They were strangers. Eliza knew that at a glance. She knew all the residents of the valley. A small traveling bag lay beside the woman. Her hand resting lightly upon it, as though even in sleep she would keep it in custody.
Miss Eliza spoke to Prince who would persist in frolicking and garotting about like a colt. The public road was not a safe sleeping place for a woman and child. Eliza recognized her duty. Leaning forward, she touched the woman’s hand lightly with her whip. She did this several times before the woman’s eyes opened.
“I’ve been trying to waken you,” said Eliza. “The road is not a safe place to sleep.”
The woman looked wonderingly about, yawned and rubbed her eyes. It was some minutes before she could get her bearings. When her eyes fell on the child, she smiled and nodded back at Eliza and then got upon her feet and began to put herself to rights.
“Where are you going?” asked Eliza.
The woman hesitated, puckered her brows and at last said, “I—I bane gone to Yameston.”
“Foreign,” said Eliza mentally. She had no idea where ‘Yameston’ was, but it was reasonable to suppose that the woman was cutting across country to take the flyer at the Port where it stopped to change engine and crews.
“It’s no place for a woman to rest. Tramps are thicker than huckleberries. Climb in and I’ll drive you and your baby part of the way.”
The woman could not understand, but she did grasp the meaning of Miss Eliza’s moving to the opposite side of the seat and reaching forth her hand to help her get into the carriage.
When they were safely seated, Miss Eliza touched Old Prince with the whip. At that instant, the oncoming flyer, as it entered the yard, whistled like a veritable demon. The two were too much for the old horse, who had been a thoroughbred in his time and had never known the touch of a whip. He reared on his hind feet, and then with a mad plunge went tearing down the road which was hemmed in on one side by the hills, and whose outer edge lay on the rocky bluffs of the river.