"It doesn't sound—sensible—to me," Gloriana confessed. "I suppose five hundred silver headed eagles means five hundred dollars, but what is that about getting rich?"
Tabitha laughed gleefully. "Rosslyn McKittrick was a long time learning to say his own name when he was a baby," she explained. "As near as he could get it, 'twas 'Russ Getrich.' Mr. Carson was superintendent of the Silver Legion then, instead of one of the owners, and as Mr. McKittrick was working there when Rosslyn was born, the miners made him their mascot, and Mr. Carson used to tease him by calling him 'Must get rich quick.' I couldn't write 'McKittrick' in the telegram without Goodwin suspecting what I am up to; so I did the next best thing I could think of."
"But—" It all still seemed so ridiculous to the red-haired girl.
"You think he will wonder if I am crazy?" Tabitha had read the look of doubt in her companion's face, and correctly surmised what she was thinking. "Perhaps he will, but I don't believe so. He is quick to understand things. Now we will skip back to the post-office and I'll scratch him a letter of explanation, so it will go out with to-day's mail. Then if he shouldn't translate the telegram correctly—well, the letter will get there as soon as possible afterward."
As she spoke, she delivered the written message to the waiting operator, smiled with satisfaction at his look of baffled curiosity and bewilderment, and assuring him that it was worded exactly as she wanted it sent, she left the dingy office confident that the queer cipher would bring the desired results. Nor was she mistaken.
Early the next morning Mercedes came flying excitedly down the path to the Catt cottage, and, without the formality of knocking, burst into the kitchen where the two girls were busy washing up the breakfast dishes.
"Oh, Kitty! Gloriana!" she cried, half laughing, half sobbing with sheer delight. "Guess what's happened! Mr. Carson has sent mamma some money to take papa to Los Angeles. Now he can get well. That is what has been worrying her so much. The doctor said he would die unless he was operated on and mamma hadn't the money to get it done. They are to start to-morrow. Mamma's going, too. Doctor says every minute counts, and he has telegraphed to the hospital to make arrangements already."
She paused, all out of breath, to mop her steaming forehead; and Tabitha, studying the flushed, shining face, wondered that she had ever thought Mercedes McKittrick dull and homely.
"Isn't that fine?" she heard Gloriana saying, as heartily as if she had not known anything about the telegram before. "What are the rest of you going to do while your mother is away? You children, I mean."
"That's how I happened to come here," Mercedes replied, her eyes losing some of their glow as she recalled her errand in that part of the town. "Mamma sent me down to Miss Davis' house with a note, but she isn't there; and the woman next door says she has gone to Riverside for two weeks. I s'pose we'll have to find someone else instead. But I was so near I couldn't help running on down to tell the news. I must be going now. There is lots to be done before train time to-morrow, and mamma'll need me."