"Never heard of no family living there, excepting the bluff at family life
maintained by the wild beasts before referred to. See here, miss, I ain’t
makin’ no play to inquire into your affairs, but you ain’t thinkin’ o’
visitin’ Lost Trail, be you?"

"Perhaps," said Mary, faintly; and then she, too, talked "goo-goo" to the
baby.





VIII


The Rodneys At Home


All that long and never-to-be-forgotten night the stage lurched through
the darkness with Mary Carmichael the solitary passenger. The fat lady had
warned Johnnie Dax that he was on no account to replenish Chugg’s flask,
if he had the wherewithal for replenishment on the premises. Moreover, she
threatened Dax with the fury of her son should he fail in this particular;
and Johnnie, hurt to the quick by the unjust suspicion that he could fail
so signally in his duty to a lady, not only refused to replenish the
flask, but threatened Chugg with a conditional vengeance in the event of
accident befalling the stage. It was with a partially sobered and
much-threatened stage-driver, therefore, that Mary continued her journey
after the supper at Johnnie Dax’s, but the knowledge of it brought scant
reassurance, and it is doubtful if the red stage ever harbored any one