ROSE RANCH AT LAST
The closing of school came at length. Bess had said frankly that
she feared it never would come, the time seemed to pass so slowly;
but Nan only laughed at her.
"Do you think something has happened to the 'wheels of Time' we
read about in class the other day?" she asked her chum.
"Well, it does seem," said merry Bess, "as though somebody must
have stuck a stick in the cogs of those wheels, and stopped 'em!"
Both Tillbury girls stood well in their classes; and they were
liked by all the instructors--even by Professor Krenner, who some
of the girls declared wickedly was the school's "self-starter,
Lakeview Hall being altogether too modern to have a crank."
In association with their fellow pupils, Nan and Bess had never any
real difficulty, save with Linda Riggs and her clique. But this
term Linda had not behaved as she had during the fall and winter
semester. This change was partly because of her chum, Cora
Courtney. Cora would not shut herself away from the other girls
just to please Linda.
Linda had even begun to try to cultivate the acquaintance of Rhoda
Hammond--especially when she had heard more about Rose Ranch. But
Rhoda refused to yield to the blandishments of the railroad
magnate's daughter.
"I suppose it might be good fun to take a trip across the continent
to your part of the country," Linda said to the Western girl on one
occasion. "You get up such a party, Rhoda, and I'll tease father
for his private car, and we will go across in style."
"Thank you," said Rhoda simply. "I prefer to pay my own way."
"No use for Linda to try to 'horn in'--isn't that the
Westernism--to our crowd," laughed Bess, when she heard of this.
"The 'Riggs Disease' is not going to afflict us this summer, I
should hope!"
Cora Courtney, too, had tried to cultivate an acquaintance with
Rhoda. But the girl from Rose Ranch made friends slowly. Too many
of the girls had ignored her when she first came to Lakeview Hall
for Rhoda easily to forget, if she did forgive.
The good-bys on the broad veranda of Lakeview Hall were far more
lingering than they had been at Christmas time. The girls were
separating for nearly three months--and they scattered like sparks
from a bonfire, in all directions.
A goodly company started with the Tillbury chums from the Freeling
station; but at each junction there were further separations until,
when the time came for the porter to make up the berths, there were
only Nan, Bess and Rhoda of all their crowd in the Pullman car.
Even Grace and Walter had changed for a more direct route to
Chicago.
They awoke in the morning to find their coach sidetracked at
Tillbury and everybody hurrying to get into the washrooms. Nan
could scarcely wait to tidy herself and properly dress, for there
was Papa Sherwood in a great, new, beautiful touring car--one of
those, in fact, that he kept for demonstration purposes.
Nan dragged Rhoda with her, while Bess ran merrily to meet what she
called "a whole nest of Harley larks" in another car on the other
side of the station. It had been determined that Rhoda should go
home with Nan.
"Here she is, Papa Sherwood!" cried Nan, leaping into the front of
the big car to "get a strangle hold" around her father's neck.
"This is our girl from Rose Ranch, Rhoda Hammond. Isn't she nice?"
"I--I can't see her, Nan," said her father. "Whew! let me get my
breath and my eyesight back."
Then he welcomed Rhoda, and both girls got into the tonneau to ride
to the Sherwood cottage. "Such richness!" Nan sighed.
The little cottage in amity looked just as cozy and homelike as
ever. Nothing had been changed there save that the house had been
newly painted. As the car came to a halt, the front door opened
with a bang and a tiny figure shot out of it, down the walk, and
through the gateway to meet Nan Sherwood as she stepped down from
the automobile.
"My Nan! My Nan!" shrieked Inez, and the half wild little creature
flung herself into the bigger girl's arms. "Come in and see how
nice I've kept your mamma. I've learned to brush her hair just as
you used to brush it. I'm going to be every bit like you when I get
big. Come on in!"
With this sort of welcome Nan Sherwood could scarcely do less than
enjoy herself during the week they remained in Tillbury. Inez, the
waif, had become Inez, the home-body. She was the dearest little
maid, so Momsey said, that ever was. And how happy she appeared
to be!
Her old worry of mind about the possibility of "three square meals"
a day and somebody who did not beat her too much, seemed to have
been forgotten by little Inez. The kindly oversight of Mrs.
Sherwood was making a loving, well-bred little girl of the odd
creature whom Nan and Bess had first met selling flowers on the
wintry streets of Chicago. Of course, during that week at home, the
three girls from Lakeview Hall did not sit down and fold their
hands. No, indeed! Bess Harley gave a big party at her house; and
there were automobile rides, and boating parties, and a picnic. It
was a very busy time.
"We scarcely know whether we have had you with us or not, Nan
dear," said her mother. "But I suppose Rhoda wants to get home and
see her folks, too; so we must not delay your journey. When you
come back, however, mother wants her daughter to herself for a
little while. We have been separated so much that I am not sure the
fairies have not sent a changeling to me!" and she laughed.
