“Den ve vill hurry fasder as dot und make it in an hour and a haluf,” laughed the baron. “Meppyso ve hat pedder ged avay mit ourselufs. Der olt laty insite der house has a bistol, und I don’d vant her to vake oop mit herseluf und see us pefore ve ged a gouple oof miles from here. Aber vait.”
The baron reached into his pocket and pulled out three twenty-dollar gold pieces. Reaching his hand inside the window, he laid the gold pieces on the sill back of the boards.
“Why did you do that?” asked the girl curiously.
“Dot’s somet’ing for der Dinkelmanns,” replied the baron. “I bed you dey don’t got mooch, und I don’d pelieve dey are as pad as vat some beobles mighdt t’ink. Now, den, Miss Berry, off ve go for der ranch vere you lif ven you are ad home.”
They hurried to the place where the animals had been hitched. The baron untied both mounts, he and the girl got into their saddles, and in a few minutes they were moving briskly along the timbered bank of the Brazos.
The baron felt like bursting into song. But he wanted to make a good impression on the girl—and he knew he couldn’t sing.
CHAPTER X.
IN TROUBLED WATERS.
The dawn gave way to morning, and the sun rose while the baron and the girl were pushing on toward the Star-A ranch. The girl piloted their course, and lost a good deal of time giving a ranch, whose buildings stood on a tongue of land half encircled by the river, a wide berth.
“For vy you do dot?” asked the baron.
He had not, up to that moment, asked the girl any questions about herself. Fully two hours had passed since they had left the Dinkelmann cabin, and not half a dozen words had been exchanged between him and the girl.