tly
suggested bed and rest, saying:

"You poor creatur'! You're clean beat out! If you don't take care,
you'll have a dreadful fit of sickness, and I don't know who'd wait on
you if you did. Not with all this trouble on hand. You go right
straight up into one them back chambers, where the bed is all made up
ready, and put yourself to bed, and--stay there! Don't you dast get
up again till I say so; else I won't answer for the consequences.
You're as yeller as saffron, and as red as a beet. Them two colors
mixed on a human countenance means--somethin'! To bed, Elsa Winkler;
to bed right away. I'll fetch you up a cup of tea and a bite of
victuals. Don't tarry."

"But--the mistress!" Elsa had panted. "I come so long for to speak her
good cheer. I must see the mistress, then I rest."

"The mistress isn't seeing anybody just now, except me and--a few
others. You do as I say, or you'll never knit another wool shawl."

"No, no. I knit no more, forever, is it? Not I. Why the reason? The
more one earns the more one may lose. Yes, yes, indeed. Yes."

"That's the true word," Mrs. Benton had replied; "and so being you've
no yarn to worry you, nor no mistress to see, off to bed, I say, and
don't you dast to get sick on my hands, I warn you!"

So Elsa had obeyed the command, glad enough to rest and be idle for a
time. Aunt Sally had seen to it that the visitor was kept duly alarmed
concerning her red-and-yellow condition, nor had she given the
permission to arise when Wolfgang and Otto arrived from their
fruitless visit to El Desierto. They found the place crowded with
returning searchers, and joyfully hailed the good news of Jessica's
safety. But when there was added to this the information that their
own property had been found, they demanded to be taken to Elsa, and it
was their visit to her room which had sent her afield, half-clad, and
with thought for nothing but her lost treasure.

Even now, husband and son joined their entreaties to hers, though
Samson soon brought them to hear reason, and to withdraw from public
for the present, asking, indignantly:

"Have you folks lost all your manners, as well as your dollars, up
there on the foothill? The idee of a woman screeching her lungs out
afore all the ranchers in Southern Californy! Your money? Well, what
of it? If it's found, it'll be give to you, and if it isn't you ain't
the first feller's been robbed. Besides, can't you smell? Don't you
know that you're interruptin'