At that, for it was not a hearty laugh and Momsey's eyes glistened,
if Nan had not given her promise, "black and blue," to Rhoda, she
would have excused herself and not gone to Rose Ranch at all. She
knew that Momsey was lonely.
But Mrs. Sherwood did not mean to spoil her daughter's enjoyment.
And the opportunity to see this distant part of the country was too
good to be neglected. Nan might never again have such a chance to
go West.
So the three girls were sent off without any tears for the
rendezvous with the Masons and Mrs. Janeway at Chicago.
They found Grace and Walter all right; but as the Masons had no
idea what Mrs. Janeway looked like, and that lady had no
description of the Masons, they had not met. Rhoda had to look up
her mother's friend.
"What are you going to do, Rhoda?" asked the bubbling Bess. "Track
her down as you would an Indian? Look for signs--?"
"I don't believe in signs," responded Rhoda. "I am going to look
for the best dressed woman in Chicago. Such lovely clothes as she
wears!"
"I guess that must be so," said Grace as Rhoda walked out of
ear-shot, "for Mrs. Janeway chose Rhoda's own outfit, and you know
there wasn't a better dressed girl at Lakeview."
"Wow!" murmured her brother. "What a long tale about dress! Don't
you girls ever think of anything but what you put on?"
"Oh, yes, sir," declared Bess smartly. "And you know that Rhoda
thinks less about what she wears than most. It's lucky her mother
had somebody she could trust to dress her daughter before she
appeared at the Hall."
"All on the surface! All on the surface!" grumbled Walter.
"Goodness, Walter," said his sister, "would you want us to swallow
our dresses? Of course they are on the surface."
"It certainly is a fact," grinned Walter impudently, "that the
curriculum of Lakeview Hall makes its pupils wondrous sharp. Hullo!
here comes Rhoda towing a very nice looking lady, I must admit."
In fact, at first sight the three other girls fell in love with
Mrs. Janeway. She was a childless and wealthy widow, who, as she
asserted, "just doted on girls." She met them all warmly.
"I hope," said Walter, with gravity, as she shook hands with him,
"that a mere boy may find favor in your eyes, too. Really, we're
not all savages. Some of us are more or less civilized."
"Well," Mrs. Janeway sighed, but with twinkling eyes, "I shall see
how well you behave. Now, for our tickets."
"I have the reservations," Walter said quietly. "A stateroom for
you four ladies and a berth for me in the same car. In half an hour
we pull out. And, girls!"
"Say it," returned Bess.
"Is it something nice, Walter?" asked his sister.
"There is an observation platform on our car--the end car on the
train. It goes all the way through to Osaka, where we are going. I
think we are fixed just right."
This proved to be the case. The young people pretty nearly lived on
that rear platform, for the weather remained pleasant all through
the journey. Mrs. Janeway sometimes found it hard work to get them
in to go to bed.
The route this tourist car took was rather roundabout; but as
Walter said, it landed them at the Osaka station, the nearest
railroad point to Rose Ranch, in something like five days.
By this time they were getting a little weary of traveling by rail.
Walter declared he was "saddle-sore" from sitting so much. When
long lines of corrals and cattle-pens came in sight, Rhoda told
them they were nearing Osaka.
"Why, there are miles and miles of those corrals!" cried Bess, in
wonder. "You don't mean to say they are all for your father's
cattle?"
"Oh, no, my dear. Several ranchers ship from Osaka," explained
Rhoda. "And as we all ship at about the same season, there must be
plenty of pens and cattle-chutes. Hurry, now. Get your things
together."
Bess scrabbled her baggage together, as usual leaving a good deal
of it for somebody else to bring. This time it was Walter who
gathered up her belongings rather than Nan.
"I never do know what I do with things," sighed Bess. "When I start
on a journey I have so few; and when I arrive at my destination it
does seem as though I am always in possession of much more than my
share. Thank you, Walter," she concluded demurely. "I think boys
are awfully nice to have around."
"In that case," said Rhoda, leading the way out of the car as the
train slowed down, "you are going to have plenty of boys to wait on
you when you get to Rose Ranch. Those punchers are just dying for
feminine 'scenery.' I know Ike Bemis once said that he often felt
like draping a blanket on an old cow and asking her for a dance."
"The idea!" gasped Mrs. Janeway, who was likewise making her first
visit to the ranges.
At that moment Rhoda cried:
"There he is! There's Hess with the ponies."
"Hess who?" asked Grace.
"Hess what?" demanded Nan, as the train stopped and the colored
porter quickly set his stool at the foot of the car steps.
"Hesitation Kane," explained Rhoda, hurrying ahead. "Come on,
folks! Oh, I am glad to get home!"
Bess, who was last, save Walter, to reach the station platform,
gave one comprehensive glance around the barren place.
"Well!" she said. "If this is home--"
"'Home was never like this,'" chuckled Walter.
