THE STRANDED FAMILY
Back of the big, rambling V. M. ranch house there was a comfortable
small adobe which had been occupied at one time by the foreman and
family, but now that Malcolm was his own foreman, the house was
vacant, and it was into this that Virginia bade Cy carry the little
woman.
Then Virginia held out her hand as she said sincerely: “Thank you
Cy, for having helped us again. Isn’t it strange that twice, when we
have needed someone, you have just happened to pass by.”
The cow-boy flushed as he replied, shuffling from one foot to the
other. “Yo’ all have done mo’ for me than ah can be doin’ fo’
you-all. Ah’m glad ah meet up wi’-you-all.” Then he turned and
bolted. No other word would adequately describe his manner of
disappearance.
“That boy is a diamond in the rough, isn’t he?” Margaret said as she
stood in the open-door and watched the tall lank cow-boy swing into
his saddle and ride away toward the Slater Ranch.
Virginia, having for years helped care for an invalid mother, soon
had the little woman roused from her stupor and taking warm broth
for nourishment. Margaret, in the meantime, fed the three solemn
eyed children who ate ravenously, like little wild creatures that
were nearly starved.
At last when the mother had fallen into a more natural sleep and the
three children had been tucked into one large bed, the two girls
seated themselves near the kitchen stove in which Virg had made a
fire and Megsy said: “Now may I hear what happened to bring this
little brood to the desert?”
“It is not a long story,” Virginia began, “nor an unusual one. The
father of the small family is a prospector who, until recently, was
working in a copper mine near Bisbee. They had a good home and
plenty to eat, little Pat said, until the strike came and then their
money had to be taken from the savings bank where the mother had
been so glad each month to place it and had been used for absolute
necessities until, at last, it was nearly gone.
“Then, one day, the father, who had tried in vain to get work of any
kind, came home much excited because he had heard that the mountains
of the Seven Peak Range were supposed to be rich and as yet they had
been unmined. He wanted to start out that very day. His wife, Mrs.
Mahoy, begged him not to go, but Margaret, when a miner thinks that
he has heard of a possible location that might be rich, his gambling
spirit seems to be stronger than all else, and so just one month ago
today Mr. Mahoy left Bisbee and came, as his wife supposed, to Seven
Peak Range.
“She had not heard from him since, and so she started out in search
of him, spending the few remaining dollars for food. Carrying the
baby and leading the two older children, the brave little woman
walked for days across the desert.
“Pat said that she ate almost nothing herself, so eager was she to
make the food last for her little ones, but for two days even they
had not eaten. Last night they reached the old adobe hut and there
the mother, faint from hunger and the long walk, crept in and fell
unconscious.
“You know the rest; how the brave little fellow tried to think of
some way that he might call help and how, just by chance, we saw and
responded.” Margaret, by the window, looked out across the desert.
Night had settled down and the stars were shining brilliantly.
“One week from tonight it will be Christmas eve,” she said softly,
“How I wish we might find the poor father and restore him to his
family. What happiness it would bring, for no other Christmas gift
would be more welcome to the little mother and her three babies.”
“Such things only happen in story books, not in real life, Megsy
dear,” Virginia said, quietly.
“And yet truth is stranger than fiction.” Margaret replied as she
prepared the bed that she and Virginia were to occupy in the little
house that they might be near the sick mother.
And Margaret was right. Truth is stranger than fiction.