Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/93

 "I will walk, then."

Mrs. Gallagher looked sceptically at Nan's small white feet.

"It is forty mile to Hopedale."

"It is less than that to El Oro."

Mrs. Gallagher looked doubtful.

"They are Mexican in El Oro and afraid of the Señor Spiser. They owe him money, or their father or their brother owe him money. He find out who give you a horse or let you stay all night, and he take their cow, horses, chickens—ever'thing. You have not live here long enough to understand, señorita."

"But the postmaster"

Mrs. Gallagher's face brightened.

"I forget him. Yes, he will help you."

She understood now that "O1d Man" MacNeil had been offering her his protection when he had told her that he was her nearest neighbor in case of "homesickness." And Fritz Poth with his sour looks, he too, in his way, had been trying to warn her. In the light of what had happened Nan seemed to herself to have been incredibly stupid.

"We will go to El Oro," she said decidedly, "and we must lose no time." Then, curiously,