A NEW COMPLICATION
In the lumbering old police ambulance, the four young people returned to
Tombstone and found Harry Hulbert sitting in a rocker on the hotel porch
waiting for them. He ran toward them waving his cap boyishly. The
“Seagull” reposed in the middle of the square surrounded by interested
and curious cowboys who had ridden in from the range for the mail. Many
of them had come from far and had heard nothing of the “Seagull’s” part
in the recent raid.
“Where do we go from here?” Harry asked when he had learned of the
morning adventure.
“If you can take Mr. Goode’s small car,” Mary began, but Harry
interrupted with, “Can’t be done! They’re both out, one gone to Bisbee
and the other to Nogales.”
“Oh, Big Brother,” Mary exclaimed, “couldn’t Harry sit in the front side
door of your car? We girls used to ride that way at school sometimes.”
“Sure thing!” the cowboy agreed. “All aboard, let’s get going.”
Mary smiled up at him happily. “If the calf has been milking the cow all
this time, it—”
Jerry shook his head. “No such luck—for the calf. Mother can milk in an
emergency.”
The ride to Gleeson was a merry one. Harry sat, literally, at Mary’s
feet, looking up at her admiringly and directing his conversation to her
almost entirely. Jerry was very silent. No one but Dora noticed that.
When Gleeson was reached, the small car stopped in front of the store and
they all rushed in and astounded the old storekeeper with their exultant
shout, “We’ve found Little Bodil!”
“’Tain’t so!” He stared at them unbelievingly. “Arter all these years!
Wall, wall! I’ll be dum-blasted! So Little Bodil is one o’ them
nun-women.” While he talked, he went behind his counter, took an old
cigar box from a high shelf, opened it and held out an envelope, yellowed
with age. He handed it to Jerry. “Take it to Little Bodil. I’ll be cu’ros
to hear what all’s in it.”
“So are we, Mr. Harvey,” Mary began, then exclaimed contritely, “Oh, how
terrible of us. We haven’t introduced the hero of the hour. Mr. Silas
Harvey, this is the air scout who located the train robbers, Harry
Hulbert. He seems like an old friend to us, doesn’t he, Jerry?”
“Sure thing!” the cowboy replied, then glancing at the old dust-covered
clock, he quickly added, “Dick, I reckon I must be getting along over to
_Bar N_.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Harvey. Glad to have met you.” Harry shook hands with the
old man.
When they were outside the post office, the air scout turned to the
cowboy. “Jerry, can’t I be your letter carrier?” he asked. “While I was
waiting for you in Tombstone I enquired about the stage. I can get back
there in about an hour. Then I must fly to Tucson for a meeting at
headquarters tonight. I can motor out to the convent and be back here
tomorrow morning with the letter translated.”
“Sounds all right to me,” Jerry said.
“And during the hour that you have to wait for the stage,” Mary turned
brightly toward Harry, “you may become acquainted with the nicest dad in
the world.”
Forgetting the presence of the others, Harry replied, “Is _that_ why his
daughter is the nicest girl in the world?”
Mary flushed bewitchingly, but it was evident that she was embarrassed.
Jerry drove them up to the Moore house, waited while Dick bounded indoors
to speak to his mother, then they two rode away, promising to return as
soon as they could the next day.
Dora, who had been watching Jerry’s face, knew that he had been deeply
hurt, but she was sure he would not say anything to influence Mary. Dora
thought, “He wants her to choose the one of them who would make her
happier, I suppose. Believe me, it wouldn’t take _me_ long to decide.”
Mr. Moore had heard nothing of the robbery or the raid. Mrs. Farley had
not wished to cause him a moment’s anxiety about the safety of his
idolized daughter. She had told him that the girls were spending the
night with Mrs. Goode in Tombstone, and, since the wife of the Deputy
Sheriff had been a close friend of Mary’s mother, he had thought little
of it. Even now that it was all over, they decided to merely introduce
Harry as a friend of Patsy and Polly, who had come West to be attached to
the border patrol.
Mr. Moore welcomed the boy gladly, and, for half an hour, they talked
together of the East and the West. Mary and Dora slipped away and
returned with lemonade and a plate of Carmelita’s cookie-snaps.
Then the two girls walked down to the cross road with Harry and waited
until he climbed aboard the funny old ’bus and rode away.
He bent low over Mary at the last moment. Dora had not heard his
whispered words, but she knew by the sudden flush that they had been
complimentary.
