“It seems to be all wings, and it’s white, isn’t it?”
Virg was the first to climb to the top of Yucca Hill, Margaret having offered to remain with the four ponies. Barbara, breathless, reached them a moment later, in time to hear an excited Betsy exclaim, as she pointed toward the south, “Virg did you ever see a bird as big as that? It seems to be all wings, and it’s white, isn’t it?”
Babs protested. “Goodness Betsy. Did you call us way up here and in such a hurry just to show us a bird?”
But Virginia, whose eyes were keener, since she was used to desert distances, watched the wide-winged object which was high in the air, and at least half a mile away.
“If it is a bird, which I doubt, it has hurt one of its wings for surely it is not flying in—” she interrupted herself to exclaim: “Oh, I see now! there goes one of the little whirlwinds that scud over the desert so often. Whatever that flying thing is, it was evidently tossed high in the air and is fluttering back to earth.”
Virg had surmised correctly for, with awkward movements of apparently wide stretched wings, the something, which had so aroused Betsy’s curiosity, fluttered groundward, but before it touched the sand it caught on the arm of a formidable thorny cactus which stood near the mesa trail. Laughingly the girls descended and told the curious Margaret what Betsy’s excitement had been over.
“And there I had hoped that it might be a clew,” that maiden mourned, as again, single file, they rode back toward V. M.
“Not a wagon track have we found nor anything exciting or even interesting,” Babs began, when Virg, being in the lead, called over her shoulder as she pointed at the great cactus that appeared near the trail not far ahead:
“There’s your wide-winged bird, Betsy. Nothing but a newspaper that tried to soar for a time but failed.”
Since they were in a hurry to reach V. M. before the hour which Malcolm had suggested that they have breakfast together, the girls did not stop to examine the newspaper, but, when they had reached the ranch yard, Betsy, who had been unusually quiet during the downward ride, suddenly exclaimed:
“Girls, I’m not sure but that we missed a clew, after all, when we passed that newspaper. If you don’t mind, Virg, I’m going back and get it. However,” and she smiled in a mischievous way, “if it’s all the same to everybody, I guess I’d rather walk. It’s ages since I’ve been on horseback, and I’m getting powerfully stiff.”
“If you’ll wait until after breakfast I’ll go back with you,” Babs told her friend.
“Can’t be done, old dear,” Betsy declared. “Another whirlwind might come along and where would my newspaper be?”
“Well, do hurry. I can tell by a certain appetizing fragrance on the air that ham and eggs are being prepared, and Oh! but I’m hungry.”
Betsy acknowledged that she herself was most starved, but added that if Babs had the real detective instinct which she possessed, mere eating would not even be considered when there might be a clew to be had for just a little effort.
The three girls, having turned their unsaddled ponies into the corral, walked arm in arm up to the house. Their youngest had already started on a run toward the mesa trail.
“It’s at least a quarter of a mile back to that cactus,” Virginia said, “so we needn’t expect Betsy for quite a while.”
But to their surprise, ten minutes later, as they were emerging from their rooms, having changed their khaki riding habits for gingham morning dresses, they heard a familiar voice shouting without. Then the front door burst open and a most excited Betsy waved torn fragments of an old newspaper as she cried: “It’s a clew, it is a clew; just listen to this.”
CHAPTER VI
BETSY’S FIND
The girls gathered about Betsy Clossen to gaze eagerly at the torn fragments of newspaper when that excited little maid burst into the ranch living room announcing that she really had found a clew.
“Where is it? I can’t see anything but plain print,” Babs chattered.
“How did you get back so soon?” Virg inquired. “You couldn’t possibly have climbed the mesa trail. You’ve only been gone ten minutes and that would have taken you half an hour.”
Betsy laughed. “I had an ally in another whirl-wind. I hadn’t gone far when I saw torn fragments of the same newspaper that had been caught on the cactus scudding toward me. Then a gust of wind blew sand in my eyes and I had to turn my back. I was afraid that I had lost the flying pieces, but luckily they had caught on a mesquite bush right at my feet. I pounced on them and on the very top I found written—”
Betsy was holding the pieces back of her and just to tease she asked, “Guess what!”
“Oh Betsy, how provoking you are, must we guess?” Babs pondered a moment then said, “Maybe it was something in the Romany tongue. That is what they call the gypsies’ language, isn’t it?”
