“Bless us!” exclaimed Mrs. Petterby. “If it ain’t that nice Dale gal—and all her folks. I was re’l worrited about you, my dear—and your pretty friend. I see you caught up all right,” and she nodded and smiled at them all, while the mustangs impatiently shook their heads and stamped with all their sixteen hoofs.
“We are all right, surely, Mrs. Petterby,” said Dorothy’s aunt. “But what are you doing on this road?”
“Why, Ma’am, I expect to meet my son out this a-way. They told me he often stops with a man named Nicholson, just beyond here. I didn’t feel like payin’ for a ride; and I’m spry. But Ophelia’s gittin’ cross.”
There was a flutter inside the basket and the nearest horse pricked up his ears and rolled his eyes at it.
“Is Nicholson’s on our road?” Dorothy asked the Mexican driver.
“Si, si!” said the man. “She not far.”
“You will ride with us, won’t you, Mrs. Petterby?” cried Dorothy.
“Wal, child, that’s pretty high for me to climb, ain’t it?”
But she was tired and warm, and the chance to ride tempted her. Spry as she was, back in Rand’s Falls, this dust and sun of Colorado were different.
“We’ll give her a hand up,” exclaimed Ned.