Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/182

 wind, he sprang out of the wagon to the ground.

A few minutes later the halt for the night was made. Alden told Jethro he intended to visit the camp in front and wished him to go along.

“I ’spose you’ll wait till after supper?” inquired the servant.

“Of course; I know how much it would hurt you to miss a meal.”

“I’m allers ready to take keer ob you, Al,” remarked the servant in an aggrieved voice.

What a fatality often attends small things! Jethro had no suspicion that the company in advance was the one from which the two visitors had come the night before. Alden did not aim to hide the fact from him, but simply omitted to mention it. Had Jethro known the meaning of this evening call, he would have forced his master to hear the momentous secret which the dusky youth had been carrying for weeks. And had that secret been revealed, Alden Payne would have made a most important change in his programme.

Since it was not so to be, the two after the evening meal, cinched their saddle girths and rode out on the plain. They took a course