It was late in the forenoon before it was discovered at Hotel Helicon that Miss Crabb was missing, and even then there arose so many doubts about the side of the event that before any organized search for her had been begun, she returned, appearing upon the scene mounted behind Wesley Tolliver on a small, thin, wiry mountain .  
Crane and Peck each drew a deep, swift sigh of relief upon seeing her, for the sense of in their breasts had been horrible. They had by tacit prevented any examination of Eagle’s Nest, for they what might be disclosed. Of course they did not mean to hide the awful fate of the poor girl, nor would they willingly have shifted the weight of their dreadful responsibility, but it was all so much like a vivid dream, so strange and as it arose in their memories, that they could not believe in it.
 
Miss Crabb looked quite ludicrous perched behind the tall mountaineer on such a mule. Especially comical was the effect of the sun- she wore. She had accepted this article of apparel from Tolliver’s mother, and it appeared to clutch her head in its stiff folds and to her face by sheer compression.
 
Everybody laughed involuntarily, as much[63] for joy at her safe return as in response to the demand of her melodramatic appearance.
 
“I’ve brung back yer runerway,” said Tolliver cheerily, as he helped the young woman to dismount. “She clim down the mounting by one pertic’ler trail an’ I jes’ fotch her up by t’other.”
 
Miss Crabb not a word, but ran into the hotel and up to her room without glancing to the right or to the left. In her great haste the stiff old sun-bonnet fell from her head and tumbled upon the ground.
 
“Wush ye’d jes’ be erbligin’ enough ter han’ thet there head-gear up ter me, Mister,” said Tolliver addressing Crane, who was near. “My mammy’d raise er rumpage ef I’d go back ’thout thet ther bonnet.”
 
With evident and disgust Crane gingerly took up the fallen article and gave it to Tolliver, who thanked him so politely that all the company felt a glow of for the and yet rather handsome cavalier.
 
“Thet ,” he observed, glancing in the direction that Miss Crabb had gone, “she hev the winnin’est ways of any gal I ever seed in my life. Ye orter seen ’er up thet there bush a writin’ in ’er book! She’d jes’ tumbled kerwhummox down the clift an’ hed ther’ in them ; but as she wer’ a writin’ when she started ter fall w’y she struck a writin’ an’ jes’ kep’ on at it same’s if nothin’ had happened. She’s game, thet ole gal air, I tell[64] ye! She don’t propose for any little thing like fallin’ off’n a clift, ter with w’at she’s a doin’ at thet time, le’ me say ter ye. Lord but she wer’ hongry, though, settin’ up ther a writin’ all night, an’ it’d a done ye good to a seen ’er eat thet chicken and them cake-biscuits my mammy cooked for breakfast. She air a mos’ alarmin’ fine gal, for a fac’.”
 
At this point Dufour came out of the hotel, and when Tolliver saw him there was an instantaneous change in the expression of the mountaineer’s face.
 
“Well I’ll ber dorged!” he exclaimed with a smile of delight, “ef ther’ haint the same leetle John the Baptis’ what bapsonsed me down yer inter the branch! Give us yer baby-spanker, ole feller! How air ye!”
 
Dufour cordially shook hands with him, laughing in a jolly way.
 
“Fust an’ only man at ever ducked me, I’m here ter say ter ye,” To............