AT THE RANCH HOUSE
“I thought I was in an airship!” Tavia declared.
That was after the excitement was all over, however. At the moment the
mustangs started, all she did was to scream!
The four half-wild little beasts leaped forward with one accord when
the frightened pullet flew squawking over them. The coach lurched
horribly; but the wheels remained in the ruts.
Old John Dempsey held the ribbons, and held them firmly; but he was
not on the driver’s side of the seat. There was both a foot-break and
a half-lever-break; but he was unable to reach either. And in his old
arms was no longer the strength to pull the beasts in.
Ned and Nat were shut off from the front seat by their mother and the
two girls. Tavia, beside screaming, seized the railing of the seat.
Aunt Winnie clung to her, and would have seized Dorothy as well, but
the latter flung off her aunt’s hand and plunged over the back of the
driver’s seat.
Frightened as she was, brave Dorothy knew that it was her chance, and
her chance only. As the mustangs gathered their feet under them and
whipped the tottering old coach up the side of the arroyo, Dorothy slid
into the place the Mexican had deserted.
Fortunately she had watched him manipulate the brakes. And the mustangs
had the drag of the coach behind them going up hill. Going down it
might have been a very different story. True it was, that when the
panting, straining horses came out upon the level at the top of the
rise, they were glad to stop to breathe. With Dorothy giving them the
brakes and the old Grand Army Veteran on the lines, the four rascals
were glad to stop.
Up came José Morale, having left the excited old lady, and the excited
hen, at the bottom of the hill. What he said in his own language to the
horses was a plenty! But in the next breath he praised Dorothy for her
pluck in most extravagant terms.
As for that matter, they all praised her; but Dorothy would not listen.
“Somebody had to do it--why not me?” she demanded. “Now, Ned and Nat,
you run back there and help Mrs. Petterby catch that hen, and then
bring them both on. We’ll wait here for you.”
It was then that Tavia had a slight attack of hysterics. “That hen will
be the death of me! she will! she will!” gasped the girl. “Did you ever
hear of anything so ridiculous in all your life?”
“Now, don’t laugh and make Mrs. Petterby feel as though you were
laughing at her,” admonished Dorothy.
“But if we take her to ride with us, and Ophelia lays an egg in this
stage, and the egg hatches out a chicken,” gasped Tavia, “that chicken
will be a nervous wreck from the start. At least, it will be afflicted
with St. Vitus Dance.”
“Do be reasonable!” exclaimed Dorothy. “There! the boys have caught
Ophelia.” She was standing up on the stage roof, looking back at the
little group below. Suddenly a man on pony-back appeared over the last
rise the coach had crossed, and headed down into the hollow.
“Who’s that coming?” demanded Tavia, from whose bright eyes little
escaped.
“Why--why----”
“It’s our knight of the lariat!” exclaimed Tavia, excitedly. “It’s Mr.
Lance.”
“I believe you are right. That is Gaby he is riding.”
“Of course it is Gaby,” said Tavia. “_Now_ we can introduce him to your
aunt. And oh! Mrs. White! he is just the loveliest thing!”
“How recklessly you talk about the young men, Octavia,” said Mrs.
White. “I believe he was very kind to you girls, however. I shall be
glad to thank him.”
Ned was helping Mrs. Petterby along on his arm, while Nat carried the
basket, with Ophelia safely fastened within, when Lance overtook them.
The cowboy raised his hat in salute and would have ridden on, but Mrs.
Petterby suddenly manifested much excitement. She screamed aloud and
even Dorothy, on top of the hill, heard her:
“Lance Petterby! for the good land’s sake! if it ain’t my baby!”
The cowboy swung in his saddle, pulled the pony up short, and instantly
leaped to the ground.
“Jerusha Juniper!” he yelled. “MOTHER!”
The little old lady ran straight into his arms. The big cowpuncher
caught her up and hugged her tightly. Even at that distance Dorothy
could see the surprise and delight depicted upon his countenance.
“And we never dreamed,” murmured Tavia, “that ‘Lance’ was his _first_
name.”
“She has found him; isn’t it delightful?” cried Dorothy, and she
insisted upon climbing down and running to meet the little old lady
from Rand’s Falls, Massachusetts, and her stalwart son.
“Mr. Lance!” she cried, “I am so delighted to see you. And to think
we know your mother, and were just about to give her a ride when those
horrid ponies ran away!”
“Jerusha Juniper, Miss!” said the cowboy. “However this old lady got
clean out yere, I dunno. But maybe I ain’t glad to see her!”
He caught her up again in his arms, and Mrs. Petterby laughed and
flushed like a girl. “Stop your silliness, Lance Petterby,” she
ordered. “Set me down. Miss Dale will think ye ain’t got the sense ye
was born with. And don’t let that boy drop Ophelia.”
It took some minutes to explain to the cowboy the present
situation--and especially how his mother came to be on this lonely
trail, afoot.
It seemed that he was often at the squatter--Nicholson’s--house and
that was why people in Dugonne had advised Mrs. Petterby to look for
Lance there.
They got the old lady into the coach and seated her with the chicken’s
basket in her lap, and Mrs. White elected to get down and ride with
her. The mustangs started on; Lance Petterby rode beside the stage.
Dorothy noticed that the cowboy kept close to Tavia’s side.
Tavia was talking “nineteen to the dozen,” as Nat disgustedly said;
“and the use she’s making of her eyes is a shame!” he added, in an
aside, to Dorothy. But Dorothy could not stop her chum. The reckless
girl had “taken the bit in her teeth.”
