THE THREE HILLS
Betty saw an upheaval of sand, followed by a column of oil, heard a
shout of victory from the men, and then Clover, who had been
shivering with apprehension, snorted loudly, took the bit between her
teeth and began to run. MacDuffy, resting securely in the assurance
Betty had given that the horse would not be frightened, was occupied
with the men, and horse and rider were rapidly disappearing from
sight before he realized what had happened.
"Clover, Clover!" Betty put her arms around the maddened creature's
neck and spoke to her softly. "It's all right, dear. Don't be afraid.
I thought you had been brought up in an oil country, or I wouldn't
have let you stand where you could see the well."
But Clover's nerves had been sadly shaken, and she was not yet in a
state to listen to reason. Betty was now an excellent horsewoman, and
had no difficulty in remaining in the saddle. She did not try to pull
the horse in, rather suspecting that the animal had a hard mouth, but
let the reins lie loosely on her neck, speaking reassuringly from
time to time. Gradually Clover slackened her wild lope, dropped to a
gentle gallop, and then into a canter and from that to a walk.
"Well, now, you silly horse, I hope you feel that you're far enough
from danger," said Betty conversationally. "I'm sure I haven't the
slightest idea where we are. Bob and I have never ridden this far,
and from the looks of the country I don't think it is what the
geographies call 'densely populated'. Mercy, what a lonesome place!"
Clover had gone contentedly to cropping grass, and that reminded
Betty that she was hungry.
Far away she saw the outlines of oil derricks, but the horse seemed
to have taken her out of the immediate vicinity of the oil fields.
Not a house was in sight, not a moving person or animal. The
stillness was unbroken save for the hoarse call of a single bird
flying overhead.
Suddenly Betty's eyes widened in astonishment. She jerked up Clover's
head so sharply that that pampered pet shook it angrily. Why should
she be treated like that?
"The three hills!" gasped Betty. "Grandma Watterby's three hills!
'Joined together like hands' she always says, and right back of the
Saunders' house. Clover! do you suppose we've found the three hills
and Bob's aunts?"
Clover had no opinion to offer. She had been rudely torn from her
enjoyment of the herbage, and she resented that plainly. Betty,
however, was too excited to consider the subject of lunch, even
though a moment before she had been very hungry.
She turned the horse's head toward the three hills, and with every
step that brought her nearer the conviction grew that she had found
the Saunders' place. To be sure, she had seen nothing of a house as
yet, but, like the name of Saunders, three hills were not a common
phenomenon in Oklahoma, at least not within riding distance of the
oil fields.
"It's an awful long way," sighed Betty, when after half an hour's
riding, the hills seemed as far away as before. "I suppose the air is
so clear that they seemed nearer than they are. And I guess we came
the long way around. There must be a road from the Watterby farm that
cuts off some of the distance."
Betty did not worry about what Bob or the men at the wells might
be thinking. They knew her for a good rider, and Clover for a
comparatively easily managed horse. No one in the West considers a
good gallop anything serious, even when it assumes the proportions of
a runaway. Betty was sure that they would expect her to ride back
when Clover had had her run, and, barring a misstep, no harm would be
likely to befall the rider.
After a full hour and a half of steady going, the three hills
obligingly moved perceptibly nearer. Betty could see the ribbon of
road that lay at their base, and the outline of a rambling farmhouse.
"Grandma Watterby said the hills were right back of the house!"
repeated Betty ecstatically. "Oh, I'm sure this must be the place. If
only Bob had come with me!"
She laughed a little at the notion of such an accommodating runaway,
and then pulled Clover up short as they came to a rickety fence that
apparently marked the boundary line of a field.
"We go straight across this field to the road, I think," said Betty
aloud. "I don't believe there is anything planted. Clover, can you
jump that fence?"
The fence was not very high, and at the word Clover gracefully
cleared it. The field was a tangled mass of corn stubble and weeds,
and a good farmer would have known that it had not been under
cultivation that year. At the further side Betty found a pair of
bars, and, taking these down, found herself in a narrow, deserted
road, facing a lonely farmhouse.
