“I’d rather sleep on the ground than walk a mile.”
“You shall do neither. Didn’t you hear me say we’ve changed places now? I’m so near home I am at home and I’m–the captain. Obey orders, sir, and mount Scruff’s back.”
He was too weary to protest and too ill. Subject to acute neuralgia, he was, like plenty of people, rather less courageous when he was in pain than at other times. Besides, now there was something of that decision in Jessica’s tone which sick people find restful, and he quietly threw one leg across Scruff’s back and let the girl do as she pleased.
This was to start forward over the unpaved, unlighted street at a swift unbroken run, which Scruff had some work to equal; but the speed brought them promptly to a wooden “tavern,” from one window of which there gleamed a solitary oil lamp.
“Horrors! Antonio described a ranch called Desolation, or something like that, and I reckon we’ve arrived,” lamented the reporter, jolted into fresh distress by the burro’s trot.
Jessica laughed.
“Wait. Be patient, dear man. Within five minutes you’ll be sleeping on a clean, sweet bed, and when you wake up in the morning it will be to a fine breakfast, a perfect day, and–Sobrante!”
Then she tapped on the window and called:
“Hello, there! Sobrante folks! Open the door, quick!”
A head was thrust out of another window, further along the narrow porch, and a sleepy voice asked: