THE GREEN HILLS RANCH
Shielded from the fury of the storms by gently sloping foothills, the
rambling Packard ranch house presented a very inviting appearance to the
young people as the two big horses carefully picked their way down the
last steep trail.
"O, how beautiful!" was Jane's involuntary exclamation when the level
road, having been reached, she felt freer to look about and admire the
scene.
"I had no idea that a mere ranch could be so attractive." A great change
was evident in the Eastern girl, and Jean Sawyer had been quick to notice
it. Not once that morning had she seemed to be posing that she might
appear more charming to him. She was just sweetly, sincerely natural. The
reason, perhaps, was that Jane had suffered so much since his last visit
that she had changed her estimate of real values. She was so happy, so at
peace deep in her heart. She had learned that her mother's little ones
were dearer to her than all else, and so the impression she might make
had dwindled in importance. If Jean had thought her beautiful on the day
of their first meeting, he thought her more lovely now, although her face
showed evidence of a great weariness and the hours of anxiety through
which she had passed. He smiled up at her as he walked at her side, one
hand resting on the horse's bridle. "Mr. Packard and I have tried out
many schemes to make our home more beautiful," he told her. "That little
artificial lake surrounded by cottonwood trees and willows we made quite
by ourselves. A mountain stream flows into it. Indeed, there are many
springs in these foothills and that is why they have such a soft,
velvety-green appearance when the desert and mountains are so dry." They
were passing through a vegetable garden where a beaming Chinaman, hoe in
hand, nodded to them.
Then came the flower gardens and Meg's enthusiasm, though expressed in
her usual quiet way, was very evident. "How you do love flowers," Dan
said, smiling up at her.
"Indeed I do!" Meg replied. "They seem like live things to me, and so I
was not surprised to read recently that a scientist, with some very
delicate instrument, has learned that many plants are sentient, though
not acutely so. Since then I have never torn a plant ruthlessly. That
scientist advised cutting flowers rather than breaking them."
It was indeed Meg's much-loved subject and her eyes glowed as she gazed
at the banks of scarlet salvia, at the masses of golden glow, and
many-hued asters.
"Someone else must love flowers," she commented, turning to look back at
Jean. He nodded. "It is my best friend, Mr. Packard. You two ought to be
great cronies. I sometimes tell him that I think it is the color effect,
rather than the individual flower, that he so greatly admires, but here
he comes now."
They were riding up to the circling drive which passed under a
vine-covered portico. Mr. Packard leaped down the steps with an agility
which seemed to dispute the years his graying hair attributed to him.
"Welcome!" he cried, with a wide sweep of his sombrero. "This is indeed a
pleasant surprise, although I can hardly call it that as I have been
watching for just such a cavalcade to come riding down my foothills ever
since the dawn broke." He held out his strong arms to lift little Julie,
whose face, still tear-stained and white with pain, appealed to him. He
held her close as he listened sympathetically while Gerald told what had
happened to the poor little foot. Then, after giving a word of greeting
to each of the guests, he bade them follow him indoors to the breakfast
that had long been awaiting them.
The girls found that a wing, containing two rooms and a bath, and
overlooking the little lake, had been prepared for their comfort. Gerald,
with the two older boys, sought quarters elsewhere in the rambling ranch
house, which had room for the accommodation of many guests.
"When you girls have prinked enough," Mr. Packard said merrily, "follow
the scent of the coffee and you will find the rest of us." When the door
had closed and the three girls were alone, Jane held out a hand to Meg,
saying: "Will you forgive me for everything, and let me try to be a real
friend?" An expression of gladness in the mountain girl's dusky eyes was
her most eloquent reply.
Directly after breakfast in the dining-room, which seemed to be all
windows and where they were served by a silently moving Chinaman, the
girls were told that they were to go to their wing and rest until noon.
This was in no way a displeasing suggestion and in a very short while
Julie and Jane in one room and Meg in the other were deep in slumber.
Gerald was also advised to rest, but he declared that he would rather
stay awake and see what was going to happen. Dan laughed as he said that
Gerald seemed always to believe that an adventure might begin at any
moment.
"What boy does not?" Mr. Packard smiled understandingly down at the
stocky little fellow whose clear blue eyes and freckled face beamed good
nature. Then, quite as though he could read the small boy's thought, the
man exclaimed: "Gerald, you ought to wear my grandson's cowboy outfit.
He'd be glad to loan it to you." That this suggestion met with the
youngster's entire approval was quite evident by the wild dance which he
executed then and there.
Jean led the little fellow away and before long Gerald reappeared,
clothed in a costume of the most approved style, a fringed buckskin suit,
a red bandana handkerchief loosely knotted about his neck, while in one
hand he held a wide felt hat on which to his great joy a dried
rattlesnake skin served as band. His own small gun was never out of his
possession.
"Great!" Dan said with brotherly pride. "I wish our dad and dear old
grandmother might see you now, Gerry. You do indeed look ready to start
on an adventure."
"Where'll we go to look for it?" The small boy gazed eagerly, hopefully
up at their genial host.
"Well, sonny, what kind of an adventure would you prefer?" the amused man
asked as though he were willing, at least, to attempt to provide whatever
adventure his small guest might desire.