But the would-be young detective shook her head and looked inquiringly at Margaret. “Oh, I never could guess, can you Virg?”
“Hm-m! Let me see. It might be a note scribbled by somebody on the Burning Acres, who was trying to send a message to tell that he is stranded and in need of aid.”
“I don’t think that is it.” Betsy brought the paper around and held it up that all might see. Then she pointed at some very fine writing on an upper margin. “If it were intended for someone else to read, it would be larger and clearer.”
“What does it say?” Margaret inquired. But Betsy could not tell. “Why, I thought you told us that you were sure that it is a clew to the whereabouts of the gypsy caravan or of the stolen yearlings.”
Betsy was about to defend her theory when Virginia, who had taken the paper to the window that she might better see the very fine writing, exclaimed: “It seems to be a memorandum of some kind. I can read several words, but altogether they make but little sense. They are ‘five miles beyond.’ I can’t make out beyond what, then comes ‘turn toward mountains,’ after that the pencil marks are blurred until the last sentence, which is, ‘likely to make a find there.’”
Betsy whirled toward Margaret, glowing, triumphant. “There now, Mistress Doubter, isn’t that a clew and a fine one?”
“Well,” the other maid replied rather reluctantly. “It might be, and yet again it might be merely a paper that some mining prospector was reading when a whirl-wind came along. What you read, Virg, would be just about what a miner would jot down, don’t you think?”
The Western girl nodded. “Yes, dear, I believe so. Wait until I get the magnifying glass and perhaps the blurred part will be clearer.”
While Virg had gone in search of it, Malcolm appeared calling, “Ready for breakfast girls?” Then seeing their excited expressions, he inquired: “What’s up?” Betsy’s words fairly tumbled out in her eagerness to be the one to relate the story of her find. The lad took the fragment and looked at it intently. “It wasn’t written by the type of prospector who usually climbs over these mountains with pick and shovel hunting for copper. In fact most of them can hardly write at all,” was the lad’s decision.
Virg at that moment appeared, and holding up the magnifying glass, she exclaimed, “Now perhaps we will find out the secret hidden in that blurred writing.”
Even Malcolm believed that Betsy might have found a clew and they all bent over the fragment of newspaper which Virginia had spread on a table near the window. After several moments of intent scrutiny, he told the girls what he believed was the meaning of the very fine and frequently blurred hand writing.
Betsy was elated.
“Whizzle,” she exclaimed excitedly, “it is a clew after all. A whale of a clew!”
“Brother, read it again and then tell us what you make of it,” Virginia urged.
So once more Malcolm placed the magnifying glass over the torn fragment of the newspaper and read the fine writing.
“Tenderfoot, O. K. Wheels N. G. in desert. Ought to have known better. Stuck for keeps, seems like. No ranches in sight. Don’t know what to do with—” The paper was torn there.
“Malcolm,” Virginia began anxiously, “do you suppose that the missing word might have been yearlings? Has some tenderfoot attempted to make away with our entire herd?”
The lad looked serious but after a thoughtful moment he shook his head. “I can’t believe it is possible. What paper is this, anyway?”
“A page from the Chicago Tribune,” Betsy told him. Then, eager to help solve the mystery, she hurried on to say: “Chicago is the place where your cattle were to be sold, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I planned shipping the yearlings in a few days. The empty cars are on the side track at Silver Creek station this very minute. As soon as Lucky and I had them loaded, we were to wire Douglas and the cars were to be picked up by the freight that night.”
“I know what Betsy thinks,” Virginia said. “She believes that some tenderfoot rustler tried to steal the cattle and ship them as his own. Would such a thing be possible, Malcolm?”
“Possible, but not probable,” was the answer.
“Then what do you make of it?” Margaret asked.
“I don’t,” was the smilingly given reply. “But I do know that we will all starve and that Sing Long will be on the rampage if we don’t go out and eat the fine breakfast he has prepared for us.”
“Whizzle! I have been so interested and excited that I had actually forgotten that I am almost starved,” Betsy declared as they entered the big sunny kitchen, at one end of which was a table that could seat twelve without crowding, for, on the desert, one never knew when a passing cowboy, or a group of them, might stop at meal time.
When the first pangs of hunger had been satisfied, Virginia said: “Now brother, tell us your theory.”
