arpshooter, saying:

"We're making mountains out of mole hills, I fear. There, Aunt Sally,
never mind. They have left so much behind them on the path that they
can hardly have eaten enough to harm them, anyway. Let them go,
please."

But the good woman would not drop the subject. Her sharp eyes had not
been given her for nothing, and her son always asserted that if his
mother had been a man she would have made a first-class detective.
Panting and puffing in her haste and curiosity, she hurried to the
spilled confections and carefully picked them up; then returned to the
porch, significantly holding forth, upon her palm, a specimen of what
she had discovered.

"Needn't tell me I didn't smell peppymint! Them's them peppymint
rounds with chocolate outsides that I never seen nobody eat, on this
ranch, 'cept Antonio Bernal. They ain't kept in the store to Marion,
and the storekeeper used to send for 'em to Los Angeles, 'specially
for his one customer. I know, Antonio offered me some, time and again,
on my other visits, but I always thanked him polite and said no. I
never did lay out to eat a snake's victuals, and that's what his'n
was."

"Oh, what a woman you are, Aunt Sally!" laughed Ephraim.

"Thank you. I hope I be; enough of one, anyhow, to see through a
millstone, when there's a hole in it. But you've come back so peart
and sassy, sharpshooter, I reckon I best go steep you a fresh dose of
picra. After I've learnt all them tackers can tell."

"Please, don't be stern with them, Aunt Sally," protested the mother.
"Whatever they've done is but natural. It would be too much to expect
them to refuse such a treat if it were offered them, and, maybe, John
brought it to them."

"John? My boy, John? After the raisin' he had! Well, you're on the
wrong track there and I'm on the right one. Antonio Bernal, or some
feller sneak of his, has been here at Sobrante, and you needn't touch
to tell me he hasn't. Wait; I'll find out now!" she ended, in triumph,
and again the others were obliged to laugh, though Mrs. Trent's brief
mirth closed with a sigh, which Jessica heard and understood.

"Oh! don't you fear, mother, dear. Aunt Sally wouldn't hurt either of
them, really; and, indeed, I don't know who would keep them in order
if she didn't try. What mischief one can't think of the other does,
and I'll run after her and see the thing out. Who knows but that they
can tell us something about the missing staff?"

The runaways had m