When Margaret returned to Mrs. Blake she was carrying a pair of driving gloves and a jaunty sailor hat which Mrs. Blake knew had been packed in one of the trunks. "Are we going to start, Margie?" she asked, with languid interest.
"_I_ am going to start but I am going the other way. We shall not be able to leave for the ranch before morning, probably."
Mrs. Blake sat up with a suddenness that surprised even herself. "The morning!" she echoed. "If you think that I shall stay in this horror of a room until morning, Margaret, you are mistaken. I will go, if I walk."
"It’s a long walk," commented Margaret, carelessly.
"And may I ask why you are going the other way and when you purpose to return?"
"I am going to Wayback to telegraph. Some thief has planned to get all of papa’s money from the bank there, and of course he will try to escape on the train. We shall catch him by telegraphing to the officers at the next town."
"If you do he is a fool. And who are ’we’? How did you learn all this?"
"You told him I—now see here, Margaret. There is such a thing as going too far, and this is an example of it. ’Beg to be excused’! What will he think of me? Where is he now?"
"He has gone on to Wayback. But he never will have the sense to telegraph. That is why I am going."
"Oh!—oh!—oh!" The three exclamations were long-drawn, with pauses between them and in three different keys.
"Aunty!" cried Margaret, furiously, stamping her foot. "How dare you insinuate—I said I was going to _telegraph_!"
"All right, my dear. Have it your own way. I ’ll immolate myself on the altar of friendship: in this case, a particularly uncomfortable bed. Please remember, Margaret, as you speed away on your errand of avarice, I said a _particularly_ uncomfortable bed."
Margaret went out and slammed the door. Mrs. Blake chuckled until she laughed, and laughed until she gasped for breath and was obliged to loosen her corsets. "I am as bad as Margie," she sighed; "I don’t know when I am well off. Now I shall have to stay marooned in this pesky room until Margie returns. I never can fasten these outrageous things without help."
In her fetching gown of figured brown cloth, bordered with beaver fur, with slanting drapery of plain green, above which a cutaway jacket exposed a full vest, and topped by a high beaver toque—with flush due to the recent passage-at-arms still in her cheeks and the fire of indignation in her eyes—Margaret presented a _chic_ daintiness that met with the entire approval of the burly Sandy, who hastened from the bar-room at the sound of her descent.