The woman first shook her head and then burst into a voluble stream of Spanish, not a word of which could be understood.
“She cannot speak de Ingliss, like me, so I cannod tell if she iss de right Mexico vomans or nod,” explained the constable. “Bud I brings her mit me, yust de same, unt id costs me four dollars to rendt me an automobubbles.”
“Take her back,” said Hahn, giving him a ten-dollar note; and then he gave the woman some money and kissed the baby, which smiled at him approvingly.
Beth ran to get some of the sandwiches for the woman, while Patsy brought milk for the baby and Uncle John offered the constable a cigar. Then the three were sent away and the automobile rolled back to town.
[CHAPTER XI—THE MAJOR ENCOUNTERS THE GHOST]
Ascending once more to the library the weary watchers resumed their former attitudes of waiting, as patiently as they might, for the coming of the day. Uncle John looked at his watch and found it was only a little after two o’clock. The minutes seemed hours to-night.
Suddenly a tremendous shriek rent the night, a shriek so wild and blood-curdling in its intensity that they sprang up and clung to each other in horror. While they stood motionless and terror-stricken there came a thump!—thump!—as of some heavy object tumbling down the three or four steps leading from the hall to the corridor of the old South Wing, and then the door burst open and Major Doyle—clothed in red-and-white striped pajamas—fairly fell into the library, rolled twice over and came to a stop in a sitting position, from whence he let out another yell that would have shamed a Cherokee Indian and which so startled big Runyon that he held a tenor note at high C for fully a minute—much like the whistle of a peanut roaster—the which was intended for an expression of unqualified terror.
Patsy was the first to recover and kneel beside the poor major, whose eyes were literally bulging from their sockets.
“Oh, Dad—dear Dad!—what is it?” she cried.
The major shuddered and clapped his hands to his eyes. Then he rocked back and forth, moaning dismally, while Patsy clung to his neck, sobbing and nearly distracted.