THE CHASE
“I tell you they’ve run away with her! Whatever shall we do?”
Tavia was quite familiar in her excitement. She had seized Lance
Petterby’s free hand and shook it with emphasis. But even at this
tragic moment Dorothy noticed the way the cowpuncher looked down at her
chum, and she was sorry that Tavia was not more dignified.
“Jerusha Juniper! do yuh mean it?” Lance said.
“We saw them riding away,” declared Tavia. “You _didn’t_ find your
aunt, did you, Doro?”
“She’s gone,” admitted Dorothy, feeling a little ill and faint.
“Jerusha Juniper! yuh don’t mean it?” repeated Lance. “’Tain’t possible
that she’s been run off against her will?”
“It’s that awful Philo Marsh,” said Tavia. “You don’t understand.
She had promised to sign the papers for him this morning, and then
she heard something, so she wouldn’t. He was here with a man named
Biggs----”
“I know the scamp,” growled Lance.
“Well! they were just as _mad_!” pursued Tavia.
“So Philo has shown his hand, has he?” said Lance Petterby, slowly.
“The ornery cur! I come over here to tell yuh aunt more thet I heard
last night. Philo’s been workin’ for the mining company all the time.”
“Don’t stop here talking!” urged Tavia. “We must go after them. Doro
and I will get our ponies.”
“Ain’t Hank here?” demanded Lance.
“Mr. Ledger has gone to see about something at the other end of the
range,” Dorothy said, in answer to this question.
“But there’s some of the Greasers here--and them boys?”
“Oh, yes!” cried Dorothy, and she told him where they were at work down
in the branding pen.
“We’d better go,” admitted the cowboy. “I understand there is going to
be something doing up in the hills this very day.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Lance?” cried Dorothy.
“Them minin’ people have got a gang to put in a few dynamite ca’tridges
where they’ll do the most good--for _them_. They intend to blow out
enough rock at the head of that gorge you seen the surveyors working
in, to drain the current of Lost River out of its bed.”
“Oh! the wicked things!” gasped Tavia.
“You don’t mean it?” was Dorothy’s comment.
“So it was give to me, Miss Dale,” said Lance. “Them surveyors was
workin’ for the Consolidated Ackron Company. I got it from the feller
that kerried the chain.”
“We saw him,” interrupted Tavia. “A bushy whiskered man.”
“Gil Patrick. That’s him,” said Lance, with emphasis. “When I got the
straight tip I reckoned you folks oughter know it. For once let them
mining people turn the river their way (they kin get it to their works
a sight easier than the Desert City folks kin handle it) and yuh aunt
would have a stiff fight on her hands in the courts. Possession is all
of nine p’ints of the law--specially in water-rights,” added Lance,
nodding vigorously.
“They must be very wicked men,” said Dorothy, “to wish to rob the poor
farmers down there in the desert of water. And they will be robbing us,
too.”
“I expect they’ll settle at a fair price--only yuh aunt won’t git Lost
River back intuh its banks--no, sir!”
[Illustration: THEY KEPT UP WITH THE WILD RIDING MEXICANS. _Dorothy Dale
in the West Page 223_]
“It must not be,” declared Dorothy Dale, vigorously. “And if they have
made auntie ride over to that place with them----”
“They have kidnapped her, I tell you!” cried Tavia, her excitement
growing.
“I kyan’t believe it, gals,” said Lance Petterby. “But I’ll rout out
yuh hands.”
“And we’ll get our ponies. Come, Doro,” added Tavia, starting on a run
for the horse corral.
“Sorry Hank ain’t here,” said Lance, as he gave Gaby the rein. “But
I’ll git the hull bunch yuh say is down there to the brandin’ pen.”
“Oh, come on, Doro! Come on!” shouted Tavia, over her shoulder. “We
must go with them. It will be a regular cowboy chase--just like we see
in the movies.”
“Oh, Tavia! do be sensible.”
“How can I be? Your auntie is kidnapped. They’ll try to make her sign
the paper----”
Somehow Dorothy felt that this sounded awfully melodramatic. And Tavia
was bubbling over with excitement. It did not seem to Dorothy as though
Aunt Winnie could really have been carried off by a band of outlaws in
the employ of the big mining corporation. It “didn’t sound sensible.”
But the story that men in the employ of the corporation were to blow
out the bank of the river and turn the water into a new channel toward
the north, instead of toward the south, impressed the girl as being
eminently practical. And this dastardly scheme must be stopped.
Flores was not on hand to help the girls catch and saddle their ponies,
but by this time Dorothy and Tavia had made such friends and pets of
their mounts that the ponies trotted right up to the corral gate the
moment they saw the girls.
“Hurry! hurry!” gasped Tavia, pulling up the cinch with trembling
fingers. “_Do_ stand still Baby! I am so excited--Doro! isn’t it
romantic----”
“Stop!” commanded her friend. “You’ve worked that phrase to death,
Tavia Travers, since you started West. If you say it again before
Auntie is found I’ll--I’ll spank you.”
Lance came sweeping up from the distant corral as soon as the girls
were ready, bringing with him Ned and Nat White and all the Mexicans on
the job. There was one fellow missing who should have been there. That
was the man who had carried the message to Dugonne the night before for
Mrs. White.
But the pursuing party knew nothing of his treachery at this time. It
was merely remarked by the boys that the fellow had slipped away from
the work at the branding pen just before the girls themselves started
back to the ranch-house.
Naturally Ned and Nat were quite as excited over the report of their
mother’s disappearance as Tavia herself had been. The girls pointed out
the way in which the cavalcade they had seen disappeared, and without
going near the big house again the party, all mounted on fresh ponies,
drove straight away across the range toward the hills.
“We ain’t goin’ tuh do no trailin’,” said Lance, as they started. “We
kin pretty nigh guess whar they air aimin’ for. That’s the place where
they mean to blow up the river bank, and we’ll take a crow-line for it.”
There was not much said after they started--not for the first ten
miles, at least. The horses were eager, the Mexicans excited, Lance
grim, and Ned and Nat both mad and worried. Tavia was really the only
rider who thoroughly enjoyed the race.
Her eyes were brighter than ever; her hair was flying; she was hatless,
of course; and altogether she appeared to be in the spirit of the chase.
Up hill and down they dashed, the tireless ponies skimming the ground,
it seemed. Had the girls not been in the saddle so much during the
weeks they had been at Hardin, they certainly would have been shaken
off the ponies’ backs now.
But their mounts were sound and eager, and they kept up with the wild
riding Mexicans. There was no yelling, or whooping, as they rode;
nevertheless the whole cavalcade was in earnest.
Dorothy was very anxious. She could not really believe that Aunt Winnie
had been carried off against her will by Philo Marsh and his crew, yet
she could not understand why the lady should have gone of her own free
will, either! She surely would have let the girls know before starting.
And she was not even riding one of the Hardin horses.
Ned and Nat threatened condign punishment for Philo Marsh when they
caught him. When the pursuers overtook the party ahead there was likely
to be trouble, and that thought increased Dorothy Dale’s anxiety.
On and on they rode, perhaps not following the same trail as the party
which they pursued; but they were going quite as directly into the
hills (and to the head of that gorge where the girls had seen the
surveyors at work) as were Philo Marsh and his companions. Indeed, the
Mexicans with Dorothy knew the way more definitely; so the pursuers
might arrive at the goal first.