NEW FRIENDS
A chorus of exclamations arose when the others rode up.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed Dick. “Say! Maybe this isn’t some surprise.”
“Well, I like that,” cried Tom, fiercely.
“I don’t,” said Don, with decided frankness.
“We’ll just dash right down and see what it all means. Come on,
fellows.”
The impetuous Tom, quite as indignant as though the ranch-house were
his own private property, was about to act upon his own suggestion,
when Don hastily voiced an emphatic protest.
“Wait--hold on!” he cried.
Don had been thinking about Jim Raulings’ revelation regarding
the cattle rustlers. Was it safe, he demanded, to rush heedlessly
ahead, not knowing who might be there to confront them? Suppose, for
instance, they should belong to a band such as the Texas Rangers had
described--what then?
“Oh, pshaw!” scoffed Cranny, his eyes sparkling with interest. “It’s
no use to call for the police. I’ll bet there isn’t one due on this
beat for another moon. Besides we’re seven--all armed---- That for the
cattle rustlers!” He snapped his fingers.
“Let ’er rip!” cried Tom.
And then Don saw the others flash away from his side and go swinging
down the gentle incline. With a feeling of apprehension the lad slowly
followed.
The moonlight falling across the dusky figures of the horsemen who
had drawn rein before the windows produced a decidedly picturesque
effect. Long greenish shadows straggled over the grass, details merged
themselves together, though glinting lights on spurs and horses’
trappings occasionally shot forth from the half obscurity with singular
clearness.
“Hello there; inside the house!” yelled Tom.
Almost instantly the broad, yellow spaces of light behind the windows
were broken. Two figures flashed against it. Then the highly expectant
crowd heard the creaking of the heavy window-frame as it was slowly
raised.
“Hello! Who are you?” demanded a loud clear voice. The speaker leaning
far out of the window gazed upon them earnestly.
“The question is--who are you?” called back Tom. “That’s our house.”
“Ah, indeed! Then, in that case, you may come in.”
Don Stratton’s visions of cattle rustlers and desperados immediately
vanished. Surely the tones of that voice, a hearty, musical one, had
nothing in them suggestive of the characters he had so vividly pictured
in his mind.
Joining in the ripple of laughter which the man’s response had caused,
he, like the others, tied his pony to a hitching-post, and right behind
them bounded up the steps.
At the entrance the mysterious visitors looming up in the doorway faced
the crowd.
“Thunderation! What a big bunch it is!” cried one, evidently the
younger. “I say---- Great Cæsar, Professor! Am I right--nothing but a
lot of boys?”
“Boys!” echoed Tom, stiffly. “We’re----”
“All explanations inside, if you please,” interrupted the man who
had spoken to them from the window. “Parry,” he slapped his companion
good-naturedly on the shoulder, “in spite of all my traveling, I’m not
over the faculty of being surprised. Well, well--I am again!”
“And so were we,” remarked Tom, rather grimly.
They followed the men into the dining-room, where the rays from a
couple of lanterns resting on the table revealed their faces clearly.
The taller and elder of the two appeared to be a man of about
forty-five. And though his face was bronzed by exposure to the
elements, a dark, pointed beard and eye-glasses served to give him an
air quite in accord with the title of “professor.”
The most conspicuous features about the other, evidently but a few
years older than the lads, at whom he stared with a mingled look
of wonder and amusement, were a pair of clear blue eyes, and dark,
chestnut hair.
“Now, fire away, fellows!” he began easily.
“Yes, do! Really this is a most welcome surprise,” interjected the
other. Then, dropping his bantering tone for one of seriousness, he
added, “But do kindly assuage my feeling of overwhelming curiosity. How
does it happen that a crowd of boys----”
“Oh, yes; we know just what you’re going to ask,” Tom’s voice had a
weary note in it--“that kind of question has been often tossed to us
before. But I think, sir----”
“Quite right,” replied the man, smilingly. “Our explanations should
come first. Besides, we owe you an apology for so unceremoniously
entering your house.”
All this, spoken in a jovial tone, had the effect of prepossessing the
crowd in the visitors’ favor.
“My name is Horatio Kent,” he explained. “And I am a lecturer. Every
year I deliver a series of travelogues in the large Eastern cities,
which are illustrated by motion-pictures.”
“What a great job!” cried Cranny.
“It has its advantages. This is my assistant--an expert motion-picture
photographer.”
“Glad to meet you, I’m sure,” grinned Parry. “At present we are
traveling rather unconventionally on horseback, with a little burro to
help us carry our stuff. Passing this old ranch, about sundown, en
route to the town yonder,” he waved his hand toward the south, “and,
being rather weary, after a long day in the saddle, the idea struck us
that we might stop here for the night. The door wasn’t fastened, you
know. Our horses are back there in the stable.”
“You’re most welcome, I’m sure,” declared Bob, heartily.
“Thanks.”
“And say, maybe we weren’t surprised when all these evidences of
civilization struck our eyes,” laughed Parry. “Both the professor and
I thought somebody would be moseying along pretty soon, but we never
expected----”
“Of course you didn’t,” broke in Tom, a bit scornfully. “Nobody ever
does. The idea--a pack of kids out on the plains at this time of night;
why---- Sir”--he swung around to face the older man who had addressed
him--“shall I tell you who we are, and where we come from?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sit down, fellows,” grinned Dave; “here’s where the history of the
Rambler Club is wound off once more.”
