A SAND STORM
The return to the car was not without difficulties. At the spot where the
natural steps were not close together, Jerry, finding the merest toe-hold
in the cliff and only the scraggliest growth to which he could cling,
did, however, manage to reach the step above. He then dropped one end of
the rope down and Dick ascended nimbly. Then, Jerry made a swing of the
lariat. Mary, flushed and laughing up at him, sat in it and was slowly
lifted to the ledge above. This, being narrow, could hold no more than
three. So Mary climbed still higher, then turned and watched, while Dora
was lifted in the swing. The girls were told to return to the car while
the boys tied the box on the end of the rope and drew it up over the
sheer place.
From the road, Mary looked out far across the desert. “How queer the air
looks, doesn’t it?” she said, pointing to what seemed to be a huge yellow
cloud of sand which was moving rapidly across the floor of the desert and
shutting out the Little Grand Canyon from their view.
Jerry, with the small trunk on one shoulder joined them; Dick, whirling
the lariat playfully, was not far behind.
Mary again pointed. “What is that far below there, Jerry? Is it a wind
storm?”
“I reckon that’s what it is,” Jerry said. “Carrying enough sand with it
to change things up a little. But more’n like, it will blow itself away
before we get down to the valley road.” He seemed little concerned about
it and the girls, in their curiosity about the small trunk, also forgot
it. Where they stood, in a flood of late warm afternoon sun, there was
not a breath of air stirring.
“What a queer little trunk,” Mary said, touching the battered top of it
with an investigating finger. “What is it made of, Jerry?”
“You’ve got me guessing,” the cowboy replied. “Some kind of a thick
animal skin, I reckon, stretched over a frame. It tightened as it dried.
Shouldn’t you say so, Dick?”
The boy addressed was helping to lash the small box on the running board
of the car. “It looks like a home-made affair to me,” he said. “Probably
they brought it over from Scandinavia.”
Dora was peering around it. “There isn’t a lock,” she observed. “I
suppose whatever it was tied with rotted away long ago.” Then, as another
thought came, “Oh, Jerry, if we had waited, maybe even a week, the stage
coach might have crumbled, don’t you think? It couldn’t have stayed
together much longer.”
“Righto!” the cowboy continued. Then, with a quick glance at Dick, he
said, “Now that it’s over, I’m thankful it has gone,—the stage coach, I
mean. Dick and I might have been tempted to come back and look for more
clues, and believe me, we came within _one_ of going to the bottom, but
Jumping Steers! we didn’t, and it sure was some exciting adventure,
wasn’t it, old man?”
Before Dick could reply, Mary said emphatically, “I wouldn’t have _let_
you come back again, Jerry. You call me ‘Little Sister,’ and brothers
_always_ have to _obey_, don’t they, Dora?”
But her friend laughingly denied, “Not _my_ small brother, believe me,
NO. When I want him to do a thing, I ask the opposite.”
Jerry had seemed to be too intent on tying knots securely to have heard,
but when he turned, his gray eyes smiled at the smaller girl, adoring
her. “_This_ Big Brother is the exception which proves the rule,” he
quoted. “Command, Little Sister, and I will obey.”
“Bravo!” Dora teased. Then, to the other girl, “Please command that we
start for home. I’m wild to get there so that we may look through the
trunk.”
Jerry removed the rocks that held the wheels. Dick was glancing about the
part of the road where the small car stood. “Do you plan turning here,
Jerry?” he asked. “I was wondering, because I heard you say it would be
miles out of our way, if we kept going straight on over the mountain.”
Before answering, Jerry stood, looking, not at the road, but down at the
valley sand storm which had not decreased in density. In fact it had
widened and was hiding the lower part of the mountain on which they
stood.
“How much gas have we, Dick?” Jerry asked, making no comment on the sand
storm.
“About four gallons. And another five in the storage can.”
“Good!” Again Jerry’s gray eyes looked thoughtfully about. They seemed to
be measuring the width of the road between the peak at their right and
the edge of the descent at the left. Dick stepped back and through
narrowed lids, he also estimated the distance.
