A CRY FOR HELP
The three boys glanced toward the stairway as the girls descended. Dick
advanced to meet them, then introduced the tall, lithe young stranger as
the “hero of the hour.”
Harry Hulbert’s rather greenish-blue eyes had a humorous twinkle which
softened their keenness. He looked down at the girls with sincere
pleasure in his rather thin face.
“This is great!” he exclaimed. “I’ve heard so much about you from your
friends Patsy and Polly that I feel well acquainted with both Miss Moore
and Miss Bellman.”
“Oh, don’t ‘Miss’ us, _please_!” Dora begged. “It makes me feel old as
the hills.”
“Then I won’t until I’m far away,” he replied gallantly. “I’m really
awfully glad to be able to say Mary and Dora.”
Harry’s glance at the fairer, younger girl was undeniably admiring and
Dora thought, “I wonder if _he knows_ that Pat has given him to Mary.
Poor Jerry, he looks sort of miserable.” Aloud Dora exclaimed, “Dick, do
lead us to the dining-room. I’m famished.”
The cafe was in a low, adjoining building. There had been no pretense at
beautifying the place. It was plain and bare but clean and sun-flooded.
It was late and whoever may have breakfasted there had long since gone so
the young people had the place to themselves. They chose a table for six
though there were but five of them. Harry was at one end with Mary at his
right. He had led her to that place without question. Dick escorted Dora
to the opposite end and sat beside her. Jerry took the seat across from
Mary, at Harry’s left.
“He’s a trump!” Dora thought as she noted how unselfishly Jerry played
the gracious host.
Mrs. Goode took their order, and Washita silently, and, with what to Mary
seemed like stealthy movements, served it.
While they were eating, the curious girls begged to hear all that had
happened, but Dick said, “Why drag it out? Harry saw and we all
conquered. Not a gun was fired, not a drop of blood was spilled. The bags
of ore were discovered and are now locked up in the cellar of the jail.”
“Oh, Jerry,” Mary exclaimed instinctively turning to her older
acquaintance, “how can you be sure that the bandits were _all_ captured?
Couldn’t one or two of them have been away scouting or something?”
“That we can’t tell for sure, of course, but I reckon we got them all.”
Then turning to Dick, he added, “We’d better be getting back to _Bar N_
soon as we can.”
Mary, flushed and shining-eyed, leaned toward the young aviator. “You’re
going to fly over to Gleeson, aren’t you, so that we may get really
acquainted?”
“I’d like to, awfully well, but Jerry tells me that there isn’t a safe
landing anywhere for miles around.”
“Aha,” Dora thought, “Jerry scores there.” But she was wrong, for the
cowboy was saying generously, “I’m sure Deputy Sheriff Goode will loan
you a car. He has two little ones besides the town ambulance. I’d ask you
to ride with us but my rattletrap will only hold four.”
Jerry’s suggestion was carried out. Deputy Sheriff Goode had a small car
he was glad to loan to Harry. The proprietor of the pool hall agreed to
watch the “Seagull” and warn all curious boys to stay away from it.
“I won’t be able to stay long,” Harry told them. “I’ll have to fly back
to headquarters in Tucson this afternoon to report.” Then, glancing at
Mary, invitation in his eyes, he asked, “Must I ride all alone in this
borrowed flivver?”
“Of course not! I’ll ride with you if the others are willing. I mean,”
Mary actually blushed in her confusion, “if you would like to have me.”
For answer Harry took her arm and led her across to the small car which
stood waiting in front of the hotel. “We’ll follow where you lead,
Jerry,” he called to the cowboy.
“Righto!”
Since Dora was already in the rumble, Dick climbed in beside her and
Jerry started his small car and turned toward the valley road. Dora said
not one word but the glance her dark eyes gave her companion spoke
volumes. His equally silent reply was understanding and eloquent.
Harry had a moment’s difficulty in starting his borrowed car and they did
not overtake the others until they were out of the town and about to dip
down into the desert valley. Then, when Jerry’s car was not far ahead,
the young aviator slowed down and smiled at Mary in the friendliest way.
“So this is actually _you_,” he said. His tone inferred that it was hard
to believe. “Pat had a picture of you in a fluffy white dress. That
photographer was an artist all right. He caught the sunlight on your hair
so that, to _me_, you looked, honestly, just like an angel from heaven
come down. I thought the girl who had posed for _that_ picture must be
the earth’s sweetest.”
