“Then, mother, trust him about the money. It’s good sense. We haven’t any and we need it. Besides, it hurts him to refuse. Yes, we’ll use it, Ephraim dear.”
So it was settled; but it was not in Jessica’s nature to keep the story from the rest of her “boys.” Forgetting her angry feelings of the morning she called a meeting and spread the news among them. Much as she loved them, until the time of her recent appointment as “captain,” she had tried to give them their titles of “Mr.,” though not always remembering. Now she no longer tried. They were just her comrades, and when she stood upon the horseblock to address them it was with the joyful announcement:
“John! George! Joe! Everybody! Ephraim and I are going away!”
She paused and looked around, but instead of the sympathetic pleasure she expected there were darkening looks and evident disappointment.
“Oh! but we are coming back again. Hark, what he did!”
Ephraim was away putting his few traps together against the morning’s start, since, if they were to go at all, why delay? Else he might have silenced her then and there. But out it came, and be sure the sharpshooter’s generosity lost not one bit in her telling.
“With this money we’re going to hire lawyers and pay our lodging where we have to, and hunt up the men that know about business. Finally, to find the money–that other lot of it–that Mr. Hale said had been sent to my father by those New York folks. If they did send it they shall have it back–if we can find it. If they didn’t–they shall tell all the world they accused him wrongfully. We’re going to find the man that made that title, if we can. We’re going to save Sobrante, but we’re going to save its honor first!”
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Glory to the captain!”
“And old ‘Forty-niner,’” added honest John Benton.
They cheered him to the skies, and when the uproar had subsided, their small chief said: