ROSEMARY AND FLOYD
"Floyd, I don't like this a bit!"
"What's the matter, Rosemary?"
The young man driving the sturdy little sport model of a car brought
the machine to a stop and glanced at the girl sitting beside him.
There was a quizzical smile on his face, a good-natured smile, however.
"What don't you like, Rosemary?" he asked again, and there was not in
his tone any air of bored fault-finding such as seems to come natural
to some brothers in appealing from a decision of some sisters.
"I don't like the way this trail is shaping up, if you'll excuse my
English," answered Rosemary Boyd.
"Your English is perfectly excusable, Rosemary," retorted Floyd. "In
fact I rather like it. It is much better than this _trail_, to be
frank."
"Are you sure we have come the right road?"
"As sure as I can be of anything in this doggoned country, where they
haven't enough sign posts. I took the turns they told me to take in
the last town we passed through, and all the land marks have run true
to form so far."
"But we're a good ways from Uncle Henry's ranch yet; aren't we, Floyd?"
and there crept into the voice of Rosemary an anxious note.
"Well, maybe we are, but what do we care for a few hundred miles?"
He laughed merrily, showing a set of white, even teeth, and his jollity
was so catching that his sister had to join in.
"Well, I suppose it really doesn't make much difference," she said.
"We're out for a lark and we've had it, so far. Only I don't seem to
fancy sleeping out in the open again to-night. We were lost yesterday,
you remember, and didn't make the town we expected to."
Floyd seemed to be waiting for something.
"Well?" he suggested. "Why don't you add that it was all my fault."
"I was going to leave that out," Rosemary said.
"But I'll admit it," acknowledged her brother. "I did pull a bloomer,
as an Englishman would say, and I don't intend to do it again to-day.
I admit I shouldn't have tried to do more than a day's trip yesterday.
If I had taken your advice and stayed in the town where there was at
least an apology for a hotel, you'd have had a better night's sleep."
"Well, I didn't mind being out in the open so much, after I got used to
the howling of those wolves," Rosemary remarked.
"Coyotes--coyotes--not wolves, though they're off the same piece of
goods," corrected Floyd.
"Well, never mind the lesson in natural history," laughed Rosemary.
"The point at issue is that I don't like the sort of country we're
getting into. It doesn't look to me as though this could ever lead us
to Uncle Henry's ranch, and I'm anxious to get there. Bud's mother
wrote that he and his cousins, Nort and Dick, had such exciting times,
that I'm anxious to join them."
"So'm I," said Floyd. "And we'll get there."
"Not on this trail!" declared his sister, as her brother was about to
start the car. "You're getting into a worse and wilder country all the
while. I think we should have taken the left turn a ways back."
"The cow puncher we asked told us to take the _right_ turn, and I did,"
retorted Floyd.
"Cow puncher!" exclaimed his sister scornfully, "He looked more like a
renegade Mexican than a real American cowboy. And his accent was
Spanish, too."
"Oh, well, lots of good American cowboys came from Mexican or Spanish
people, and speak both languages," asserted Floyd. "Don't hold that
against him."
"I don't," said Rosemary. "But I will hold it against him if he has
put us on the wrong trail, and I'm beginning to believe that's what he
did. And maybe purposely, Floyd."
"Purposely? What do you mean?"
"Well, you know what we were told when we started out to make this
trip--that we had better take the most civilized and best traveled
trails, as the Yaquis were reported to be on the verge of making an
outbreak."
"Yes, and for that reason I kept well away from the border. But we
aren't anywhere near the Yaquis country now."
"Aren't we?" asked Rosemary, with a strange quietness in her voice.
"No, of course not!" snapped Floyd. It was the first time, since
brother and sister had started from California, to make a somewhat
adventurous trip to their uncle's ranch that they had been near a
"break" in their cordial relations. "The Yaquis are five hundred miles
from here."
"I hope so, I surely do hope so!" murmured Rosemary, in such fervent
tones that her brother felt an uneasy sense of fear creeping into his
heart. For the first time he began to realize that perhaps they had
done a foolhardy thing in making this trip alone. He slipped his hand
into his pocket, making sure that his gun was in readiness. And it did
not relieve his anxiety to note that Rosemary did the same.
Brother and sister were of the west. They were brave and bold and not
afraid of danger when they had half a chance to meet it face to face.
But they had heard much of the treacherous and mean nature of the
Yaquis Indians. These were not like the early American tribes of
redmen, who had something of a code of honor in their warfare, cruel
and heartless as it seemed at times.
"Well, do you want to go back?" asked Floyd, as he slowly started the
car.
