THE RAMBLERS ARRIVE
“No use coming to the station to meet us, Cranny,” Bob Somers had
written, “for I don’t really know the exact time we’ll land in Tacoma.
Only this much is certain: it will be on Thursday.”
And Thursday had arrived.
Cranny worked all day in a fever of impatience. Every footstep in the
corridor set his heart to thumping; every hand laid upon the door-knob
made him start with eager expectation.
But the day wore on, and still the Ramblers did not appear.
“I never knew Bob Somers to fail in his word yet,” grumbled Cranny, at
the dinner table.
“One of those word-as-good-as-his-bond chaps, I suppose,” grinned
Willie, surreptitiously wiping up with a corner of his napkin some soup
he had spilled. “He must be a crackerjack.”
“I do declare, Willie is falling more and more into the way of using
those outlandish expressions,” sighed Mr. Beaumont to his wife, a
pleasant-looking lady whose hair was just beginning to show faint
traces of gray.
“Willie is young”--she smiled--“and perhaps Cranston does not always
set him a good example.”
“I can’t talk as if the words came out of a grammar,” mumbled the big
lad, whose eyes had been continually drifting toward a partly-open
window which commanded a view of the lawn and roadway.
“I certainly have never heard you do so yet,” said his father, dryly.
“You must remember that men are judged not only by----”
“Whoop! By Jupiter, I really believe the crowd has come at last!”
yelled Cranny, jumping excitedly to his feet. “Whoop! Hooray! See ’em,
dad? One--two--three--four--five--yes; they are actually coming in.
I’ll bet that’s Bob Somers opening the gate--yes, I’m sure it is.”
Then Cranny, with another wild “Hooray!” slammed his chair aside, and
would have dashed toward the door had not a word from his mother
stopped him.
“Wait, Cranny,” she pleaded; “don’t act so like a wild Indian. The
boys will be here in a moment.” She gazed with interest toward the
figures rapidly moving across the field of view. “My, what a strong,
sturdy-looking lot,” she murmured. “Perhaps, if they would be willing
to let Willie join them----”
The crisp ringing of the electric bell interrupted her, and Cranny,
unable to restrain himself longer, rushed out of the room. He nearly
knocked down the domestic, who was hurrying to answer the summons; then
threw open the screen door with a violence that seriously threatened
its hinges.
“Bob Somers and Dave; and--and----”
The hubbub of voices at the door increased to such proportions that the
interested Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont could only catch an occasional word.
And it lasted for a wonderfully long time, too.
“Dad--mother--here they are! Come right in, fellows--no ceremony--mind
now.” Cranny, happy and excited, burst into the room. “Whoop! Say, Bob,
remember that time at Circle T Ranch when Spud Ward told us about the
mystery o’ Lone Pine? This is Willie Sloan, the pater’s ward. Here,
Dave, if you can’t get in the door we’ll have it widened.”
At last the newcomers crowded in one by one, shaking hands, hearing
pleasant words of greeting, and responding in kind, until the babel of
voices was only slightly less than before.
The members of the Rambler Club were certainly a healthy-looking crowd
of lads. Their sun-tanned faces told of outdoor life; and contact with
the world had imparted to each a sturdy, self-reliant air. Bob Somers,
square-shouldered, with frank blue eyes and brown hair, seemed to be a
fitting leader. And there was Dave Brandon, the club’s historian and
artist, stouter and more round-faced than ever. Dick Travers and Sam
Randall seemed never to have been in a happier mood.
Standing in the doorway, as if rather hesitating to come forward, was
the fifth member--Tommy Clifton; and it was upon him that Cranny’s
eyes were fixed with strange intensity. Cranny’s face began to wear
an expression of the greatest wonderment. He nudged Bob sharply in the
ribs, exclaiming in a loud whisper:
“I thought you had brought Tommy Clifton along?”
“That’s Tom, all right,” laughed Bob.
“Tom-my--Tom-my?--T-h-a-t isn’t the little Tommy Clifton I knew,” he
gurgled. “Why--why----”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” came a petulant voice. “There it goes again!”
An extremely tall, attenuated lad, just lacking a half inch of being
six feet, with a painfully apparent air of self-consciousness, came
slowly up to shake hands with Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont.
“Say, the ceiling’s just been painted,” observed Willie Sloan. “Don’t
get your hair in it.”
