For the first ten miles, Mrs. Panel never opened her lips. I glanced occasionally at her impassive face, wondering when she would speak. Somehow I knew that she would speak, and she did. It was like her to compress all she had left unsaid into the first sentence.
"Jaspar's gone plum crazy with trouble! he took his six-shooter with him."
After that, details given with a descriptive realism impossible to reproduce. The poor creature revealed herself to me during the next few minutes as I feel sure she had never revealed herself to her husband.
"He's mad, plum crazy," she pleaded. "Nobody knows what he's suffered but me. I don't say it ain't a jedgment, mebbe it is. We thought we was jest about right. The pride we took in Sunny Bushes was sinful; yas, it was. The Lord has seen fit to chastise us, an' I'm willin', I tole Jaspar so, ter begin agen. We're healthy, an strong, though we don't look it, I'll allow. Jaspar is plum crazy. His words las' night proved it. He said we might begin life agen in a marble hall sech as I hed dreamed about. Good land o' Peter! I never dreamed of marble halls in all my life, but I dassn't contradict him."
"He believes you dreamed of them," I said, "and he is quite sure you ought to live in them."
"He thinks the world o' me," said Mrs. Panel, in a softer tone, "but this world an' the next won't turn him from what he's set his mind to do. I'd oughter be ashamed o' speakin' so of him, but it's so. Mercy! I hev been talkin'."
She said no more till we descended from the buggy in the livery stable where Jaspar was in the habit of putting up his horses.
"You ain't seen Mr. Panel, hev you?" she asked the ostler.
"He's around somewheres," the man replied. With this information we started out to look for him. Away from the familiar brush hills, confronted by strange faces, confused, possibly, by the traffic, my companion seemed so nervous and helpless that I dared not leave her. Almost unconsciously, we directed our steps towards the Amalgamated Oil Company's office. Here we learned that Leveson was in town, and that Uncle Jap had called to see him.
"Did he see him?" Mrs. Panel's voice quavered.