Miss Crabb looked quite ludicrous perched behind the tall mountaineer on such a dwarfish mule. Especially comical was the effect of the sun-bonnet she wore. She had accepted this article of apparel from Tolliver’s mother, and it appeared to clutch her head in its stiff folds and to elongate her face by sheer compression.
Everybody laughed involuntarily, as much for joy at her safe return as in response to the demand of her melodramatic appearance.
“I’ve brung back yer runerway,” said Tolliver cheerily, as he helped the young woman to dismount. “She clim down the mounting by one pertic’ler trail an’ I jes’ fotch her up by t’other.”
Miss Crabb spoke not a word, but ran into the hotel and up to her room without glancing to the right or to the left. In her great haste the stiff old sun-bonnet fell from her head and tumbled upon the ground.
“Wush ye’d jes’ be erbligin’ enough ter han’ thet there head-gear up ter me, Mister,” said Tolliver addressing Crane, who was standing near. “My mammy’d raise er rumpage ef I’d go back ’thout thet ther bonnet.”
With evident reluctance and disgust Crane gingerly took up the fallen article and gave it to Tolliver, who thanked him so politely that all the onlooking company felt a glow of admiration for the uncouth and yet rather handsome cavalier.
“Thet gal,” he observed, glancing in the direction that Miss Crabb had gone, “she hev the winnin’est ways of any gal I ever seed in my life. Ye orter seen ’er up inter thet there bush a writin’ in ’er book! She’d jes’ tumbled kerwhummox down the clift an’ hed lodged ther’ in them cedars; but as she wer’ a writin’ when she started ter fall w’y she struck a writin’ an’ jes’ kep’ on at it same’s if nothin’ had happened. She’s game, thet ole gal air, I tell ye! She don’t propose for any little thing like fallin’ off’n a clift, ter interfere with w’at she’s a doin’ at thet time, le’ me say ter ye. Lord but she wer’ hongry, though, settin’ up ther a writin’ all night, an’ it’d a done ye good to a seen ’er eat thet chicken and them cake-biscuits my mammy cooked for breakfast. She air a mos’ alarmin’ fine gal, for a fac’.”
At this point Dufour came out of the hotel, and when Tolliver saw him there was an instantaneous change in the expression of the mountaineer’s face.
“Well I’ll ber dorged!” he exclaimed with a smile of delight, “ef ther’ haint the same leetle John the Baptis’ what bapsonsed me down yer inter the branch! Give us yer baby-spanker, ole feller! How air ye!”
Dufour cordially shook hands with him, laughing in a jolly way.