Miss Campbell looked uncomfortable.
"I am afraid, Mr. Moore, you have undertaken more than you expected,"
she said.
But Mr. Moore was quite equal to this call upon his hospitality. "I hope it will be one of our three-day storms," he said smiling cordially. "The roads would be far too muddy for motoring then, and I should have the pleasure of entertaining you longer."
"Oh, we couldn"t let you do that, Mr. Moore. You are too kind. We must go to the next town and stop at the hotel."
"I a.s.sure you, Miss Campbell, you are like messengers from heaven. You came in the nick of time to keep me from being plunged into such a state of gloom I might never have come out of it."
"But you don"t look gloomy," protested Nancy.
"I know," he replied. "People of my complexion never get the credit for being melancholy. But occasionally, you know, we are subject to spasms due chiefly to loneliness, I think."
They had drifted back into the sitting room now and the rain was beating on the windows in torrents. It was chilly, and they were glad to see Takamini light a wood fire in the open brick fire-place. Miss Campbell, seated in a big leather chair in the chimney corner, dozed off in the warmth of the firelight, her head drooping to one side like a tired little bird"s.
The four girls gathered around the table, while Mr. Moore taking a large atlas from a shelf, opened at the map of the United States and spread it on the table.
"Now," he said, "tell me about the trip. Are you the captain of the expedition, Miss Billie?"
"Yes," replied the others in unison.
"Cousin Helen is the general," said Billie, "and we are just her staff.
I am chief guide because I know how to run the motor, but everybody has a place. We could never give these parties if one of us dropped out."
"Well, it"s a jolly party," said their host. "You are five very brave ladies, I think. I only know one other as brave."
"Does she live in Salt Lake City?" asked Nancy innocently.
The other girls looked annoyed and Nancy herself was sorry after she had made this impulsive speech. But Daniel Moore was not at all annoyed. He was only a little surprised.
"Why, yes," he answered, "you guessed right the very first time. How did it happen?"
"Well," began Nancy and paused, greatly embarra.s.sed, "I just guessed,"
which was a perfectly true statement.
"You are a very good guesser, then, Miss Nancy. Perhaps you would like to see a picture of the young lady who is as brave as you are."
"Do show it to us," they exclaimed with enthusiasm.
Mr. Moore opened a table drawer and produced a large photograph of the same beautiful girl whose face they had seen hardly an hour before smiling at them from the postcard.
"How pretty she is!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Nancy.
"Isn"t she?" he answered quite frankly.
"And is she a Mormon?" demanded Mary.
"She isn"t; but her father is," he answered, a frown wrinkling his brow.
"Her father is the most confounded old Mormon that ever grew up in the faith. He thinks that all non-Mormons are just kittle-kattle."
"And is that the reason-" began Nancy, while her friends trembled for fear of what the inquisitive child would ask next.
"The reason I was so blue?" he asked gently. "It certainly was. You guessed right again. If you had six guesses, I believe you would get six secrets from me, Miss Nancy," he laughed.
"Then you are not a Mormon?" asked Billie.
"Most a.s.suredly not. I was born in Kentucky, educated at Harvard and settled on this farm my uncle left me three years ago. But before that I spent some time in Salt Lake City."
"What a shame!" exclaimed Mary.
"What"s a shame?" he asked.
Mary blushed and stammered.
"That you-that she-I mean, that the father--"
"It is a shame," he interrupted, evidently enjoying his confession to the four earnest young girls immensely. "And the worst of it is that I can"t even write to her and as for seeing her, I might as well try and see the Empress of China. I can"t get a letter to her because all her mail is opened by that old dragon of a father."
"And can"t Evelyn write to you?" asked Nancy, her eyes as big as saucers.
Daniel Moore began laughing joyfully.
"I"ve caught you," he cried, his handsome face lit up with merriment.
Nancy could have bit her tongue for having thoughtlessly mentioned the girl"s name. The other girls could not help joining in the laughter.
Miss Campbell waked up a moment, smiled sleepily at the group and closed her eyes again. The thunder of the rain on the roof and the whistle of the wind as it blew around the corner of the house m.u.f.fled their voices into far-away sounds.
"Confess, now, Miss Nancy. You know this young lady."
"Only by sight."
He looked at her puzzled.
"You"ve met her somewhere perhaps?"
"Only her snapshot smile."
"Oh, ho!" he cried. "You"ve been reading Kipling."
Nancy bowed her head.
"We couldn"t help reading the message at the same time we saw the postcard. We know it was impolite."
"I only wish it had been more of a message," said Daniel Moore. "It was the last one I have ever had from her."
"Why don"t you go and find her?" suggested gallant Billie.
"I have been," he answered. "I"ve almost camped out in front of her house. I"ve done about everything I could do without breaking down the door and abducting her. If I could only get one more message to her, somehow--"