“And ended the crop. Now you go in; and if I hear you downhearting the mistress the least bit I’ll make you take a dose of your own picra,” said this much-tried man.
CHAPTER XIV
THE FINISH
It was a journey of something more than two hundred miles and they were almost a week on the way; riding for several hours each morning and evening; camping in some well-watered spot at midday; or, this failing, sharing the dinner of some friendly ranchman. Also, they slept at some little inn or ranch, and where their hosts would receive it, Ephraim delighted to make liberal payment for their entertainment.
Indeed, he felt a prince, with his well-filled purse, and would have forced all sorts of dainties and knickknacks upon his little charge, at each village they passed through, save that she resolutely refused them.
“You generous Ephraim, no! What money we need for the trip and after we get to Los Angeles is all right. But you mustn’t waste it. Hear! I am older than you in this thing.”
“But–I want you to have everything nice in the world, Lady Jess. Any other of the ‘boys’ traveling with you––”
“Could not have been so kind and thoughtful as you. Not one. Dearly as I love them I’d rather have you to take care of me on this long journey than any other single one. So do be good and not extravagant. And isn’t it lovely to find how almost everybody knew of my dear father? Or, if they didn’t know him for himself, they’d heard of him and of something he’d done for somebody. It makes the way seem almost short and as if I’d been over the road before.”
“He often passed this way, child; and whenever he went left pleasant memories behind him. He was a grand man, was Cassius Trent. Ugh! To think––”
“That will be all right, Ephraim. I know it. I feel it. And how I do love all the new places and things I see. I should never have cared to leave Sobrante but for this business; yet now I have left it I’m finding the world a big, splendid, lovely place.”