“Ha, ha--ho, ho!” Cranny went off into another paroxysm of mirth.
“That, Tommy Clifton? Why, honest, I can’t believe it. Remember what
I said the other night, dad, about his being just the same size as
Willie? Oh, my, oh, my, but isn’t it rich? Tommy, is that really
you?” He walked toward the tall lad, poked him playfully in the ribs,
and began to laugh again, while Tom, reddening furiously at being the
center of attraction, tried to draw away.
Dave, who had taken possession of the most comfortable chair in the
room, and was making himself perfectly at home, kindly came to his
relief.
“Little Cliff started off all at once, like a sky-rocket,” he
explained. “Never saw anything like the way he sprouted up, eh, Bob?
Could almost see him growing. What! I’m fatter than ever, you say,
Cranny? Oh, how can you be so cruel?--No. I don’t weigh three hundred
pounds, either.”
“Not yet, you mean,” chuckled Cranny, taking his eyes reluctantly from
Tom’s blushing face to survey the ample proportions of the historian
and writer. “My goodness, I shouldn’t want you to fall on me.”
“It’s true that I’m not a featherweight any more,” sighed Dave. “What’s
that, Cranny?--is my history of the Rambler Club finished yet? Oh, my,
no--only about twelve hundred pages of it. But, Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont,
I fear our arrival is most inopportune; we are delaying your dinner.”
“Oh, just listen to him!” cried Cranny, gleefully. “If you chaps don’t
grub with us there’ll be the biggest scrap this part of Tacoma has ever
seen.”
The Beaumonts would not listen to any excuses. There was a vast amount
of flurry and excitement--of everybody getting in everybody else’s
way. The distracted serving maid saved herself from mental collapse
only by calling in the chauffeur as assistant. And then the cook, by
some extraordinary process known only to cooks, managed to provide
bountifully for everybody.
The table was pretty well crowded; but no one cared for that. There
was too much to talk about. As Willie Sloan, with an impish grin,
stared from one Rambler to another, Cranny judged that he was favorably
impressed.
“And so your next stop is at Border City, in Wyoming?” asked Mr.
Beaumont of Bob.
“Yes, sir. And they say it’s a very different Border City from the one
we knew. Remember those aviators, Cranny,--father and two sons?”
“At Lone Pine Ranch?”
“Yes.”
“Well, ra-ther. Dad, did I ever tell you about----”
“I’m quite sure you never missed a single detail,” answered Mr.
Beaumont, smilingly. “Go on, Bob.”
“Well, a short time ago I got a letter from our old friend Tim Lovell,
whose father owns a sheep ranch not so many miles from Circle T.
Tim says Border City has experienced a big boom--lots of building
operations are under way, and a gas works is already completed.”
Mr. Beaumont’s business instincts were immediately aroused.
“What has brought this change about, Bob?” he asked, alertly.
“Well, for one thing, the railroad was recently extended to the town,
so that many of the cattle-ranchers who formerly drove their stock to
Creelton now ship from Border City. The aviators had something to do
with it, too.”
“How, I’d like to know?” asked Cranny.
“Oh, in a lot of ways,” answered Bob. “You see, a wealthy New York
man interested in dirigible balloons and aeroplanes financed their
experiments at Lone Pine Ranch. Then, when the Aero Club of Wyoming
decided to hold a meet and give big prizes for the speediest machine
built in the state, he came West.”
“So as to find some soft place for them to fall on, I s’pose,” mumbled
Willie.
“Where will this meet be held?” asked Mr. Beaumont.
“At Border City.”
“At Border City?” echoed Cranny.
“Yes; this New York man, Major Warfield Carroll, I think Tim called
him, got busy with the committee in charge. He offered to stand a part
of the expense if they’d hold it at Border City.”
“Why?” asked Cranny.
“Well, Major Carroll’s aviator friends had interested him in the
place, first of all. Then he discovered that Border City had
possibilities--and got the town’s people all worked up over it; and
some of the ranchers, too. Anyway, the scheme has had the biggest kind
of a boost.”
“Well, that’s going some!” cried Cranny.
“And Tim Lovell says we’d never know the place,” broke in Sam Randall.
“There’s a big flour mill and grain elevator there now; and----”
“A couple more hotels,” interrupted Dick Travers, in his turn.
