“I’m going to the farmhouse this morning and I am going to say that one of the ladies is leaving this afternoon and going back home. That will be you. I wish you had a razor, but the veil will hide that. They’ll not molest you. You’ll not only look like Aggie—you’ll be Aggie.”
Well, it seemed to be his best chance, although none of us dared to think what might happen if the hat blew off or Aggie’s gray alpaca ripped at the seams.
We worked feverishly all day, letting out the dress and setting forward the buttons on her raincoat. Mr. Muldoon was inclined to be sulky. He sat at the back of the cave, playing solitaire and every now and then examining the road maps. Aggie was depressed too. But, as Tish said, getting rid of Muldoon was the first step toward the thousand dollars, and even if Aggie never got her gray alpaca again it had seen its best days.
That morning, while Aggie and I sewed and ripped and Mr. Muldoon sat back in the cave with the road map on his knees, Tish went to the farmhouse. She came back at eleven o’clock with a chicken for dinner and a flush on each cheek.
“I’ve fixed it, Mr. Muldoon,” she said. “I talked to one of the outlaws!”
“What?” screeched Aggie.
“He’d come in for something to eat—the red-bearded one. We had quite a chat. I told him we were traveling like Stevenson—with a donkey; but that one of the ladies had an abscess on a tooth and was going home. He said it was no place for women and offered himself as an escort.”
Mr. Muldoon groaned. “What am I going to do if one of them comes up and makes an ass of himself?” he demanded. “Kiss him?”
Tish looked at him coldly.
“You’ll have your jaw tied up,” she said. “That will cover your chin, and you needn’t speak. Point to your jaw. Anyhow, they’ll not bother you. I said the toothache had affected your disposition, and we were just as glad you were going. The red-haired man says he’s got relatives near the mouth of the valley and you can stay there overnight. One of the men folks pulls teeth in emergencies.”