Page:Edward Ellis--Alden the Pony Express Rider.djvu/86

 understand?” he demanded of the terrified Jethro.

“Yas, sir; I’ll do de best I kin; nobody can’t do no better dan dat.”

“And nobody asks you to do any better; wal, I reckon I’ve said ’nough.”

And the guide moved away with his noiseless tread melting from sight in the gloom.

It must be said of Jethro that although scared almost out of his senses, he was resolved to do his duty so far as it lay within him to do it. Even in his panic, he saw an advantage over the other sentinels. A wagon guarded by two persons must be twice as well protected as one under the care of a single person. Alden was so watchful that he could be counted on to detect any approach of danger. Jethro was in the position of a man who had a reliable support in an enterprise involving great peril.

The two stood so near each other that it was easy to converse in under tones. Within the Conestoga, all was still. The mothers and their children were sleeping, feeling secure in the protection of heaven and the strong and brave hearts around them.

“Say, Al, am you dar?” asked Jethro in a husky, half-whisper, as he peeped round the