rupert, what has become of your self-control? My nerves—They were bad enough before we took that wretched trip to the jumping-off-place of creation, but now—I must have quiet and rest, at least in my own house.”