“So the ‘Black Bear’ and ‘Cattlemen’s Retreat’ have rivals, eh?”
grinned Cranny. “Remember how each one tried to get ahead of the other?
I’ll bet, dad, I never told you about----”
“Oh, at least half a dozen times,” laughed Mr. Beaumont, spreading his
hands in pretended dismay. “What other news of Border City have you,
Bob?”
“Well, land values have, of course, taken a big boom; for employees
of the various business enterprises had to have homes. Why, sir,--we
didn’t really intend going to Circle T Ranch. But when Tim told us
about all these things and the aviators at Lone Pine----”
“And the meet which is just about to take place,” supplemented Sam.
“We decided to take it in. And then, of course, it’ll be jolly fun to
be out on the plains again.”
“And among the sheep raisers and cattlemen,” put in Dick, his face
beaming with glee. “If you could only go along, Cranny!”
“Oh,” sighed Cranny, “if----”
He glanced at his father wistfully. Then his eyes fell upon Willie
Sloan’s grinning face, and he felt that but for his woeful lack of
enthusiasm such a delightful experience might have been possible. The
mixture of feelings so disturbed him that he scarcely heard these words:
“Wonder if we’ll ever have an aeroplane, Bob?”
Tommy Clifton had ventured to speak at last. Tommy’s voice, like his
stature, was changing and his tone was of an astonishing gruffness.
“I say, did you hear that, Cran?” exclaimed Willie, in a loud whisper.
“You’d think it was a man.”
“Oh, get out!” snapped Cranny.
“Have an aeroplane?” Dick was saying, with an eager note in his tone.
“That’s so, Bob--flying is one o’ the few things the Ramblers haven’t
done yet. Say, if we only could----”
“A nice idea,” drawled Dave Brandon, smiling. “Theoretically, I’ve been
up a number of times, and come down to earth with a bang.”
“Been the real thing, I’ll bet you would have bored a hole clean
through to China,” remarked Willie, calmly. “Guess the grass never
grows again on any spot where you happen to fall.”
The stout boy good-naturedly joined in the storm of merriment.
After dinner the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where the
conversation continued to flow with uninterrupted vigor.
Cranny, his face aglow with pleasure, presently wandered over to Willie.
“That kid’ll surely want to go the worst kind o’ way, after hearing all
this talk,” he reflected. “Maybe it isn’t too late yet.”
“Say, Willie,” he said, in an aside, “changed your mind, haven’t you?
Don’t you think it would be the greatest sport ever, at Circle T? Come
now, tell dad you’re right in for it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” responded Willie, indifferently. “I never go in
much for those exciting stunts. Say, Cran, is China really right
beneath us?”
Cranny gazed fixedly at the diminutive figure. “All right for you!” he
snapped. Then, fearful that Willie might say something which would set
the crowd to laughing at him, he stalked away in disgust.
All too soon came the time for the Rambler boys to go.
As Bob turned toward the door, Willie’s voice rose above the others.
“I say, Ramblers,” he remarked, “don’t you want to stay in the
hay-loft? Nice place up there.” He jerked his finger in the direction
of the stable and garage. “Ought to seem natural. I guess your bunch
sleeps on the grass most of the time, doesn’t it?”
“Many a night, with only the canopy of heaven and the twinkling stars
as a roof,” answered Dave, with a smile.
“Well, that would never keep off the rain,” piped Willie. “Say, Mr.
Clifton!”
“What?” demanded Tom, whose feelings had been considerably ruffled by
Willie’s impish glances.
“When a parade comes along, you’re right in it, aren’t you? How does it
feel----”
He stopped as a hand suddenly grasped his collar, and he found himself
being dragged unceremoniously away.
“Get out of here, you pocket edition,” sniffed Cranny. “What time
to-morrow, Bob? Sure the pater’ll let me off--eh, dad?--I told you
so! Yes, we’ll have a grand day. Say, Bob”--Cranny leaned over, and,
putting his head close to the other’s ear, whispered in earnest
tones--“now, don’t forget to talk it up for me.”
Bob nodded emphatically.
“How a chap can be as thin and long as that Thomas Cliffy and yet live
beats me all hollow,” remarked Willie, as the four members of the
household stood on the porch looking after the retreating figures.
“Say, Cran, what’s a pocket edition, anyway?”
“Look in the mirror, and one will be staring you in the face,” snapped
Cranny. “That’s all the satisfaction you’ll get.”