Dave was quite right. Tom’s lips lost their sarcastic droop as he
plunged ahead, and, for fully half an hour, his deep-toned voice held
almost undisputed sway. At the last, pleased with the exclamation of
surprise, and the brief comments which occasionally punctuated his
words, he drew from his breast pocket a well-bethumbed copy of “The
Kingswood High School Reflector.” “That’s published in our home town,”
he explained loftily. “There’s an account in it, too, of some of the
adventures of the club written by Dave Brandon, our historian.”
“Parry, how dreadful it would have been if we had missed all this!”
laughed the lecturer, glancing over the sheet, which Tom placed in his
hand. “Dear me, I’m glad I never lost the faculty of being surprised.”
“I’ll never get over this,” chuckled Parry. “You’ll have to put this
crowd into your next lecture, Professor. Now you chaps will get some
fame!”
“We’re pretty well known already,” remarked Tom, modestly.
Now the boys began to ask a few questions themselves, and the lecturer,
in the clear, resonant tones of one long accustomed to speak on the
public platform, obliged. Rapidly he told them something about the
various countries they had visited in quest of material for his work,
ending up with the explanation that this year he had decided to make an
exploration of Mexico, and on his way to that country study conditions
along the Texas border.
“I think some of our people in the East would like to have visualized
scenes and incidents connected with the work of the United States
soldiers who are patrolling this section,” he said. “I expect also to
get some pictures of a more stirring nature on the other side of the
Rio.”
“What!” cried Cranny, his eyes opening wide with astonishment, “the
scrappin’, you mean?”
“To be sure; why not? The lecturer and motion-picture photographer are
attended by risks of many sorts. Our comfortably-seated audiences,
while viewing pictures of lands taken in various quarters of the
globe, and of wild and ferocious animals prowling about their native
haunts, probably seldom realize the dangers and hardships which are
encountered by the men who have traveled thousands of miles to get
them.”
“They don’t indeed!” agreed George Parry.
“I shouldn’t care to tackle that job in Mexico,” commented Sam Randall,
reflectively.
“Nor I, either,” confirmed Don.
“Count me out of such adventurous proceedings, too,” said Dave.
“And I’m right in for ’em!” exclaimed Cranny, so emphatically that the
two men looked at him with a smile. “I say--are you goin’ across the
Rio pretty soon?”
“Very shortly,” replied the lecturer. He shifted his position on the
rough, wooden bench, and the glow from the lanterns falling across
his bronzed features with picturesque effect revealed a thoughtful
look in his eyes. “Judging from what has been told to us on the way,”
he continued slowly, “that little Mexican town over yonder and its
surroundings will be the theater of some exciting events before many
days have passed.”
“And if it does turn out that way, we ought to get some bully films,”
remarked the photographer.
There was no room in Cranny Beaumont’s mind just now for troublesome
thoughts of the future.
“I’m mighty glad these chaps happened along,” he reflected. “It’ll make
it easier for me to skip across into old Mexico; and, by Jove, maybe
I’ll go with ’em.”
The unusual meeting of the two parties at the old ranch-house proved to
be a most pleasant one for all concerned. They talked so many hours,
too, that by the time it was decided to turn in, the stout historian
sat dozing in a corner.
He complained energetically at being disturbed, but Tom and Dick
cruelly hustled him, sleepy-eyed and yawning, to his feet.
“We have to stable our ponies, you know,” Dick reminded him.
“And get up mighty early in the morning,” chimed in Tom. “We don’t want
to miss that trip with the Texas Rangers.”
“The Texas Rangers?” queried Professor Kent.
“Yes, sir,” answered Cranny. Then in a few words he explained about
their plans for the following day.
“I wonder if they’d object to our accompanying the expedition?” mused
the lecturer. “I declare, Parry”--he turned to his assistant--“it would
suit me capitally.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Parry.
“The Rangers will be glad to have you, I’m sure,” declared Bob,
confidently.
“Good. Anyway, a word in our favor from the Ramblers ought to have
great weight with them,” laughed the other.
Within another half hour the crowd had attended to their mustangs,
besides examining those of the visitors, which, together with a sturdy
little burro, they found very interesting. Then each took a hasty look
at the motion-picture cameras and other paraphernalia necessary to the
travelers’ profession.
“Oh, my! Don’t I wish I could lecture,” sighed Cranny. Disturbing
thoughts concerning that bothersome subject--his future--flashed into
his mind once more, but Tom’s loud, gruff remark: “Step along lively,
fellows! We ought to be hitting those balsam boughs--the Rangers, you
know!” drove them away on the instant.
“Don’t worry, Tom, we won’t miss ’em,” he gurgled.
On their way to the house the group stopped for a few moments to study
the calm and poetic aspect of nature. The far-off hills on the Mexican
shores rose faintly against a bluish-green sky unflecked with clouds,
while the tall grasses of the prairie, still waving and tossing under
the influence of a gusty breeze, were edged with delicate touches of
silvery light.
“Glorious!” pronounced Dave.
“And yet only a few miles away, perhaps amid just such another peaceful
scene, rival armies are encamped ready to hurl themselves upon each
other at the first opportunity,” remarked the professor, with a
thoughtful look.
Presently inside the ranch-house the crowd set to work, and taking a
portion of the fragrant balsam boughs from each bed made up two for the
travelers. This being accomplished, they promptly lay down and before
long were sound asleep, heedless alike to the beauty of the night or
the sound of rifle shots which for some time sounded faintly from afar.