“I’d like to hear Betsy’s first.” Malcolm was much amused by the small, bright-eyed girl who took such an unusual interest (for one feminine) in the solving of mysteries.
They all turned to listen and so Betsy began. “Well, of course I know very little about the ways of the desert, but I should think that Virginia’s suggestion, a little while ago, might be the right one. But since you doubt it, Malcolm, I’m beginning to think that the something the writer didn’t know what to do with, might not be the stolen yearlings after all.”
The lad nodded. Then glancing at Margaret, he asked, “Who else has a theory?” Flushing prettily as she always did when her guardian addressed her, the quiet Megsy replied, “I don’t believe that I have one, but I just know that you have, Malcolm. Won’t you tell it to us?”
“I may be wrong,” the lad began, “but, from the wording of the memorandum, I believe a boy has written it, and surely a tenderfoot, else he would not have tried to cross the desert in a prairie schooner, if that’s what he has. Maybe he’s here for his health. Many a lad finds his lungs in danger after years of hard study, and they come out here to rough it and get strong again. Anyway, that’s my guess. I don’t believe that the writer of this note has ever even heard of our lost yearlings.”
“Hark!” Virginia cried, springing up and running to the door. “What’s all the commotion outside?”
There was indeed a most unusual commotion not far away, but, from the kitchen window nothing could be seen but the sandy door-yard, the chicken corral, the outhouses and farther down the slope and near the dry creek, the adobe cabin of the Mahoys.
Malcolm, at once on the alert, caught his sombrero from its place near the back door. He leaped from the porch without taking time to descend the steps, and, before the astounded girls could speak, he was racing for the corral that was down in the valley-like hollow near the towering red windmill.
“Girls!” Virg had listened but a moment when she whirled, her cheeks burning, her eyes glowing, “Don’t you know what it means, that bellowing of cattle and shouting of men?”
“It sounds like a round-up to me,” Barbara ventured.
“It is! It surely is! Oh, if only someone has found the lost yearlings.” The four girls were running so fast that Virg had not breath to finish her sentence. A second later they reached the top of the trail and in the depression below them, they saw something which filled their heart with rejoicing.
“The yearlings! Oh how happy Malcolm will be,” Margaret cried. “Virg, you too, how glad you must be!”
“How do you suppose it happened?” Betsy was tremendously interested, this being the first time she had witnessed the driving in of a restless herd of cattle.
“Slim found them,” Virg said. “See Megsy, how cleverly he herds them toward the open gate of the corral. There’s one that is trying to make a break.”
“Goodness that wild one has turned. It’s charging right at that cowboy. Slim, did you call him?” Betsy had her hand on her heart and her eyes expressed terror, but Virginia laughed. “That’s nothing unusual. Watch what happens.”
It was quite evident that the young cowboy, Slim, had his eye on the angry young steer that had stopped to paw the ground and snort in a most threatening manner. The boy drew rein and coiled his rope. Lucky and Malcolm were also in the saddle and they were trying to quiet the remainder of the herd and drive them into the corral. Slim backed his horse, all the time swinging his rope and keeping a watchful eye on the snorting young steer.
“Whizzle,” Betsy clutched Virginia’s arm and held tight. “I wish Slim would look where he is going. He may back his horse right over that cliff and into the dry creek.”
“Don’t worry, dear. Slim knows every step his horse is taking even though he isn’t looking. If I didn’t know how that cowboy of ours can ride, I too, might be worried. There, now watch!”
Angered beyond endurance by the whistling of the rope as it swung round and round the head of Slim, the enraged creature which knew in some way that this cowboy was depriving him of the freedom of the range, made a sudden lunge, his head bent to bowl over whatever it first struck.
Betsy screamed, but the lowing of the restless cattle drowned her cry. “He’ll be thrown! Why doesn’t Slim do something?”
“He is waiting his time,” Virg said quietly. “See how his pony leaped to one side. They’re well trained, those wiry bronchos.”
Malcolm and Lucky, having driven the remainder of the herd into the corral, had closed and barred the gate. Malcolm, however, stood there ready to swing it open if the rebellious steer should be headed that way, while Lucky rode out to assist Slim if his services were needed, but they were not, for once again the young steer plunged, the rope sung through the air, and catching the forefeet of the animal, sent it with a thud to the ground.
The loop of Lucky’s rope caught about its neck. Then, when Slim’s rope had loosened, the creature scrambled to its feet, and, half stunned, permitted itself to be led and driven into the corral. Then the gates were again closed.
