“Do you think old Stoic saw a bear?” Margaret asked as the girls,
puzzled indeed, by the faithful creature’s strange and unexpected
behavior sat in their saddles, two of them gazing anxiously into the
dark entrance of the canon, while the third, Virg, watched the
flight of their pack animal.
“Oh I can’t believe it possible that there is a bear about,” she
said. “We are very near the Wallaces’ cabin now, that is, it’s not
more than half a mile away and bears do not venture near settlements
if they know it.”
“Maybe this one is a big grizzly and maybe he’s eaten the Wallace
family all up and perhaps be coming now to—”
Megsy laughed at the wide-eyed Betsy. “To eat us, I suppose you are
going to say. But honestly, dear child, if he has eaten five
Wallaces and their burros, I don’t believe he’ll have much of an
appetite for delicacies like us.”
Betsy turned rebuking eyes. “I don’t see how you can joke at a time
like this when maybe something terrible is about to happen.”
Virg was relieved to see that the pack horse had come to a
stand-still in the shade of a giant cactus about an eighth of a mile
away. “Girls,” she suggested, “would you like to wait here until I
go and get Old Stoic or—”
“What!” Betsy fairly screamed. “We stay here when any minute a bear
or something is going to come right out of the canon? Nixie for
mine. Where you go, there I’ll go too.”
The other girls could not keep from laughing which further increased
the indignation of their youngest. “Laugh if you want to,” she said,
“but didn’t Virg tell us herself that Old Stoic never showed sign of
fear except when a bear was near?”
Their hostess agreed. “I’ll confess I did. That is what brother told
me, but of course there must be something else that can frighten our
faithful pack animal.” Then with sudden animation and pointing
toward the mountains a little way beyond them, Virginia cried:
“Look! girls, look!”
Every one gazed, expecting to see something very unusual, Betsy
alone was convinced that it would be a huge grizzly.
“Why, that’s nothing but smoke.” Babs spoke regretfully. She had
almost hoped that it would be a bear for she knew, what Betsy did
not, that they were harmless unless cornered or attacked.
“Why Virginia, surely Old Stoic isn’t afraid of smoke, is he?”
Margaret turned inquiringly toward her adopted sister.
“No indeed! Brother always takes that pack horse with him when he
goes to the mine and they have camp fires every night.”
“What do you suppose this smoke means? A camp?” Barbara began when
Betsy interrupted eagerly. “Oh Virg, maybe that’s where the gypsy
caravan is stuck. Do you suppose it might be?”
Virginia shaded her eyes and gazed long at the jutting point of rock
which hid from their sight whatever was beyond it. “It’s a fire of
course,” she told them. “Shall we ride over and see who is camping
there?”
“Oh yes, let’s!” Betsy was her old brave self again. She had no fear
of gypsies nor of cattle rustlers she was sure, though she had never
seen any of them except on the screen.
A short gallop took them to a point where they could see the fire.
Virg, in the lead, uttered a cry of surprise, then turned and
beckoned. “It is the gypsy caravan, or at least it is a covered
wagon, like a prairie schooner of the olden days, I should say, but
there seems to be no one around. Shall we go closer?”
“Of course!” This emphatically from Betsy. “Haven’t I been
wild—crazy to find this very caravan, and you don’t suppose I’d
leave without seeing the gypsies. Anyway, aren’t they in trouble?
Don’t you remember the handwriting said ‘Stuck for keeps. No ranches
in sight’.” So Virg laughingly led the way toward the apparently
deserted covered wagon.
“We’re wrong about one thing,” the young mistress of V. M. remarked.
“This is not the caravan that was stuck, for the wheels are quite
free, at present, anyway.”
“I wonder where the gypsies are.” Betsy was dismounting as she
spoke. “I’m going up to their front door and knock,” she informed
the others. This she did pounding loudly on the wooden sides of the
wagon. A low growl from within was the only answer but it was
sufficient, as Betsy said afterwards, to make her hair stand on end.
With a shrill cry she took to her heels and where she would have
gone, it is hard to know, had she not suddenly been confronted by a
girl of about sixteen who had leaped from between the flaps of the
tent-like covering. Her expression was at first puzzled, then merry
and apologetic.