"I'd like an Indian raid best, or a hold-up." The boy was thinking of the
most exciting things he could recall in his set of Wild-West books, but
Mr. Packard shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint you, sonny, but the Utes
are a friendly tribe: peaceable, anyway, and they are no longer our near
neighbors. They have moved their camp deeper into the mountains. And, as
for hold-ups, since we are neither on a stage or a train we cannot
provide that, but if you boys are not too weary I am going to suggest
that you ride with me to the old stage road. I've been losing some calves
lately and Jean believes that they might have been driven into an
abandoned corral over in the foothills at night, and later were spirited
away." He hesitated. "It's a hard ride, though. Perhaps you boys would
rather not undertake it until tomorrow."
But they were glad to go, and Gerald would not agree to being left
behind. He was given a small horse that was gentle and used to boys, as
the grandson had claimed it as his own, and so they rode away, having
left word for the girls that they would return as soon as possible.
In the mid-morning they reached the old abandoned stage road. "No one
uses it now, that is, for legitimate purposes, as it is very dangerous.
There are washouts and cutways that make it almost impassable for stage
or for auto travel." Then, pointing to the place where the road circled a
high hill, Mr. Packard concluded: "Jean, can you see where yesterday's
cloudburst washed out the road? It has started a new canon that will have
to be bridged, for now and then a tenderfoot autoist does get started on
that old road, thinking that it leads to Redfords. Time and again we have
put up signs on the main highway, but they are hurled down in the storms,
I suppose."
Dan had been intently tracing the old road until it was lost from sight.
Suddenly he urged his horse forward to Mr. Packard's side. "May I take
the field glasses? I feel sure that I see a dark object moving along that
old road and coming this way. You look first, though. Your eyes are
better trained to these distances than mine." Mr. Packard gazed long,
then he turned to Jean. "Boy," he said, "it looks like an auto moving
slowly this way. If it ever starts on that down grade toward the washout
there is going to be a tragedy."
Jean was eagerly alert. "What shall we do, Mr. Packard? How can it be
averted?"
The automobile had disappeared as the road circled behind a hill, but the
watchers well knew that if it did not meet with disaster it would soon
reappear above the washout and then be unable to stop because of the
steep descent.
"Follow me!" Mr. Packard gave the brief order, and, urging his horse to
its utmost speed, he led the way at what seemed to Gerald a breakneck
pace. The small boy clung to his wiry little pony, which kept close
behind the racing mustangs. It was evident to the boys that Mr. Packard
was hoping to round the foot of the hill in time to shout a warning to
the autoists before they began the descent which would prove fatal. It
seemed a very long distance to Dan and he could not see how they possibly
could make it. He kept his eyes constantly on the crest of the hill road,
dreading the moment when the car would appear, there to plunge down to
certain destruction. Mr. Packard rounded the foot of the hill first,
whirled in his saddle, beckoned the boys to make haste, then disappeared,
leaving his horse standing riderless. "What can _that_ mean?" Dan asked,
but Jean merely shook his head. In another moment they would know. When
they, also, had rounded the hill, they saw that "ill fortune," as
autoists usually consider a blow-out, had befriended the travelers. The
car had been stopped just as it had begun the ascent of the hill, on the
other side of which sure death had awaited them.
Mr. Packard was seen breaking a trail through the underbrush. From time
to time he hallooed, and the boys saw that at last he had been heard.
"It will be needless for us to make the climb," Jean said, "since Mr.
Packard will warn them," and so the three boys awaited the man's return.
"Who were they?" Jean inquired. Mr. Packard, removing his Stetson to wipe
his brow, shook his head. "I do not know. Some family from the East
trying to cross the Rockies. They could have done it easily enough if
they had not taken the wrong road. The woman in the party is so utterly
exhausted that I invited them to come to our place to rest. I showed them
the road from the foot of the hill back of them. It certainly isn't in
good condition, but, being on the level, it at least will not be
dangerous. The woman fainted when she heard how near death lurked ahead
of them, but they'll be all right now. We'll inspect that old foothill
corral some other day, Jean. These strangers have need of our friendly
services." Mr. Packard turned his horse's head toward the ranch as he
spoke and they all galloped back at a moderate speed.
"That was sort of an adventure, wasn't it?" Gerald inquired hopefully.
Mr. Packard laughed heartily. "I certainly think it could be so
classified," he agreed. "I shudder to think what it would have been,
however, if that tire had not halted them. We could not have reached them
in time."
Although it was not quite noon, the girls were up and dressed when the
equestrians returned and were greatly interested in all that had
happened. Gerald waxed eloquent as he told Julie the details, and that
little girl, who hungered for adventure quite as much as her brother,
hoped that if anything exciting happened again, she might be in the thick
of it.
Mr. Packard retired to the kitchen to advise Sing Long, the cook, that
four other guests were to arrive for lunch. Although that Chinaman's
reply was merely "Ally lite" the American interpretation of his pleased
smile would be, "the more the merrier." Guests were his joy that he might
display the art at which he excelled.
An hour later a big, luxurious closed car limped into the ranch
door-yard. Mr. Packard went out to greet the strangers in the same
hospitable manner that he had greeted his friends. The girls on the wide
porch saw a fine looking man with a Van Dyke beard assisting a simply
though richly gowned woman from the car, then the front door was flung
open! There was a joyful cry from a girl who leaped out and fairly raced
up the front steps with arms out-held. "O Jane, Jane! How wonderful to
find you here! We were looking for your cabin and that's how we came to
lose our way."
"Marion Starr, of all things! I thought that you were in Newport!"