The house was set back several yards from the road and even to the
casual observer presented a melancholy picture. The paint was peeling
from the clapboards, leaders were hanging in rusty shreds, and the
fence post to which Betty tied her horse was rotten and worm-eaten.
"My goodness, I'm afraid the aunts are awfully poor," sighed Betty,
who had cherished a dream that Bob might find his relatives rich and
ready to help him toward the education he so ardently desired. "Even
Bramble Farm didn't look as bad as this."
She went up the weedy path to the house, and then for the first time
noticed that all the shades were drawn and the doors and windows
closed. It was a warm day and there was every reason for having all
the fresh air that could be obtained.
"They must be away from home!" thought Betty. "Or--doesn't anybody
live here?"
A cackle from the hen yard answered her question and put her mind at
ease. Where there were chickens, there would be people as a matter of
course. They might have gone away to spend the day.
"I'll take Clover out to the barn and give her a drink of water,"
decided Betty. "No one would mind that. Grandma Watterby says a
farmer's barn is always open to his neighbor's stock."
So, Clover's bridle over her arm, Betty proceeded out to the
barnyard.
"Why--how funny!" she gasped.
The unearthly stillness which had reigned was broken at her approach
by the neighing of a horse, and at the sound the chickens began to
beat madly against the wire fencing of their yard, cows set up a
bellowing, and a wild grunting came from the pig-pen.
Betty hurried to the barn. Three cows in their stanchions turned
imploring eyes on her, and a couple of old horses neighed loudly.
Something prompted Betty to look in the feed boxes. They were empty.
"I believe they're hungry!" she exclaimed. "Clover, I don't believe
they've been fed or watered for several days! They wouldn't act like
this if they had."
There wasn't a drop of water anywhere in or about the barn, and a
hasty investigation of the pig troughs and the drinking vessels in
the chicken yard showed the same state of affairs.
"I don't know how much to feed you," Betty told the suffering animals
compassionately, "but at any rate I know _what_ to feed you. And you
shall have some water as fast as I can pump it."
She was thankful for the weeks spent at Bramble Farm as she set about
her heavy tasks. She was tired from her long ride and the excitement
of the morning, but it never entered her head to go away and leave
the neglected farm stock. There was no other house within sight where
she could go for help, and if the animals were fed and watered that
day it was evidently up to her to do it.
She worked valiantly, heaping the horses' mangers with hay, carrying
cornstalks to the cows and feeding the ravenous pigs and chickens
corn on the cob, for there was no time to run the sheller. She had
some difficulty in discovering the supplies, and then, when all were
served, she discovered that not one of the animals had touched the
food.
"Too thirsty," she commented wisely.
Watering them was hard, tiresome work, for one big tub in the center
of the yard evidently served the whole barn. When she had pumped that
full--and how her arms ached!--she led the horses out, and after
them, the cows. She was afraid to let either horses or cows have all
they wanted, and jerking them back to their stalls before they had
finished was not easy. She carried pailful after pailful of water to
the pigs and the chickens and it was late in the afternoon before she
had the satisfaction of knowing that every animal, if not content,
was much more comfortable than before her arrival.
"Now I think I've earned something to eat!" she confided to Clover,
when, hot and tired and flushed with the heat, she had filled the
last chicken yard pan. "And I'm going up to the house and help myself
from the pantry. I'm 'most sure the kitchen door is unlocked; no one
around here ever locks the back door."
She was very hungry by this time, having had nothing since an early
breakfast, and she had no scruples about helping herself to whatever
edibles she might find.
"I begin to sympathize with all the hired men," she thought, making
her way to the kitchen door. "I don't wonder they eat huge meals when
they have to do such hard work."
The door, as she had expected, was not locked. A slight turn on the
knob opened it easily, and Betty stepped cautiously into the kitchen.
The drawn shades made it dark, but it was not the darkness that
caused Betty to jump back a step.
She listened intently. Would she hear the noise again, or had it been
only her nervous imagination?
No--there it was again, plain and unmistakable. Some one had groaned!