Holding out her hand to Betsy, she exclaimed, “Oh, do forgive us for
having given you such a dreadful scare when you came to call.” Then
her sweeping glance, which held an inquiry, included them all. “You
have come to call, haven’t you?”
Virginia had dismounted and the other two girls did likewise. “We
did not really start out with that intention, we’ll have to
confess,” she said, with her friendliest smile, “because you see we
did not know of your existence.” Then, fearing that this was not
quite truthful, she concluded. “That is, we did, and we didn’t.”
Noting the puzzled expression in the fine face of the girl she was
addressing, Virginia told the whole story of the tale that the
station master’s boy had told of the large caravan of thieving
gypsies, and of their subsequent loss of cattle, their search for
the caravan, the finding of the wagon trail and then the newspaper
with its message.
“Oh, Brother Gordon must have written that. We were stuck for a day
and a night but some prospectors, I think they were called, came
along and dug us out. We’re on our way back to Douglas now, but
we’ve stopped here to get water and fill our canteens. Oh good, here
comes brother. He’s been up the canon where the prospectors told us
we would find a rancher who had water in a cistern.”
A tall lad, too pale to be a real Westerner, appeared on a loping
run from the canon beyond. “No luck, sister,” he had started to say
when he saw the three strangers and their horses.
“We have guests,” the girl called happily. Then to the others: “You
can’t guess how glad I am to see someone of my own age and I’m just
wild to know who you are and where you came from. Can’t you stay and
have supper with us? We have it very early and it’s now after
three.”
The lad came up and snatching off his hat, he stood waiting for his
sister’s invitation to be acknowledged, but not accepted, as Virg
told them that their home was some distance and that her brother
would be troubled if he returned from Silver Creek and found her not
there. “But now since we have met so informally, let’s introduce
ourselves,” she concluded. This was done and the four visitors found
that instead of gypsies, the two were the son and daughter of a
copper magnate whose name was very familiar to Virginia, since he it
was who owned many of the mines and smelting founderies in Douglas
and Bisbee.
“We are truly tenderfoots,” the girl, whose name was Annette
Traylor, told them, “for our home is in New York City and we have
never before been on the desert where our dad came from college to
prospect so many years ago. He’s always telling us tales of his
adventures and so this year, when brother broke down in his freshman
year at Yale, dad said the best thing for us to do would be to visit
his old haunts on the desert. He was coming West to inspect some
mines and as he was to be busy for about two weeks, he put us in the
care of an old man whom he had known years ago and told him to show
us the sights.”
“Then you’re not alone?” Virginia looked about for a guide but saw
no one.
Annette smiled. “Yes, we are, quite alone and unprotected. You see
it happened in this wise. We hadn’t been gone more than a day from
Douglas when Old Piute, as Dad called the guide who was part Indian
and the rest French, got sick, and so we sent him back. He didn’t
want to go, but we could easily see that he was too ill to travel,
so we gave him the money Dad had promised him if he returned us
safely to Douglas in two weeks. Then we gave him one of the burros
in our train and he sadly rode away. We could see him shaking his
old grizzled head until he was out of sight. Brother declared that a
youth who was wise enough to go to Yale ought to be wise enough to
drive a team of wiry horses over the desert. You see where we made
the mistake was in not minding Old Piute. He told us to keep to the
roads where autos travel, but brother thought there would be no
adventures along a beaten way and so he turned out into the open
desert and the third day we stuck.”
The lad laughed in a hearty boyish manner. “Well, I’m glad we did
since we met one of the most interesting characters I ever knew
outside of the ‘Dick Dead-eye’ books and, too, we acquired a bear.”
“A what?” Betsy’s eyes were big and round.
The lad nodded. “Yes indeed, a real bear. The old miner had had him
since his cub-hood days and he’s as tame a pet as one could wish to
see.”
Virginia laughed. “Which brings us back to the first part of our
visit to you.” Then she told about Old Stoic and how he had
evidently smelled the bear and had taken to his heels. Gordon
Traylor was delighted. “Great Stuff,” he said inelegantly. Then
added, “Miss Virginia, loan me your horse and I’ll bring back the
truant member of your band.”
Virg shaded her eyes and remarked. “Good. He is still patiently
waiting in the shade of distant cactus, and while you are gone,
we’ll get better acquainted with your sister.”