However, now that her child was safe within her arms, the woman began to suffer in advance the torment she would have to undergo when she faced her indignant husband; and she retorted sharply:
“Worse! Well, I suppose so. But I don’t see why in the name of common sense I was let to be such a fool in the first place. He won’t, neither. It’s all very well when you’ve lost half your property to give thanks for not losing your life, too; but I don’t see any cause for losing ary one.”
This sounded so like Mercy and her philosophy that Gaspar threw back his head and laughed; which angered his new friend first, and then affected her, also, with something of his mirth.
“I can’t see a thing to laugh at, I, for one,” she remarked, trying to be stern.
“Oh! but I can. And I’m not a laughing man, in ordinary. But there’s one thing I know—I’m powerful hungry. Can’t we make another fire, one that we can control, and get a bit of supper? If there’s anything in the house to cook, I can cook it while you tend baby. Then we’ll talk over your affairs.”
“There’s plenty to cook, but you’ll not cook it, sir. I owe you my child’s life, and now things are getting straighter in my muddled mind. I lost the barn for Jacob, and I must help replace it. I’ve been a hard worker always, but I can stretch another point, I guess. Pshaw! I believe it’s getting daylight. It’ll be breakfast instead of supper, this time.”
It was daylight, indeed; and in a half-hour the simple meal was smoking on the table, and Gaspar sitting to eat it with the hearty appetite of a man who has lived always out-of-doors. But he could talk as fast as eat, when he was anxious as on that morning; and before he had drained his last cup of the “rye coffee” he had learned from his hostess that the Indian encampment he sought lay well to the southwestward of her cabin, and that by a way she could direct him he could reach it easily in a two-hours’ ride. This to Tempest, who had rested and fed, would be nothing, if he was anything the horse he used to be, and Gaspar believed, from the past night’s experience, that sometimes even a horse can improve with age.
“Well, I’ll be off, then. I’m anxious to get there. If all goes well I’ll get around this way again before long. Thank you for my entertainment, and here’s a trifle for the baby.”
He tossed a gold piece on the table and was leaving the cabin. But she restrained him.
“No, sir, I can’t take that, nor let the little one. And as for thanking me, I shall never cease to thank you, and the Lord for you, that you lost your way last night. But let me beg you, sir, to take a second thought. Jacob says the Indians are getting ready for an outbreak. It is like running your neck into a halter to go among them just now. I—I wish you wouldn’t. I couldn’t bear to have harm come to you after what you’ve done for me.”