A few board shacks, the station itself unpainted, sagebrush and
patches of alkali here and there, and an endless trail leading out
across a vista of flat land that seemed horizonless. The train
steamed away, having halted but a moment. To all but Rhoda the
scene was like something unreal. "My goodness!" murmured Grace,
"even the moving pictures didn't show anything like this."
"They say the desert scenes made by some of the movie companies are
photographed at Coney Island. And I guess it's true," said Walter.
Rhoda had run across the tracks toward where a two-seated
buckboard, drawn by a pair of eager ponies, was standing. Beside it
stood two saddle horses, their heads drooping and their reins
trailing before them in the dust. The man who drove the ponies wore
a huge straw sombrero of Mexican manufacture. When he turned to
look at his employer's daughter the others saw a very solemn and
sunburned visage.
"Oh, Hess!" cried Rhoda. "How are you? Is mother all right?"
The man stared unblinkingly at her and his facial muscles never
moved. He was thin-lipped, and his hawk nose made a high barrier
between his eyes. He did not seem unpleasant, only naturally grim.
And silent! Well, that word scarcely indicated the character of Mr.
Hesitation Kane.
"Come on!" shouted Rhoda, looking back at her friends, and
evidently not at all surprised that the driver of the buckboard did
not at once reply to her questions. "Mrs. Janeway, and Nan, and
Bess, and Gracie--you all crowd into the buckboard. Walter and I
are going to ride. Got my duds here, Hess?"
It was lucky Mr. Kane did not have to answer verbally. He thrust
forward a bundle. Rhoda seized it and started for the station where
there was a room in which she could change her clothes. Before she
quite reached the platform the driver spoke his first word:
"Thanky, Miss Rhody. I'm fine."
Rhoda nodded over her shoulder, laughing at the surprise and
amusement of her friends, and disappeared. Walter helped the girls
and Mrs. Janeway into the odd though comfortable vehicle. In a few
moments Rhoda reappeared in a rough costume that even Mrs. Janeway
had to admit did not make the Western girl any the less attractive.
The full breeches and long coat and leggings gave her every freedom
of action, and she had put on a wide-brimmed hat. Meanwhile Walter
had brought forth from one of his bags a pair of leather riding
leggings and buckled on small spurs. He had been forewarned of this
ride by Rhoda before they left Chicago.
They mounted the two ponies, and the driver of the buckboard lifted
his reins. Then he pulled the eager ponies to a stop again and
turned toward Rhoda, answering her second question.
"Yes, ma'am, your mother's fine. She's fine," he announced.
"Don't that beat all!" exclaimed Walter, exploding with laughter as
he cantered by Rhoda's side. "That is why we call him 'Hesitation,
'" Rhoda said.
"Somebody taught him to count more than ten before speaking, didn't
they?" commented Walter.
The trail was not wide enough for the pony riders to keep their
mounts beside the buckboard; besides, the dust would have smothered
Rhoda and Walter. The light breeze carried the dust off the trail,
however; so the two riders could keep within shouting distance of
the others.
In two hours or a little more they were out of the barren lands
completely. Swerving down an arroyo, all green and lush at the
bottom, they cantered up into the mouth of a broad gulch, the walls
of which later became so steep that it might well be called a
canyon.
The ponies never walked--up grade, or down. They cantered or
galloped. Hesitation Kane never spoke to them; but they seemed to
know just what he wanted them to do by the way he used the
reins--and they did it.
"I don't see how he does it," said Walter to Rhoda. "It doesn't
seem really possible that one could make a horse understand without
speech."
"Oh, he can speak to them if it is necessary. But he says it isn't
often necessary to speak to a horse. The less you talk to them the
better trained they are. And Hess is daddy's boss wrangler."
"'Wrangler'?"
"Horse wrangler. Horse trainer, that means."
"But, my goodness!" chuckled Walter, "'to wrangle' certainly means
quarreling in speech. I should think it was almost like a Quaker
meeting when this Mr. Kane trains a pony."
"It is a fact," laughed Rhoda, "that the ponies make much more
noise than Hesitation does."
As they entered this deeper gulch, the girls cried out in delight.
The trail was narrow and grassy. Growing right up to the path--so
that they could stretch out their hands and pick them--were acres
and acres of wild roses. They scented the air and charmed the eye
for miles and miles along the trail.
They rode on and on. Finally the little cavalcade wound out of the
gap, down a slope, crossed a tumbling river that was yards broad
but not very deep, and the ponies quickened their pace as they
mounted again to a higher plain.
"There it is!" shouted Rhoda, and, waving her hat, she spurred her
pony ahead and passed the buckboard at full speed.
On a knoll the others saw a low-roofed, but wide-spreading,
bungalow sort of structure, with corrals and sheds beyond. The
latter were bare and ugly enough; but the ranch house was almost
covered to the eaves with climbing roses in luxurious bloom.