Wild roses could not have been pinker than Mary’s cheeks. She protested,
“You mustn’t flatter me that way. I _might_ believe it.”
“I rather hoped you _would_ believe it,” the boy said earnestly, then
abruptly he changed the subject. “This is a great country, isn’t it? And
to think that _you_ were born here. It’s all so rough and rugged, it’s
hard to picture a frail flower—”
Mary laughingly interrupted. “You should see the exquisite blossoms that
grow on a thorny cactus plant,” she told him. Then, seeing that Jerry had
stopped his car and was waiting for them to come alongside, she
exclaimed, “I wonder what Big Brother wants. We’re close to the side
road, aren’t we, where you turned last night when you went over to ‘The
Dragoons?’”
“I believe we are,” Harry replied absently, then asked, “Why do you call
Jerry Newcomb ‘Big Brother?’”
“Oh, because we were playmates years ago when we were small and I’ve
always called his mother ‘Aunt Mollie.’ He takes good care of me just
like a real brother,” she ended rather lamely.
Harry was bringing his small car to a standstill near the other. He
leaned close to Mary and said in a low voice, “I’m glad it’s _only_
brother.”
Although the occupants of the other car could not hear the words, they
had seen the almost affectionate way in which the words had been spoken.
Dora thought, “Aviators are evidently lightning workers.”
Jerry’s expression did not reveal his thoughts. He spoke to both Dick and
Harry. “I did something last night, I reckon, I _never_ did before. I
laid my six shooter down on a rock and in all the excitement I plumb
forgot it. Would you mind if we went up this road a piece—”
“Oh, Jerry,” Dora cried, “can’t we go with you all the way and see where
you found the bandits?” Then, as the cowboy hesitated, Dick said, “I
think it would be perfectly _safe_ to go, don’t you?”
“I reckon so.” Jerry was about to start his car when Mary called, “Jerry
Newcomb, I never once thought to ask you or Dick if there were any _old_
men among those bandits, I mean, any who _might_ have been the ones who
held up the stage and kidnapped Little Bodil.”
Jerry replied, “I reckon not. They were too young.” Then he turned his
car into the side road.
Harry, following, exclaimed, “What’s all this about a kidnapping? It
sounds interesting.”
Mary was glad to have something to talk about which could not possibly
suggest a compliment to her. She found it embarrassing to be so much
admired by a boy who was almost a stranger to her. She told the story
briefly, but from the beginning, and Harry was an appreciative listener.
“That’s a bang-up good mystery yarn!” he said. “I’d like mighty well to
be along when Jerry and Dick climb up into that rock house. Gruesome,
isn’t it, knowing that the old duffer buried himself alive? Clever,
that’s what he was, to make up a yarn about an Evil Eye Turquoise that
would keep thieves all these years away from his gold.”
The side road into the mountains was in worse condition than the one they
had left, and so, for some moments, Harry was silent that he might give
all his attention to guiding the car over an especially dangerous spot.
Then he turned and smiled at Mary. “And so _you_ had hoped that one of
those bandits who were captured last night _might_ have been Bodil’s
kidnapper. That would hardly be possible. Such things don’t happen in
real life and, also, as you say, the little girl may have been dragged
away to the lair of a mountain lion.”
Mary’s attention had been attracted by the car ahead. “Jerry’s stopping
again,” she said.
Harry put on the brakes. The cowboy had leaped out and was coming back
toward them. “I don’t believe we’d better try to go any further along
this road,” he told them. “Harry, if you will stay with the girls, Dick
and I will—”
“Hark, Big Brother, _what_ was that?” Mary held up a finger and listened
intently. On their left was a deep brush-tangled arroyo. They all heard
distinctly a low moan that seemed to form the word “Help.”
The boys looked at each other puzzled and wondering. Jerry’s hand slipped
instinctively to his holster and, finding it empty, he held out his hand
for Dick’s gun. Then he went cautiously to the rock-piled edge of the
arroyo. Dora asked, “Does Jerry think it’s one of the bandits, do you
suppose, who tried to get away and was hurt somehow?”
“Probably,” Dick replied. He leaped out to the road and Harry joined him.
They watched Jerry’s every move, ready to go to him if he beckoned.
Suddenly Mary screamed and Harry leaped back to her. They had heard the
report of a gun although Jerry had not fired.