“Now tell us, where did you find them?” Malcolm asked Slim.
The good looking young cowboy removed his sombrero, wiped his hot brow with his red bandana handkerchief and then burst into unexpected laughter.
“Well, Malcolm,” he chuckled, “Ah reckon that thar dod-busted steer that’s been so plumb rampagious this mornin’ was at the bottom of the whole thing.”
“Then you don’t think that gypsies tried to steal them?” It was the first time that Betsy had addressed Slim.
He had not noticed the young stranger. Virginia, noting his expression of surprise exclaimed, “Betsy, this is Slim our prize broncho buster and sure shot roper.”
The young cowboy laughed disparagingly. “Don’t take no stock in all a-that, Miss Betsy,” he said.
“Oh, I know it without being told,” was the young girl’s eager response. “Didn’t I see you rope that wild steer with my very own eyes.”
Malcolm, anxious to know where the cattle had been found turned the subject back to the point where it had digressed.
“No, sir, ’twant gypsies nor yet again cattle thieves that let the yearlings out of their pen. ’Twas that wild one himself.”
“But, Slim, that doesn’t seem probable or possible for the fence was not broken and the cattle cannot open the gate,” Malcolm was saying when Betsy who had turned to glance at the corral in which the restless herd was pacing back and forth, uttered a cry of warning.
“Look! Quick! Slim is right! That wild steer is pushing the bar.”
With a variety of expletives the cowboys leaped forward and were in time to prevent a second escape of the herd.
For sometime after that, they were engaged in making the fastening of the gate more secure. The girls remained as interested spectators. When Malcolm at last straightened up, he turned to them and said with his pleasant smile, “And so, Mistress Betsy, we are doomed to disappoint you, for there really isn’t any mystery to unravel after all.”
But Slim had again removed his sombrero and he was thoughtfully rubbing his glossy brown hair. Suddenly he turned toward the little stranger.
“Ah say, Miss Betsy, what was that thar you asked me in the beginning. ’Pears to me like ’twas suthin’ namin’ gypsies.”
“Yes, it was.” Then eagerly, hopefully. “Mr. Slim, you didn’t see anything of them while you were hunting for the cattle, did you?”
“Wall now, I reckon mebbe I did and yet agin mebbe, I didn’t. Ah’m not tolerably sartin’, but I saw suthin’ mighty perplexin’.”
Then inquiringly to Malcolm. “You-all don’ figger that any copper diggers ’d be loony enuf to cross the desert in a wagon, do you?”
“No, indeed. I’m as good as certain that they wouldn’t,” Malcolm began, when Betsy hopped up and down and clapped her hands as she interrupted. “Oh! Oh! tell us quick, Mr. Slim, did you see the wagon? We’ve been hunting for it everywhere.”
The cowboy was so plainly puzzled that Virginia told him the story of the gypsy caravan as Davie had told it to Malcolm and Lucky.
“Wall, all as I saw was tracks headin’, seemed like toward Puffed Snake Water Hole. But Ah was driving the herd in jest then an’ couldn’t leave to do no investigatin’.”
“Good! I’m glad they were heading away from V. M. Ranch, whoever they are.” Malcolm said then added: “Boys, I think we’d better all three drive this herd in to the station. It’s going to take some skillful handling to get them aboard the cars. It’s nine now and I expected to get them loaded by this time.” Then anxiously, “Slim, you’ve had a hard time of it this past twenty-four hours. You ought to get some sleep before we start.”
“Caint spare the time, Malcolm. Ah reckon thar’ll be enough for sleep when this here herd is boxed up in the car. Ah reckon thar will.”
Lucky had been silently watching the restlessly lowing heard. “Malcolm,” he said, “we’d better start, ’pears like. That wild one’s got to wear a drag to keep it from boltin’, an’ that’ll make it plumb slow goin’ for the rest.”
“Right you are,” the young master of V. M. replied. “We certainly don’t want to take any chances on a stampede today, since the cars are scheduled to be picked up by the through freighter tonight at seven.” Then, turning to his sister, he added, “Virg, will you girls pack us some grub and we’ll start as soon as we can get the herd in shape.”
“Indeed we will.” Then catching the hands of two of her friends and nodding to the third, away she ran toward the ranch house.
