“Are they not my bags, so? Sewed I them not with my own hands out of the skin of the little kid was killed? The covers I knitted with–––”
The miner raised his hand, and she dropped her eyes before him.
“Give her what belongs, if you will, good lady, and let us be gone,” he said, pulling his forelock respectfully to Mrs. Trent.
“Gone! Why no, Wolfgang, not to-night. It’s a long way, and you should wait till morning. Indeed, you should,” she replied, at the same time sending a questioning glance toward John Benton, and pushing toward Elsa all the empty bags and three of the thousand dollar piles.
For the carpenter nodded swift acquiescence, on his part longing to be rid of “them miserly Dutchmen, barring the man.”
Elsa rapidly recounted, and bestowed the eagles within their receptacles, and these again, wrapped in a handkerchief, within her bosom. Then, as coolly as if she had not made an unpleasant exhibition of herself, she turned to her hostess and smiled:
“I go now, mistress. I thank you already for one good time I have. It is to buy the mine, one day, for my child. I must be going. Yes, I must. The stew! Ach! how I forgot! The cat––it was a good stew, no? And the cat has eat the stew!”
“Then you’d better stew the cat!” suggested Marty, with a facetiousness to which she paid no heed.
Holding out her hand for Otto to take it, she commanded:
“Little heart, but come. It is in bed you should be, yes. Good-by, all,” adding in German, “May you sleep well!”