He had spoken out at last the fear he had scarcely acknowledged, and the shock of his own plain speech held him silent thereafter. His head drooped, his 36 great body settled in the saddle, as if the whole burden of his sixty years had fallen upon him in that moment. His attitude, even more than his words, conveyed his meaning to his hearers, and, in a flash, the real values of what they had loved, and now lost, fell into their rightful places.
“Money? The little lady?” Ah! what, after all, was the one compared to the other?
“Man––you lie!” retorted Wolfgang, clinching his fist and advancing with a threatening air. Elsa stepped to his side, her wide face turning even paler than it had been, and a startled look dawning in her eyes. Even Otto, the six-foot “child,” reappeared from his retreat and regarded the horseman reproachfully.
As for him, he roused from his momentary despondency and glared upon the trio of spectators as if they, and they alone, were to blame for the calamity which had befallen.
Question and answer followed swiftly, and again Samson was off down the slope, headed now for distant Marion, the least likely of all places wherein his darling might be found. Once he was out of sight, the Winkler household resolved itself into an additional search party; and it was noticeable that, whereas formerly, when they were leaving the home, they would carefully secure the cabin against intruders, they now disdained any further preparation than kicking the kitten out of doors, and removing the kettle of boiling stew from the fireplace to the ground before the door. A fleeting smile did cross Elsa’s face, as she reflected that the meddler with her knitting would probably scald itself in the pot, but she didn’t care. Her whole mind was now set upon Sobrante and its 37 mistress, and so eager was she to reach the spot that she set off on her long walk with an alacrity she had not shown since the discovery of the robbery.
Wolfgang and Otto armed himself each with a sharp, iron-pointed staff, and silently, with one accord, started toward El Desierto. Why, even they could not have explained, beyond the fact that it seemed a place for hiding things. It was a long walk, and so weary had the “little boy” become by the time the deserted ranch was reached that Wolfgang left it unfatherly to force a return trip on that same day, although no signs of recent occupancy had rewarded their search.
So it was in every case. Jessica had simply and completely disappeared, and there settled upon the home the darkest night it had ever known. Even that on which its master had been brought back dead did not equal in intensity of anguish the uncertainty which drove the waiting mother frantic. At times she would call for a horse and ride wildly to and fro, peering into every shadowed spot and call pitifully upon her child, at others she would hasten to the house, eagerly demanding of Aunt Sally, “has she come?”
“Not yet, honey. Not quite yet. Just wait a spell, and you’ll see her all right. Best be here at home when she does come, Gabriella. You’d hate to have anybody else the first to meet her, you know.”
This advice, uttered in tones so gentle they were hardly recognizable as Mrs. Benton’s, would be followed for the moment, till the torture of dreadful possibilities would send the distracted ranch mistress again afield.