“Oh, I just adore all this,” Betsy exclaimed an hour later when the girls, having packed the saddle bags with good things until they bulged, stood out on the front veranda watching the three cowboys as they drove the still restless herd up over the mesa.
“That poor wild steer will wish he had been less obstreperous,” the quiet Margaret said. “He can hardly take a step without stumbling over that long pole that drags between his front legs.”
“I like him,” Babs surprised the others by remarking. “I like his spirit. Somehow a desire for freedom seems to belong to the desert and his surely is unquenchable, but next week he will be—”
“Oh, do let’s forget that part of it.” Virginia spoke with unusual seriousness. “I hate it.” Then noting the expressions of inquiry, she explained. “I don’t understand in the least what makes me feel so queerly about it. Nevertheless, I do. I don’t believe that we have any right to take that wonderful thing, Life, from any creature to which it has been given. We may find sometime that we have been doing something grievously wrong. But there,” she added in a gayer tone, “since I am the part owner of a business that raises live stock for the sole purpose of taking life, it hardly behooves me to moralize about it.”
“Does Malcolm know that you feel that way?” Margaret asked.
Virg shook her head. Then slipping her hand in that of her friend, Megsy, said earnestly, “I agree with you. I’d heaps rather raise beets to sell.”
A merry laugh greeted this remark, and then Betsy, who was never long content with just conversing exclaimed. “Virg, let’s do something interesting right after lunch.”
Virginia smiled. “I was going to suggest that we all take a siesta.” Then she laughed at the dismay pictured in the face which a moment before had been so eager.
But the youngest was not to be daunted. Whirling toward Barbara, she wheedled. “Babsie, you don’t want to sleep, do you? Let Megsy and Virg siesticate if they wish, but suppose you and I go for a ride.”
“I’ll make a bargain with you, Betsy.” It was Virg who was speaking. “If you’ll be as quiet as a little mouse and let us, who wish to, nap until three, we’ll all go for a ride anywhere you choose.”
“Oh, will you, honest injun, cross your heart!” The would-be little detective seemed more eager than before and the reason was that she wanted to get Virginia to promise to do something without telling her what it was.
The unsuspecting older girl nodded, then as the bell was ringing they all went in to lunch. Betsy lingered back of Virg and beckoning Babs she whispered something in her ear. “Oh, Virg won’t do that,” Barbara told her.
“But she’ll have to. You yourself heard her promise to ride this afternoon in any direction that I wish and I’m just wild to go there.”
CHAPTER VII
A PLANNED RIDE
Directly after lunch, Virginia, Margaret and Barbara retired to their rooms for the customary afternoon nap which seemed to be as much a part of desert life as anything else in the routine. The sun beat down upon the shimmering white sand relentlessly during the noon hours and all live creatures were glad to seek the cool of some shadow or to hide in underground burrows if that was according to their nature.
Betsy, unused to sleeping during the day, had decided to take that time for letter writing. She was wild to tell her Cousin Bob, who was fourteen, of all the exciting things which had befallen her since her departure from boarding school such a very short time before.
How he would envy her. Virg had suggested that she write at the big old desk which stood on the shady side of the long living room and there, for a quiet hour the little girl sat scribbling as fast as her pencil would fly and the story of her adventures was so thrillingly told that the boy, who was to receive it, would indeed be envious. She had just concluded with—“Virg hasn’t any idea where I am going to suggest that we go for our ride when she wakes up, but of course she’ll have to go because she has promised. I’m ever and ever so sure that an exciting adventure awaits us and I’ll add it to this letter before I send it. There’ll be plenty of time, anyway, for the mail pouch is only taken to the station about twice a week.”
It was at this point in the epistle that the three girls, who had been asleep, appeared and they were dressed in their riding habits.
“You’ll have to don yours, Betsy,” Babs called. “I’ll wait for you. Virg and Megsy are going down to the corral to saddle our horses.”
While the young would-be detective was changing her apparel, Babs sat on the arm of a chair watching her. “Virg has forgotten all about her promise to you,” she volunteered. “I heard her tell Margaret that she wanted to ride over to Hog Canon and see the poor dry ranchers who live there. She has brought some gifts for the three children and their mother.”
“Oh dear, isn’t that just too provoking. I did so want to ride in the direction of that Puffed Snake Water Hole and see if we could find the gypsy caravan, but, of course, if our hostess has other plans, I suppose I’ll have to give up mine, only I don’t think she should have promised. Honestly I don’t.”
