Billie nodded.
"I bring message. You look for somebody?"
"Yes," replied Billie eagerly.
"You not find him now. Too much enemies."
"Where is he?" she demanded.
No answer came to this question.
"You will not tell me?"
"No tell," answered the old creature.
"Is he ill or hurt?"
The herb gatherer touched her forehead.
"He safe," she answered. "But people not safe who look for him. Too much enemies."
After that not another word could Billie get out of the obstinate old creature.
Who had sent her? Who was looking after Phoebe"s father, if he were hurt or a prisoner? Could not Phoebe see him? Nothing would she reply to all these questions.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The old woman waved aside this greeting with her stick.--Page 212.]
"I"m much obliged for that much anyhow," said Billie at last. "You must be tired and hungry. Won"t you come back to the camp and let me give you----" she paused to consider. What could an old stunted apple tree like? Somehow it didn"t seem as if she could live on real food.
"Will you drink a cup of tea?" she added hastily.
The wrinkled face remained inscrutable.
"Or coffee?"
"Coffee?" repeated the old soul, and suddenly without the faintest warning, smiled and Billie smiled back.
"I can make delicious strong coffee," announced the girl proudly. "You will come, won"t you?"
"I come," answered the herb-gatherer. "Coffee? I come!"
They walked briskly back to camp, this ill-a.s.sorted couple, and it was not long before Billie had established her companion in a chair under the trees and the coffee pot on the kerosene stove, where it was soon sending out a fragrant aroma.
"Don"t you get very tired gathering herbs on the mountains?" asked Billie, by way of making conversation.
"When I tired, I rest," answered the other briefly.
Presently Billie brought out a tray with a cup and saucer, sugar and cream and some thin slices of b.u.t.tered bread. From the upper gallery there came to her the low hum of conversation. The sleepers had awakened and were getting bathed and dressed.
"Do you know Phoebe?" she asked, while she poured the coffee.
The herb-gatherer smacked her lips and sniffed the air expectantly.
"I"ve seen her."
"Don"t you feel sorry for her to lose her father? She is very unhappy."
"No sugar," exclaimed the old woman, ignoring the question. "Good!" she exclaimed. "Fine coffee!"
Presently Billie poured out another cup and finally another.
"You like coffee, don"t you?" she said.
"This fine coffee."
"We send away for it. The village coffee is not good."
"I never tasted the like before."
"If you will answer me a question," said Billie suddenly, "I will get my father to send you enough of this coffee to last all winter."
The old woman picked up the coffee pot and drained it to the last drop.
"If I tell," she said, warmed and stimulated by the hot drink, "it make lot trouble."
"Trouble for whom?"
"Much trouble for all."
"All I am to say to Phoebe then is that her father is in good hands and she is not to look for him?"
The herb-gatherer nodded.
"How soon will he be coming back?"
She shook her head and seizing her staff, rose to go.
"Are you a friend of the Lupos?"
There was no answer. Billie tried again.
"Did Mrs. Lupo ever go back to her husband?"
"Lupo very angry. She not go back."
"She needn"t stay away on our account. My cousin forgave her long ago."
"I go now," announced the old woman, not taking the slightest notice of Billie"s remarks.
"I am very much obliged to you for the news of Phoebe"s father. Every time you bring us any news, you may have coffee, and if you show us where he is,--quite secretly, you know,--you shall have a great deal of coffee and money, too."