Your father has been hurt in the fire. This man will take you to him.
DAVE SANDERS
Joyce went white to the lips and caught at the table to steady herself.
"Is—is he badly hurt?" she asked.
The man took refuge in ignorance, as Mexicans do when they do not want to
talk. He did not understand English, he said, and when the girl spoke in
Spanish he replied sulkily that he did not know what was in the letter.
He had been told to deliver it and bring the lady back. That was all.
Keith burst into tears. He wanted to go to his father too, he sobbed.
The girl, badly shaken herself in soul, could not refuse him. If his father was hurt he had a right to be with him.
"You may ride along with me," she said, her lip trembling.
The women gathered round the boy and his sister, expressing sympathy after the universal fashion of their sex. They were kinder and more tender than usual, pressing on them offers of supplies and service. Joyce thanked them, a lump in her throat, but it was plain that the only way in which they could help was to expedite her setting out.
Soon they were on the road, Keith riding behind his sister and clinging to her waist. Joyce had slipped a belt around the boy and fastened it to herself so that he would not fall from the saddle in case he slept. The Mexican rode in complete silence.
For an hour they jogged along the dusty road which led to the new oil field, then swung to the right into the low foothills among which the mountains were rooted.