Page 30 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
Poor Margot turned scarlet, her face a mixture of embarrassment and dismay. “Oh, M-Mrs.—Mrs. Mulligan, you m-mustn’t pay attention to any of that. It’s—it’s not—”
But Mrs. Mulligan only winked and nodded in a conspiratorial manner. “Iknow. I know you ain’t supposed to say. We won’t talk no more about it. But you can trust us to stand by you.”
Margot, seeing that she was entirely serious, did not know whether to laugh or cry. “But you don’t understand. I’mnot—”
Unexpectedly, unbelievably, Theodore spoke up: “Margot, I think we should trust them.”
Margot swung to stare at him open-mouthed. Theodore, with Mrs. Mulligan behind him, winked hard at his sister, and unscrupulously dug her in deeper. “Well, we’ve got to, haven’t we? English John is gone, and we don’t know when another courier can get through. I think these three are all right.”
“I got to get back to my washing,” said Mrs. Mulligan. “I’ll fix some grub before it’s time. And I got my little pistol here in my apron pocket, so nobody’s getting through the cabin door while I’m outside, see? You just keep quiet indoors, and be ready when it’s dark.”
“But Mrs.Mulligan—”
“Don’t you worry,” said Mrs. Mulligan soothingly, and shut the door.
The shifting shadows of dusk were chasing each other through the pines when the wagon creaked to a stop by Mrs. Mulligan’s cabin, and under cover of a staged dispute between Steady and the washerwoman over a mislaid shirt, the children crept from the cabin and were stowed away by Butch in the back. There were some sacks of supplies there, ostensibly to be hauled out to Steady’s claim, and the children crawled in among them, under the loose canvas cover. A moment later the two men climbed back up on the seat, and Butch clucked to the team.
As the wagon jolted through camp, the children could hear the low voices of men passing, and occasionally a wave of loudlaughter from the saloon, and in the dusty dark under the canvas they half held their breath, their hearts beating almost as if discovery meant real danger. Presently the noises faded, and once up out of the gulch the wagon rattled along faster, rolling through the night along a straight prairie track. Now and then they could hear a murmur of low conversation from the prospectors up on the seat.
“It isn’t right,” whispered Margot, wedged in between a heavy flour sack and the old carpetbag. “We should have tried to make them understand.”
“But it’s our chance to stay!” whispered Theodore. “If we let them hide us a while, we can let Mother think we’re with Uncle John until she gets a situation. It’s either that or—the dungeons. You said so yourself, didn’t you?”
“Oh, be quiet and let methink,” said Margot distractedly, putting her head down on her arms. She was entirely unequipped to handle the problem of grown-ups who took one’s make-believe all too seriously. Dominic wisely remained as quiet as a mouse.
Up on the seat, Steady took a long survey over his shoulder into the gloom. “Don’t think we’re being followed,” he said. “Leastways we’re in open country all the way—and these assassins don’t like doing things in the open.”
Butch still sounded uneasy. “Are you so plumb certain it’s the place to go?”
Steady nodded. “He won’t allow no shenanigans on his place. And him being English, maybe he’ll be able to advise us about these foreign concerns.”
“English John turned out not to be English,” objected Butch, who seemed to have some persistent instinct regarding the island nation’s role in the intrigue. “How do you know he’s really an Englishman after all?”
“Maybe he is and maybe he ain’t,” said Steady, who would not have sworn to anybody’s nationality at the moment, “but he’s agentleman,whether he’s English or Portugee, and that’s the kind you can count on.”
And so it was that at three in the morning, Guy Dunstable answered a hurried knocking at his door to find two heavily-armed prospectors who knew him better by reputation than he knew them, and three sleepy, subdued, and unexplained children on his doorstep.
“It’s a long story,” said Steady Shaffler, “but they ain’t safe in Flat Rock. If you’d let ’em stay here at least for tonight, we’d be mightily obliged.”
Guy was indeed a gentleman, and so he conducted the children to a spare bedroom as cordially as if they had arrived by invitation at midday, and extended the hospitality of the bunkhouse to Butch and Steady. This they declined, saying they would sleep in the wagon—“and keep watch turn about, just in case,” added Butch.
Guy’s eyebrows went up a little at that, but he made no other reaction, except to see that his revolver lay where he could reach it when he went back to bed.
And when the children woke next morning in the neat white bedroom and crept to the window to look out, it was as if they had been transported overnight into a new world. Gone were the scrubby pines and smoke and mud of Flat Rock, and in their place were miles of rolling green prairie, hazy buttes and ridges in the distance, and a great blue sky ruffled with white clouds. From the window they could see the corrals where the Dunstable cowboys were saddling up for the morning’s work, ‘taking the kinks’ out of a few spirited bronco mounts; the sound of yells and laughter and the thudding hooves of bucking horses drifted up toward the house, and the sun struck off silver conchos onchaps and bridles and the bright bay and chestnut of horses’ coats.
“Where are wenow?” said Dominic in an awed voice, when they had watched for a moment in silent delight.
“I don’t...really know,” said Margot, her wide, wondering eyes taking in the marvelous new scene.
They had breakfast served to them at the big dining-table by the Japanese cook, who spoke little English, but nodded and smiled at them in a friendly way, and refilled their plates enough times to satisfy even Theodore’s appetite.
“Is he one of our friends in secret?” whispered Dominic, when the cook had retired to the kitchen.
“Oh—I suppose so,” said Margot a little vaguely. It was difficult to think of make-believe when there was such captivating reality all around you.
Meanwhile in the living room, Guy Dunstable was hearing an astonishing tale. Butch and Steady had led off with the vital points of the situation—spies, Countesses, assassins, and all—and Guy listened with a mix of entertainment and mystification, but without betraying too much of either for politeness. But presently, when the name of English John came up, Guy gave a barely-suppressed start, and listened with keener attention. When the tale was complete, he cross-questioned the prospectors about the children’s arrival in Flat Rock and the particulars they had told to Doc Hatch, and slowly a strange emotion came over his face as he listened to the answers. And when, inquiring further, he learned how the royal origins had been discovered, and of the corroboration obtained from ‘the little feller,’ he had to get up and go over to the sideboard for a minute to hide quite a different emotion, and offered his guests a drink.
“You did right to bring them here,” he pronounced after a moment’s thought, while Butch and Steady were discovering thedifference between Flat Rock whiskey and imported brandy. “I can promise you they’ll be safe...and I think I’m in a position to help them. You see, I knew English John’s real name.” It was Steady’s turn to start, and he almost dropped his brandy.
