Buller kicked a heel into his horse.
"G'long! I'm off down the valley road. I bet 'tis her. I'll have her yet, the d—the poor dear!"
The instant he was gone, Martha dragged Sam into the house.
"Quick! Dress you! An' go down get the auta. I have the girl hid in the entry closet. I'm goin' to take her out o' harm's way, which is that brute beast's."
"But, Martha——" remonstrated Sam.
"Sam Slawson, do as I tell you! Or you'll have to shove us into Burbank in your present gob, which, believe me, it ain't bewitchin'. You can take it from me, lad, I'm goin' to catch that north-bound express that leaves Burbank at one o'clock this night, which, if we don't make it, there ain't another till to-morra mornin'. So we got to make it, or I'll know the reason why!"
Impelled by a motive power so irresistible, Sam dressed and went about his business without venturing another word.
Martha clothed herself in the brief intervals when she was not attending Ellen Hinckley, giving her bread to eat, milk to sip, enveloping her in garments gathered from everywhere, anywhere, a conglomerate assortment that would have been grotesque if it had not been touching.
"No one'll mind your looks," Martha reassured her. "Just you sit tight, an' keep your own counsel, an' not a dog'll bark after you. Ma's veil tied down over Cora's hat is quite stylish, an', be this an' be that, you've got as good a motorin' costume as any. They all look like Sam Hill. So now, I guess, we might be movin'!"
"It's a crazy scheme," Sam whispered in his wife's ear, as she bent to him to deliver last instructions, while he was cranking up. "Suppose a tire bursts?"