"Joan!" he stammered."You? What is the meaning of this?"Ezekiel whom but for his dazed condition he might have seen violently contorting his features in Joan's face, presumably in equal astonishment--broke into a series of discordant chuckles.
"Wa'al, ef that ain't Deacon Salisbury's darter all over.Ha! Here are ye two men folks makin' no end o' fuss to save that Mexican gal with pistols and ambushes and plots and counterplots, and yer's Joan Salisbury shows ye the way ha'ow to do it.And so, ma'am, you succeeded in fixin' it up with Dona Rosita to take her place and just sell them robbers cheap! Wa'al, ma'am, yer sold this yer party, too--for"--he advanced his face close to hers--"I never let on a word, though I knew it, and although they nearly knocked me off my hoss in their fuss and fury.Ha! ha! They wanted to know what Iwas doin' here, he-he! Tell 'em, Joan, tell 'em."Demorest gazed from one to another with a troubled face, yet one on which a faint relief was breaking.
"What does he mean, Joan? Speak," he said, almost imploringly.
Joan, whose color was slightly returning, drew herself up with her old cold Puritan precision.