“But—but there is no chaperone,” I gasped.
“Mrs. Judge Pennoyer has agreed to come,” answered Mr. Raoul, sweetly.
5.
The end of our journey lay upon the very summit of the mountain ridge; twenty leagues of forest all around. Here, with the sweep of his gesture to the westering sun, Judge Hankinson made the great speech of the day. I remember little about it save that he likened Coe to Icarus, referred to me (General Higginbotham) as one of the merchant princes of the Orient, and to Tim Healy as some mighty magician “spinning his iron spell o’er mountain and o’er sea.” The rusty iron rails stopped abruptly in a field of stumps; beyond and below us stretched “the right of way.” Only a broad swath cut through the forest, the trees heaped where they fell, like jack-straws. At the edge of the clearing stood a three-seated wagon and a pair of mules.
Everyone took very simply to the proposition that we were not returning; and after all the speech-making was over and all the whiskey drunk, the train, with prolonged and reiterated tooting, began backing slowly down the mountain toward civilization again.
“Isn’t this delightful?” said Miss Jeanie. Tim Healy sniffed.
I had made it all right with Coe; but Healy still looked at the proceeding askance.
“Last time I rode through this yer wood I had the pay-chest with me; and two bullets went through my hat. And last week they killed the United States mail and Jim, the storekeeper of Section Fourteen.”
I considered this to be a story for tender-feet, so I mildly hinted that “they” would not attack so large a party.
“Won’t they, though? The only double mule team as ever goes through yer is the month’s pay, an’ hit’s jest due this Saturday.”