Babs hardly knew what to say. “But dear, you can visit that water hole some other time, maybe tomorrow. Wouldn’t that do as well?”
“Why, of course not Babs. You know as well as I do that if we are to get there before that gypsy caravan moves on, we’ll have to go today. They’re not going to just camp out there and wait to be found.”
“Well, you’ll have to be the one to remind Virg of her promise. I won’t. I heard her say that the little woman who lives over in Hog Canon is very frail and that she has brought her some things that she needs just dreadfully.”
Betsy sighed as she laced the riding boots that Virg had loaned her, but all she said was “What’s a dry rancher anyway? Someone who’s awfully poor I judge.”
Babs nodded. “Yes indeed. Mr. Wallace, ‘Foolish Andy,’ I’ve heard him called, is certainly not prosperous. Dry ranching means trying to get along without water except such as can be caught in a cistern during the rainy season. There’s no water for the few head of cattle they have except in water holes. I guess they’re poor enough all right.”
Betsy stood up clothed, but only partly resigned to the seemingly inevitable. “Virg would rather go on a visit of mercy any time than try to unravel a mystery which shows how different we are,” she confided to her companion as they ran down the trail that led to the corral where the others awaited them with the four ponies saddled and ready.
A small pack-horse near had on its back two saddle bags well packed. “Here you are,” Virg sang out, then noting an expression of disappointment in the face of their youngest, the hostess recalled something. “Oh Betsy,” she said self-rebukingly, “I completely forgot that you were to choose the direction of our ride this afternoon and here I have packed Old Stoic with food and gifts that I want to take to the Wallace family over in Hog Canon. Well, I can unpack him again if you wish me to keep that promise.
“My only reason for wanting to go today is that the children have heard that I am home from school, Slim told them, and they sent word that they’re wild to see me, and Slim said I should have seen poor Mrs. Wallace’s expression when she heard it. He said that it was as though she had heard something that was going to give her a new lease on life.
“But of course one day more won’t matter if you wish to hold me to my promise.”
“I should say not, Virg!” Betsy spoke emphatically. “I was merely going to suggest that we go over to that Puffed Snake Water Hole Mr. Slim told about and see if we could find the gypsy caravan. But it might be a wild-goose chase.” Virginia laughed. “It would be, I can assure you. The odors around that water hole are such that even gypsies wouldn’t linger there long. They are miles and miles away by now.” But Betsy interrupted. “Virg, how can they be? Don’t you recall what the writing on the newspaper said. ‘Stuck for keeps.’ No ranches in sight.”
“Then there’s no use visiting the Puffed Snake Water Hole for one can plainly see Slater’s Ranch from there. Now the question is,” Virg looked from one friend to another, “which way shall we go? Of course we can visit Hog Canon tomorrow and—”
“Indeed not! I’m not as selfish as all that. We’ll visit Hog Canon and your poor family today, then tomorrow we’ll hunt for the gypsy caravan.”
Little did Betsy dream what her decision would lead to.
CHAPTER VIII
OLD STOIC
Single file the four mounted girls rode down the trail which led across the dry creek bottom for a time and then ascended the rather steep opposite bank. The fifth horse “Old Stoic” followed faithfully. When they were again on the level trail, Virg in the lead, smiled over her shoulder. Betsy just back of her was evidently deep in thought.
“What are you puzzling about now, little mystery solver?” she sang out gaily.
Betsy looked up brightly. “I’m trying to solve three things at once.”
Babs and Megsy rode up, and, as the sand was hard enough to permit, they continued in a group which was better for conversation.
“What are they? And how are you succeeding?” Each maid asked a question.
Betsy laughed. “I’m wondering what Puffed Snakes are. I’ve heard of rattlers and copper heads and—and water snakes, but never Puffed ones.”
“Guess!” Virg turned to say.
“I don’t have to guess because I know.” Margaret smiled at Betsy. “Use that good brain of yours. It’s ever so easy. It isn’t the kind of snake. It’s something that happens to it.”
“Hm. Let me see. It’s the name of a water hole with a dreadful odor.” Betsy seemed to be thinking hard. Suddenly she laughed. “Oh, of course, that’s easy! A snake fell into the water hole, couldn’t get out and puffed.”
