FLORES
“I never want to hear even a baby’s rattle again,” sobbed Tavia, after
she and Dorothy were alone in their room at the ranch house. “Anything
from the rattle of a dry seed in a pod to a load of bricks being dumped
on a cement walk, will remind me of that dreadful snake.
“Why, I had a little stick in my hand, and I poked it into that crack
in the rock to see if there was anything there, and up darted that
rattler’s head!
“Oh, dear, me, Doro! if you hadn’t come as you did, I would have been
bitten all to pieces!”
“Nonsense!” laughed Dorothy. “A snake isn’t a bulldog. It wouldn’t have
chewed you up. But they _are_ dangerous.”
“Poisonous! And I didn’t have the strength to move, I was so
frightened. You’ve always helped me out of messes, Doro Doodlebug! but
this time you saved my life,” and Tavia seized her chum in her arms. “I
hope I’ll be able to do something _big_ for you some day to pay you up
a little, wee mite!”
“You poor child!” Dorothy said, tenderly. “Don’t talk such perfectly
nonsensical stuff. I did no more for you than you would have done for
me in like circumstances.”
“I know all about _that_,” said Tavia, wiping her eyes. “But you’d
never get into such a silly scrape, and so give me a chance. I _do_ get
into such perfect bunches of trouble, Doro. Life, for me, seems to be
just one silly scrape after another!”
By morning, however, Tavia had put the lesson of her adventure into the
background. There was so much to do and see on the ranch that she could
not really spend the time in thinking of a rattlesnake that was already
dead!
The four young folk rode hard with one of the Mexicans that day.
Dorothy and Tavia were rather shy of the long, wicked looking horns and
the tossing heads and flashing eyes of the cattle, so gave them a wide
berth. Ned and Nat began practising throwing the rope, and displayed a
deeper interest in the cattle business than the girls could possibly
feel.
Dorothy and Tavia thought the Mexican rather a villainous looking
fellow, too--not at all like the handsome José Morale, who had driven
them over from Dugonne, so after a while they rode back toward the home
corral, leaving Ned and Nat to go on to the second herd without them.
The girls had, by this time, no fear of the ponies they bestrode. Both
were well broken steeds without any vicious characteristics. As they
drew near the end of the first shed, Dorothy’s mount “side-stepped”
unexpectedly and the girl was almost thrown.
“Did you see it?” demanded Tavia, hastily.
“I didn’t see anything, but the pony evidently did,” laughed Dorothy,
fearlessly. “What was it, Tavia?”
“That Mexican girl popped right out from behind that shed, and then
popped back again. No wonder your pony jumped. She dresses like a
Fourth of July celebration. I never did see such gay colors combined in
a girl’s dress in all my life.”
“Flores, you mean?”
“Is that her name?” asked Tavia.
“So Mrs. Ledger told me,” said Dorothy. “Flores helps the foreman’s
wife. She is an orphan. Her parents died of smallpox in a squatter’s
cabin a few miles out in the desert, last year.”
“Goodness, Doro! how much you know about her already. Is she going to
be your next protégée?” demanded Tavia.
“Well,” confessed Dorothy, “I was interested in her at once. And do you
know why?”
“Just because you are always interested in everybody and everything,
Doro Doodlekins. I never did see such a girl,” repeated Tavia.
“Oh! I had a real reason,” rejoined Dorothy, laughing. “You see,
she is not as old as you and I, Tavia, yet I saw her talking very
confidentially with that Mexican driver, José.”
“Oh, _him_? Do you blame her?” chuckled Tavia. “What wonderfully white
teeth he has--and just a _love_ of a mustache!”
Dorothy made a little face at her. “You are incorrigible, Tavia,” she
groaned. “I am interested in Flores, not in that driver.”
“Well, you spoke of him,” insisted Tavia. “_I_ didn’t bring him--and
his mustache--into the conversation.”
“I wondered if Flores’ folks--if she had any--approved of her talking
with the man,” continued Dorothy, ignoring her chum’s flippancy. “And
what do you think?”
“She is going to run away with him like Molly Crater did with _her_
young man!” ejaculated the romantic Tavia.
“Do be sensible!” exclaimed Dorothy, with disgust. “Molly Crater is
nineteen--she was of age in this state. I wish you’d listen----”
“Officer! she’s in again!” interrupted Tavia. “See! that Mex. girl is
beckoning to you, Doro.”