Lance was fairly bowled over by the batteries of Tavia’s speech and
glances. After all, to the unsophisticated cowboy, Tavia was quite a
grown-up young lady. Dorothy knew that if he lost his head it would not
be his fault, but her chum’s.
“I’m ashamed of you, Tavia Travers,” she whispered, fiercely, in the
black-eyed girl’s ear. “How dare you? If Aunt Winnie was up here with
us now she’d put a stop to this, young lady.”
“Oh, Doro! you’re just killing!” cried Tavia, wickedly, and giggled,
and bridled, just as though her friend had said something very funny to
her. After that Dorothy held her peace grimly.
She was glad that Lance was going no further with them than Nicholson’s
place. There he and Mrs. Petterby were to stay for a day or two before
going on to the headquarters of the Double Chain Outfit, where Lance
worked.
Mrs. White invited them both to come over to Hardin’s, where she
decided that she and the young folk would remain for six weeks, at
least. She was especially gracious to Lance, and thanked him again for
his kindness to the two girls when they had been left behind by the
train; she might not have asked him so cordially to visit Hardin’s had
she known how Tavia had been acting.
“We sartain sure’ll come to see ye,” Mrs. Petterby said, briskly,
“pervidin’ Lance kin find something a mite more steady for me to ride
in. I shall want to see ye all again before I start back East.”
“Oh, yuh won’t want tuh start back yet awhile, mother,” drawled Lance.
“I dunno,” said Mrs. Petterby. “I ain’t seen nothin’ yet in Colorado
the ekal of Rand’s Falls, Massachusetts.”
“We’ll fix _that_,” grunted Lance, waving his hat again, as the old
coach lumbered away along the track.
The sun was sinking when the now wearied mustangs drew the coach up
the round flank of the hill on which the Hardin ranch house was set.
Like most dwellings in the cattle country, the house was sprawling, one
story only in height, and rather picturesque.
“I just love the look of it,” Dorothy declared, standing up to see it
better. “Don’t you, Tavia?”
“I would if I could think of the scene long enough,” admitted her chum.
“But, oh, me! oh, my! I am wondering if there will be anything in the
line of supper forthcoming? I’m so hungry it takes my mind off the
scenery.”
“How ridiculous! of course there will be something to eat.”
“But will there be enough?” cried Tavia.
Mrs. White assured her there would be supper. The lawyers at Dugonne
had told her that there were Colonel Hardin’s foreman and his family on
the place, as well as several herdsmen.
Dorothy continued to gaze wonderingly at the rolling green and brown
pastures, wire-fenced and evidently carefully kept up, rising in
high terraces from beyond the ranch house into the wooded and rugged
foothills to the west.
“I expect,” said Aunt Winnie, “up in that rugged country yonder lies
the wonderful Lost River they tell me about--the water supply. It may
increase the value of the great estate enormously, as the lawyers say,
but I fear it is going to make me a lot of trouble.”
“Do you think so, Aunt Winnie?” asked Dorothy, earnestly.
“Yes. I spoke of the matter to Mr. Jermyn, and he advised me to go
slowly. There are other people after the water beside Desert City and
some farmers to whom Colonel Hardin promised it.”
“Who else?”
“Some big mining syndicate.”
“That must be the Consolidated Ackron Company,” Ned broke in. “But what
do _they_ want of water?”
“Hydraulic mining, I understand,” said his mother. “It would greatly
cheapen their process of extracting gold from the soil. I do not
understand much about it, I must admit.”
“Maybe the mining syndicate would give you more for the water than the
desert people?” suggested Nat.
“That would make no difference to us,” said his mother, firmly. “If
Colonel Hardin promised Desert City and the farmers, that Lost River
would flow south, south it shall flow, if they keep their part of the
bargain, and the thing can be done.”
“But,” cried Dorothy, “can it be made to flow either way? How
wonderful! It must have a natural channel, mustn’t it?”
“So I suppose,” replied Aunt Winnie. “There seems to be more to the
matter than we know about--yet. Mr. Philo Marsh gave us very few
particulars.”
“I am sure that _he_ is not a very trustworthy informant,” declared
Dorothy, obstinately, to Tavia. “We must watch Mr. Philo Marsh.”
“And you objected before because I just looked at him!” breathed Tavia,
making very big eyes at her chum.
While they were indulging in these surmises the rattling old stagecoach
had been mounting the rise toward the Hardin ranch-house. Finally José
shouted to the mustangs again and they sprang forward in what Nat
called “a grandstand finish,” stopping with a flourish before the
front of the house.
There was nobody on the wide veranda to greet them, but beyond was a
group of less important buildings, and from these came running several
people.
First came Hank Ledger, the foreman of the ranch, to whom Mrs. White
had a letter of introduction from the lawyers. With him was his wife--a
handsome, buxom woman, who came with floury arms and an apron on, being
in the midst of preparations for supper for her husband and the hands.
Two Mexicans appeared, too, who greeted José Morale, the stage driver,
in his own language. Last of all came a very pretty, dark and rosy
girl, younger than Dorothy and Tavia in years, yet with something
indefinably “grown-up” about her. The girl cast alternately shy looks
at the visitors and at José Morale, with whom, later, Dorothy saw her
talking very intimately in a secluded corner.
Just then, however, Dorothy was more interested in seeing the interior
of the ranch-house that was to be their home for the next few weeks.
The door was open and with Tavia she entered, while Mrs. White talked
with Mr. and Mrs. Ledger on the veranda.