Arm in arm they turned and walked back up the gently ascending hill-road
toward their home.
“How do you like the newcomer?” Dora tried to make her voice sound
indifferent.
Mary laughingly confessed, “I’d really like him lots better if he didn’t
flatter me so much.”
Dora replied, “I know how you feel. I’d heaps rather have a boy be just a
good pal. It makes a person feel, oh, as if she were the sort of a girl a
boy thought he had to make love to, or she wouldn’t be having a good
time. I’ve known steens of them, fine fellows really, who came over from
Wales Military to our dances. They thought the only way they could put it
over big was to flatter their partners. You know _that_ as well as I do.
Why, we Quadralettes have compared notes time and again and found the
same boy had said the same complimentary thing to all four of us.” Mary
made no reply, so Dora continued, “Dick and Jerry are the sort of boy
friends I like. They treat us as if we could be talked to about something
besides ourselves. I tell you, the girl who can win the love of Jerry
Newcomb is going to win one of the finest men who walks on this green
earth.”
Dora’s tone was so earnest that Mary laughed. “Goodness!” she teased.
“Why all this eloquence? There isn’t any green earth around here for
Jerry to walk on. It’s all sand.”
Suddenly Dora changed the subject. “Why do you suppose Little Bodil is
called Sister Theresa?” she asked.
Mary replied rather absently, “Oh, I think they give up their own and
choose a saint’s name. Anyhow, I’ve heard they do.”
It was evident she was thinking deeply of something else.
Her thoughtfulness continued until after supper.
“What a wonderful moonlight night!” Dora said as the two girls seated
themselves on the top step of the front porch to gaze out across the
shimmering desert valley, below the tableland on which they lived. “I
wish Jerry and Dick would come and take us for a ride.” Hardly had she
said the words when they saw a dark object scudding along on the valley
road.
“Somebody _is_ coming toward Gleeson from the _Bar N_ ranch way,” Mary
said, and Dora noted that her voice was eager, as though she wanted,
_very much wanted_, to see her silent cowboy lover.
For a long time they sat watching the narrow strip of cross road beyond
the post office. If the car turned, it would surely be coming to the
Moore place. If it passed, it would be going on to Tombstone probably. It
turned. More slowly it climbed the grade.
“It’s the little ‘tin Cayuse,’ all right,” Dora said. She was watching
the eager light in Mary’s face, lovely in the moonlight. Then, suddenly
its brightness was shadowed, went out. Dora saw the reason. On the front
seat with Jerry was another girl, a glowing-eyed, truly beautiful girl,
Etta Dooley. In the rumble with Dick were two freckle-faced boys, the
twins. Their ruddy faces were glowing with grins of delight. “Hurray!”
they shouted as the small car stopped near the front porch. “We’re out
moonlight riding.”
Dick quieted them, remembering that Mr. Moore might be asleep. Mary,
looking pale in the silver light, went down to the car and asked Etta if
she wouldn’t get out. “No, thank you,” that maiden replied, “I’ve left
Baby Bess with Aunt Mollie and we’ve been gone more than an hour now, I
do believe.”
“It hasn’t seemed that long, has it?” Jerry was actually looking at Etta
and not at Mary.
“Oh, indeed not!” was the happily given reply. “It’s a treat for the
twins and me to fly through space. Once upon a time I had a little car of
my own, but that seems _ages_ ago.”
This did not seem like the same Etta Dooley who had been so reserved when
the girls had called at her cabin home. _What_ had happened to change
her, Dora wondered.
When the car turned and the small boys, remembering to be quiet, had
nevertheless performed gleeful antics, Mary went up the steps and into
the house.
“I’m going to bed,” she said and her voice sounded tired.
Dora, wickedly pleased, could not let well enough alone. “I didn’t know
that Etta was so well acquainted as to call Jerry’s mother Aunt Mollie.”
She wisely did not add her next thought, “You’ll have to look to your
laurels, Mary-mine. Etta’s a mighty attractive girl and she simply loves
the _Bar N_ ranch.”
When Dora spoke again, it was on an entirely different subject. “Isn’t it
wonderful, Mary, to think that we’ve solved the mystery of Little Bodil
and that tomorrow, perhaps, the boys are going to defy that Evil Eye
Turquoise.”
“I suppose so,” Mary replied indifferently. Dora turned out the light and
with a shrug got into bed with her friend.