“A leetle more than twice the width of the car,” he guessed. “Say, old
man,” Dick stepped eagerly toward the cowboy, “let _me_ turn it, will
you? Back East, one of the crazy things we did at school was to have
contests on car turning. I was pretty durn good at it then. Could turn
around on a dime, so to speak.” Still Jerry hesitated. “But you don’t
know _this_ car—” he began, when Dick interrupted swaggeringly, to try to
make the girls think the feat would be less serious than it really would
be. “Why, my dear _vaquero_, a wild car is as docile with me as a wild
broncho would be with you—knows the master’s touch and all that.”
Then, as Jerry still hesitated, Dick leaped up under the wheel and called
to the girls: “Stand back, if you please, and make room for the world
famous—” the engine was starting, the car slowly turning. Dick did not
finish his joking speech. He directed all his thought and skill to the
turning of the car. There was a tense silence broken by Dora.
“Why, there was lots of room after all!” she cried admiringly.
“Gee whizzle!” Jerry had expected Dick to give up. “I reckon you didn’t
rate yourself any too high when you were boasting about your skill.”
He helped Mary up to her seat, then took the place Dick had relinquished
to climb in back with Dora. Slowly the small car started down the road
which they had ascended hours before.
“What thrilling adventures and narrow escapes we have had today!” Dora
exclaimed, loud enough for Jerry to hear.
“I reckon they’re not all over yet,” the cowboy replied,—then wished he
had not spoken.
“What do you suppose Jerry means?” Dora asked in a low voice of Dick.
The boy’s first reply was a shrug of his shoulders. “Nothing, really; at
least I don’t think he does.” Then, as they rounded an outflung curve in
the road and he saw the dull yellow flying cloud far below them, Dick
added, as though suddenly understanding, “Oho, I savvy. Jerry is thinking
of the sand storm.”
“But, of course, it _can’t_ climb the mountain and equally, of course,
Jerry won’t run right out into it,” Dora said. Dick agreed, then asked:
“But _what_ if the sand storm lasted for hours and we had to stay in the
mountain all night, wouldn’t that be another adventure, and if we should
hear pumas prowling around the car wishing to devour us, wouldn’t that be
a narrow escape?”
Dora laughed. “Do you know, Dick, when I first met you, I thought you
were as solemn as an owl. I didn’t dream that you were, I mean, _are_ a
humorist.”
“Thanks for not saying clown.” Dick seemed so ridiculously grateful that
Dora laughed again.
“You remind me of Harold Lloyd,” she said, “and I hope you think that’s a
compliment. He looks through his shell-rimmed glasses just as solemnly as
you do when he’s saying the funniest things.”
Instead of replying, Dick peered curiously ahead. “I reckon the ‘another
adventure or narrow escape’ is about to happen,” he said in a low voice
close to Dora’s ear. “Leastwise our vehicle is slowing to a stop.”
Jerry, making sure that the front wheels were safely wedged against the
mountain, turned and inquired, “Dick, can you and Dora hear a roaring
noise?”
“Now that the car has stopped rattling, I can,” Dick replied.
“It’s the sand storm, isn’t it?” Dora leaned forward to ask.
“Yes.” Jerry glanced back, troubled. “There are two valley roads forking
off just below here. One goes over toward the Chiricahua Mountains where
our ranch is, the other toward Gleeson where we have to go to take the
girls. Now what I want to say is this. Our road is clear, but the Gleeson
road is in the path of the sand storm. Of course, if the wind should
change, it might catch us, but I reckon our best chance is to race across
the open valley to _Bar N_ ranch. You girls would have to stay all night,
but Mother’d like that powerful well. We could telephone to Gleeson so
your dad wouldn’t worry.”
Mary, who had been listening with anxious eyes, now put in, “But, Jerry,
wouldn’t that sand storm cut down the wires? I’d hate to have Dad anxious
if there was any possible way of getting home—”
“I have it,” Dick announced. “If, after we reach the ranch, we find we
can’t communicate with your home, Jerry and I will ride over there on
horseback. The sand storm will surely be blown away by then.” His
questioning glance turned toward Jerry.
“Sure thing,” the cowboy replied. “Now, girls, hold tight! We’re going to
drop down to the cross valley road. It’s smooth and hard and we’re going
to beat the world’s record.”