"Why, Mr. Ermine, where is Katherine, and where is the Major? Why, you are all alone!" And she came up standing.
"Yes, I am all alone," said the scout, quietly, rising from the chair and putting on his sombrero. Before she could comprehend, he was gone.
The Major sauntered in shortly and found Mrs. Searles standing over Katherine's chair, trying to dry her tears and gather the reasons for her grief. Mary's Indians not having appeared, she stood in the doorway, with her apron raised to a sort of feminine "charge bayonets."
"What in the devil is the circus?" demanded the father.
"It's nothing, father; I am nervous, that is all."
"Now, Major Searles, I want you to sit down and keep quiet. You will drive me frantic. Why did you run away when I clearly told you to stay here?" Her tones were dry with formality.
Against all manner of people and happenings the Major joyfully pitted his force and cunning. His only thought in a great crisis was his six-shooter; but he always hesitated before anything which concerned Mrs. Searles and a military order. These impelled obedience from the very nature of things. "But what has happened? What must I do?"
"You must sit down," said his wife; and he sat down. Affairs of this kind could be cleared only by women; he was conscious that he could not hurry matters.
"Now what has happened, Katherine? Will you tell me? Who did it?" pleaded the mother.
"Why, it is nothing, only that horrible scout wanted to marry me. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?" said the girl, sitting up and made defiant by the idea.
"Did he do anything?" and the Major again forgot his orders and rose truculently.
"Benjamin!" said Mrs. Searles, with asperity; and he again subsided. Like most soldiers and sailors, he was imperfectly domesticated.
"He wanted to marry you?" she continued with questioning insistence.
"Yes, he said I must marry him; that God wanted me to, and he also said he had lost his mind--"
"Well, I think he has," observed the mother, catching this idea, which was at least tangible to her. "Is that all, Katherine?"
"Is that all, mother? Why, isn't that enough?"
"I mean, he simply asked you to marry him--properly--he wasn't insulting--insistent beyond--"
"No, he did nothing else, though he went about it in a most alarming way."