A heated argument was taking place.
"Go on, Hot Air Sue and mind your own business. You are too full of
curiosity. I tell you I found this girl here. She had run away from
home."
"Umph! Umph! Hawkeseye big lie. Hawkeseye always big lie!"
"Woman, will you be quiet. Do you want to make big money. Father rich
man, see? He pay big money to get girl back. Hot Air Sue make much gold.
Hot Air Sue have necklace and fine new dress."
"Umph! Umph!"
"If I promise to take you, will you keep quiet?"
"Umph! Umph!"
Billie's wandering mind had returned to its dwelling place but she still
kept her eyes closed even when she felt two strong arms lift her up and
place her on a seat which seemed almost familiar. She half opened her
eyes and looked through the lashes. She was in an automobile, but it was
not the Comet.
"Get in, Sue. Sit here and hold her beside you. I'll run the car."
Evidently there were only two seats to the motor car. Billie was
squeezed into a seat beside the woman and while the peddler, Indian, or
whatever he was, was cranking up the machine she opened her eyes and
looked straight into the little pig eyes of a fat Indian squaw.
"Shut eyes," whispered Hot Air Sue and Billie promptly closed them
again, feeling suddenly very wide awake and alert.
Presently they were moving smoothly and silently over the prairie. The
automobile was a very fast one and the wind raised by the swift motion
had a reviving, refreshing effect on the exhausted girl.
"Water and food," she whispered into the ear of Hot Air Sue.
"Umph!" grunted the squaw. "Girl ver' sick," she said to Hawkes. "Must
have water and bread."
The man stopped the car and from under the seat drew forth a box of
crackers and a bottle of water. Billie ate some of the crackers and
drank deeply from a tin cup of the water. She never stopped to think of
how clean the cup was or where the sandwich had come from.
Then she laid her head on the Indian woman's breast and pretended to go
back to sleep.
"Where going?" she heard Hot Air Sue ask.
"Across the border," he said. "Into Colorado. We'll get there by
evening."
The air was beginning to have a cool feeling. They had left the plains
abruptly behind them and were nearing the mountains.
"I must get back tonight," said Billie to herself. "Cousin Helen will
die of heart failure if I don't."
Although her body was exhausted, her mind was clear and with her eyes
closed, she was able to think connectedly and deeply. "I am being
kidnapped," her thoughts continued. "Hot Air Sue is my friend and will
save me if she possibly can. The trouble is we haven't any money between
us, I suppose."
Once after a long time they stopped and Hawkes jumped out and examined
one of the tires.
"Sue save young lady," whispered the old Indian woman. "Sue not afraid.
Don't wake up."
The man came and stood at the side of the car and looked into Billie's
face.
"Hot Air Sue good old girl," he said. "Hot Air Sue won't be sorry she
helped Hawkeseye. Give me water bottle. Hawkeseye get water. Hot Air Sue
look after girl. She mustn't run away. No money, no girl."
"Umph! umph!" grunted the woman. "Sue would get water for young chief,
but Sue must hold girl."
Hawkeseye took the bottle and started down to a spring which bubbled out
of the rocks at the foot of a small precipice at one side of the road.
Billie watched him as he leaped nimbly from one rock to another. Then
with one flying leap she was out of the machine and had cranked it up.
At the sound of the motor the man looked up quickly, dropped the bottle
with a crash of broken glass and began to run up the cliff. It was a
difficult place in which to turn, and Billie was obliged to go backward
down a narrow road, but the young girl kept her head and moved the
machine slowly and deliberately.
"Hawkeseye come runnin'," said the Indian woman. "White girl hurry."
Another moment and they were headed in the other direction, but
Hawkeseye had reached them. With a bound he seized the back of the
machine and was lifting himself on his elbows.
Instantly Hot Air Sue whipped out a knife which she had hidden somewhere
in the depths of her shawl, and slashed him across the wrist. With a
yell of fury the man fell backward and lay on the ground. Billie gave
one glance over her shoulder. Never had she felt so deliberately and
cruelly cold-blooded as at that moment. If Buckthorne Hawkes' back had
been broken she would have gone on just the same. But it was not broken,
for a second glance showed him crawling to the side of the road.
"I'm at Steptoe Lodge. Do you know where that is?" she asked Hot Air
Sue, who was regarding her efforts at running the motor car with stolid
admiration.
"Steptoe Lodge thirty miles away."
"Thirty miles? That's nothing," replied Billie cheerfully. "Is this the
right road?"
"This is first right road. This road wrong later."
"You mean we take another road that branches off from this?"
"Umph!"
"Will you tell me when we get to it?"
"Hot Air Sue tell everything. Hot Air Sue talk much. That's why cowboys
call her 'Hot Air.'"
Billie laughed. Was it possible she had been dying of thirst in the
desert only a few hours before, and here she was exhilarated and almost
shouting with joy over her escape; riding with Hot Air Sue in a
perfectly strange automobile. But was it perfectly strange? She leaned
over and looked at the color as they sped along. It was gray. It was a
racing car and it was built for two.
"Hawkeseye bad man. Hawkeseye call himself school-teacher. He bad
Indian," went on Sue. "He no teacher. He thief. He no Indian, either. He
only half Indian. That's why Hawkeseye bad man. All white or all red
better."
"Hawkeseye steals automobiles," said Billie.
"Umph! Umph! His sisters, they spoil Hawkeseye. They work to send him to
school and give him fine clothes."
"Has he got another sister?"
"Hawkeseye got two sisters--Rosina and Maria."
"The illustrious Hawkes family," said Billie to herself. "Well-known in
the West. I think the most dangerous member of that family had better be
locked up."
The first stars were just coming into view when Billie drew up in front
of Steptoe Lodge, but in all that big ranch house only two human beings
were there to greet her--Miss Helen Campbell and the Chinese cook.
Seizing a trumpet made of a cow's horn the Chinaman rushed to the top of
the house and blew half a dozen blasts that resounded over the prairie
like the call of the wild huntsman, and in fifteen minutes from every
direction horses and ponies bearing cowboy riders were dashing across
the plains toward the Lodge. But far more amazing to Billie was the
sight of her own red Comet hastening eagerly toward her, and at the
wheel sat Mary, clever little pupil that she was, and in the back seat
were Elinor and Nancy crying and calling and waving their handkerchiefs
all at once.
Miss Campbell had been completely prostrated. She was in bed with a wet
towel around her head and her eyes were red with weeping. Billie also
was put to bed and fed by her devoted friends with hot soup and dry
toast. She was more exhausted than she cared to admit, and it was Hot
Air Sue, with her talent for inexhaustible conversation, who made
explanations to the household of Steptoe Lodge.
The next morning two men arrived at the Lodge. They bore a warrant for
the arrest of one, Buckthorne Hawkes, automobile thief. But Buckthorne
Hawkes was not to be found. However, they confiscated the gray racing
car, and the girls knew that Peter Van Vechten was once more in
possession of his property.