Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/242

 Camp, who had returned to the tavern, appeared to take charge of the saddlebags; but wait they did, for even Sally was determined that no one should get possession again of those bullets! Indeed, stumbling back to the inn, she tried to keep abreast of the men who bent their shoulders beneath the saddlebags, in order to keep her watchful gaze upon them—tried and lagged this way and that, finally bringing up, reeling from fatigue, against Captain Littell, who merely smiled as he slipped a kind, fatherly arm beneath her elbow and commenced a low-voiced, cheerful conversation that Sally but half heard. At length, between long intervals, she heard a few words.

"What," she murmured sleepily.

"I asked how I might make amends to ye?" repeated Captain Littell, smiling again.

"Oh, sir," said poor Sally, "I—I rose at dawn, and—and now it must e'en be nine o'clock! An ye indeed wish—to—make amends—think ye—ho, hum!—think ye—couldst find a place for me—to slee-eep!" And a gigantic yawn cut her words quite in two.