Rosemary considered for a moment.
"Let's look at the map and go over what we were told along the route,"
she suggested.
Then followed a careful scanning of papers and drawings, with the
result that Rosemary said:
"I guess we may as well go on. It's a long way back to the nearest
town, and this map does seem to indicate that we are heading for La
Nogalique."
"That's what I say!" chimed in Floyd. "I only hope La Nogalique is
better than it sounds. If we can put up there for the night you'll get
a little rest, and maybe I'll have this carburetor adjusted. I don't
like the way it's acting."
"Oh, good, sweet, kind carburetor, don't go back on us now!" implored
Rosemary, kissing her hand toward the engine of the car. "Be nice and
I'll sprinkle you with violet talcum powder when we get to Uncle
Henry's!"
"Don't be silly!" grunted Floyd.
"Let's go!" called his sister. "It's getting late, and according to
this map it's ten miles yet to La Nogalique--which means twenty if we
are going by past performances."
The car sped forward, the trail seeming to grow worse instead of
better, as might be expected if they were approaching a town. Lurching
from side to side, making sharp turns to avoid bowlders and holes,
Floyd guided the machine. Now and then Rosemary would glance at her
brother, after a particularly vicious jolt, but she said nothing.
"A good sport!" Floyd mentally voted his sister.
They topped a steep rise, and as they started down the other slope,
making a turn, Rosemary pointed ahead and exclaimed:
"There! Now we're all right! La Nogalique!"
Nestling in a small valley was a smaller town, its few buildings
showing plainly in the last rays of the sun which would soon set behind
the mountains and hills.
"Guess we're not so badly off after all!" exulted Floyd. "We'll sleep
in real beds tonight!"
"And I take back what I--er--_thought_ about you!" laughed his sister.
"Thanks for not _saying_ it!" chuckled Floyd. "I admit I was guessing
myself a while back, for that trail looked as though it was heading
straight for no place in particular. But we're all right now."
However, as they descended the slope, approaching the town, it became a
question in both the mind of sister and brother as to whether they were
all right. When they came near enough to see and hear plainly it
became evident that something unusual was going on in La Nogalique, if
such was the village in view.
There was the popping of guns and intermittant shouts, while figures
could be seen riding wildly to and fro amid the scattered buildings.
"Guess there's some sort of a celebration," commented Floyd.
"Probably some Mexicans have come over the border, and are celebrating
a feast day," observed his sister. "This must be about the border line
between the United States and Mexico."
"I reckon," conceded Floyd. "But say, I don't just like this! Look,
those men are shooting at each other!"
He stopped the car and pointed to two groups of horsemen who,
undoubtedly, were firing at each other with evil intent. For as
Rosemary and Floyd looked, several men toppled from their saddles, and
their steeds rushed wildly to and fro.
Then, as the travelers sat in the machine, looking down the last slope
that led to the town, a solitary horseman came clattering up the rocky
trail.
"Turn back! Turn back!" he shouted. "Don't go down there!"
He was attired as a cowboy and spoke good United States.
"What's the matter?" demanded Floyd, as he let the car roll to one side
to give the horseman room to pass.
"Yaquis!" was the answer. "Them onery Mexican Indians have broke loose
and are raiding the country. They've started in here at La Nogalique!
I'm riding for the troops. Better turn back!"
"Oh, Floyd!" cried Rosemary, involuntarily.
"Don't go down there!" warned the horseman, as he spurred on, for he
saw the car slipping down the slope.
"I don't intend to, if I can turn around and beat it up the hill,"
Floyd said. "The question is--can I?"
It was a question. The road was narrow, and the hill steep. If you
have ever tried to turn a car around on a narrow, hilly road and crawl
back up it, you will appreciate the position of Rosemary and her
brother.
"If you can't make it in your car get out and hide!" advised the
horseman, flinging this back over his shoulder as he rode on. "Those
Yaquis are human devils!"
He was out of sight a moment later around a turn in the trail. Floyd
speeded up the engine and began to guide the machine toward a place
that looked wide enough to turn in. But that was the smallest part of
the problem.
Just as he was making the turn there was a lurch to one side, and the
right forward wheel sank into a ditch at the side of the road. The car
settled so far over that Rosemary had to cling to Floyd to avoid
sliding out, and she could not repress a scream.
"No going back now!" exclaimed Floyd grimly. "We're lucky if we can go
ahead."
"Do something!" desperately cried Rosemary.
And then, with a suddenness that was nerve-racking, there swept around
the bend in the road toward them a band of yelling Mexican Indians--the
Yaquis!