“No! she can’t mean _me_?”
“I’m sure she isn’t after me,” said Tavia. “I’ve never said ten words
to her, for she can’t speak English. I found _that_ out.”
Flores had appeared again at the far corner of the long shed they were
passing. She _did_ gesture for Dorothy to come to her.
“I’m going!” declared Dorothy. “You take my pony on to the corral,
Tavia.”
She was out of the saddle as soon as she had spoken and tossed the
bridle-reins to her friend. Flores popped out of sight again, but
Dorothy followed her around the corner of the shed.
At this corner Dorothy saw the Mexican girl dodging around the next
corner, but quickly Flores led her to an empty shed and there turned,
waiting for her. All the sheds appeared to be empty, for the horse
wrangler had driven all the ponies out to pasture, and there was no
cattle here save a few calves bawling their heads off in a pen.
“You wish to talk to me?” asked Dorothy, puzzled, but smiling at the
younger girl.
“I no sp’ak mooch Inglese,” said Flores, softly. “You come?”
She seized Dorothy’s hand and drew her gently away. “Come where?” asked
the Eastern girl.
“Wiz me,” and Flores pointed to herself. “I no sp’ak, but I leeston.
You leeston, too.”
“Listen?”
Flores nodded her head vigorously. “They talk--you leeston.”
She still dragged at Dorothy’s hand. The fact that the Mexican girl
wished her to play eavesdropper did not at first enter Dorothy’s mind.
She went with Flores wonderingly.
Her guide led the way surely between the rows of sheds. Keeping well
away from the bunkhouse and paddock, where there were likely to be
loiterers, Flores skillfully chose a way in which Mrs. Ledger could not
possibly see them from her doorway.
When Colonel Hardin had really made cattle raising a business, there
were often ten thousand steers at the home corral, besides hundreds of
ponies. Corrals and sheds occupied several hundred acres.
With a finger on her lip, Flores looked back to see that the American
girl was following closely. Dorothy heard voices--men’s voices. At
first she did not recognize them.
The Mexican girl led her close behind a slab wall and silently pointed
to a crevice. At the moment there was not a sound beyond the wall, and
Dorothy tiptoed to it and peered through the crack.
There sat Hank Ledger, the foreman of the ranch, and Philo Marsh. Both
were smoking and they were evidently having an earnest conference.
Dorothy looked back at Flores questioningly, and the Mexican girl
nodded with emphasis. She had brought Dorothy here that the latter
might “leeston” to these two men. But Dorothy had no intention of doing
such a thing.
Of course, Flores knew no better. The puzzling fact that Flores wished
Dorothy to listen to Hank and Marsh was a secondary consideration in
the Glenwood girl’s mind in the first flush of her discovery. She
turned swiftly again to shake her head angrily at the girl, when Philo
Marsh spoke:
“Why, you know very well what will happen here, Hank. This woman is
just a plain fool. She’ll get to sticking her nose into everything,
and you’ll soon be hunting another job. And it won’t be at a hundred a
month, neither!
“You might as well pad your pocket a little against your fall. It’s
comin’ tuh yuh--and a good, hard bump it will be, too.”
“I dunno that,” growled Hank.
“Then you’re the only one around here who _don’t_ know it. It’s comin’
tuh yuh,” he repeated.
“I kalkerlate this Mrs. White is a mighty able lady,” said Hank, slowly.
“Pah!” sneered Philo Marsh. “She’s nawthin’ of the kind. And her
brother-in-law is all crippled up and can’t git out yere. Anyway, no
two ways about it, we’re goin’ to beat ’em. You better come in with us,
_pronto_. You don’t have to do nawthin’ but keep your mouth shut. We
want the water, and we’re goin’ to have it--that’s all.”
Before Philo Marsh had spoken a dozen words Dorothy had a change of
heart! The scoundrel’s coarse remark about Aunt Winnie was sufficient
to hold the girl at her post and fix her attention, and her anger and
interest both grew exceedingly as the talk between the two men
continued.
Just what Philo Marsh meant--why he should speak as he did--what
advantage he proposed to take of her father and Aunt Winnie--Dorothy
did not know. But she proposed to stay right there until she heard all
that they said upon the subject, hoping that such eavesdropping would
repay her--and believing that it was excusable in such a cause.