“Righto!” Virg had whirled her pony and to the great admiration of the other girls, was riding backwards.
“What was your second puzzle?” Babs asked.
“Why this picturesque place ahead of us in the mountains, should be called Hog Canon?”
“Oh, that is too easy,” Megsy declared.
“Probably because some former dry rancher tried to raise hogs,” Babs suggested.
“You are nearly right, but not entirely so. It was Nature itself that raised the little wild hogs that ‘abounded,’ as the story books say, in these mountains, but they are gone now or nearly so.”
“Goodness, you don’t mean the kind that I’ve seen in pictures with tusks that look so dangerous.”
“No, not wild boars. These were very small creatures, I’ve heard father say, but they were all gone when brother and I came to the desert to live. Now what is your third puzzle.”
“Why you named your pack horse Old Stoic.”
“All you have to do is to look at him and that mystery is solved. He hasn’t a spark of fire in his eye, he has never been known, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, to do anything but plod. I guess the colt in him vanished years ago.”
The girls all turned to look at the pack horse that was following them but it deigned not to return their notice. It did indeed seem to be stolid and stunned. Suddenly Virginia began to laugh. She was riding ahead by that time and the others pressed forward to hear the cause of her mirth.
“What’s the joke, Virg,” Betsy said, “Let us all in on it. Is it something about Old Stoic?”
Virginia nodded. “Yes, it is,” she said merrily. “I believe after all I have wronged the old horse. I recall now that brother modified his statement that nothing could stir an interest in Stoic. There was one thing he said that could.”
“What was it?” Betsy was always curious about everything. None of the girls had a brain more eagerly alert.
“A bear! Malcolm said that Old Stoic can smell a bear farther than any horse he ever rode and run faster to try to get away from it, but apart from that, he shows no sign of interest in life except in doing his duty as a pack animal and doing it well.”
Betsy looked anxiously toward the rugged Seven Peak Range which they were approaching. “I say, Virg,” she said, “there aren’t any bears in the mountains these days are there?”
Then the questioner sighed with relief when she heard the reply.
“No, dear, nary a one, or so few that one seldom if ever appears. I did hear Lucky say last winter that he saw bear tracks in the snow way up north in the higher, colder mountains, but I don’t believe they come down this way now-a-days. They did, though, when Lucky was a boy. His father was a trapper and exciting tales he can tell. We’ll get him to recount the most thrilling of them for us some night when we’re all sitting around the fire.”
The girls having ridden for several miles without stopping were glad, when Virg suggested that they stop awhile in the shade of a giant cactus. Dismounting, she ran back to Old Stoic who had stopped with the others and slipping her hand into one of the saddle bags she brought out four oranges. “I’m not robbing the Wallace family,” she smilingly told them, “for I put these in here just for our very own refreshment. I knew we’d all be hot and thirsty by the time we reached this half-way point.”
The girls were indeed glad to eat the sweet juicy fruit. Betsy, unused to the saddle was also pleased to have a chance to stretch her legs, and so, slipping from her mount, she threw herself down on the sand, warm even in the shade of the cactus, but she was on her feet again almost as quickly when she heard Babs laughingly caution her. “Look out for tarantulas and scorpions.”
“Too, you might be lying directly over the hole of a rattler,” Megsy added. But Virg protested. “Let the poor girl rest. There isn’t a poisonous creature in our immediate neighborhood, I’ll vouch for that.”
But Betsy would not lie down again. Pretending to want to make the acquaintance of the pack horse she walked back toward where he so patiently stood, half dozing. Patting him on the head she said, “Old Stoic, if there’s a rattler or a tarantula, a scorpion or anything else startling or unusual around, you let me know won’t you.” Then she cried triumphantly. “Look girls, he’s nodding his head. He is intelligent after all. He just assumes that dull uninterested expression for reasons of his own. Maybe he’s a detective. That’s just the way Dad does when he’s in a group where he expects to overhear something of great importance. He acts as though he were intently thinking of something far away.”
The listeners laughed. “Honestly Betsy, I doubt your theory in this case. I don’t believe Old Stoic thinks. He seems to just plod, but now if you’re all rested enough, we’ll up in the saddle and away.”
“Whizzle, but it’s hot, hotter, hottest!” Betsy exclaimed when they had ridden a mile farther on their way.
“Or, as the story books say, ‘The relentless tropical sun beat down upon the lone traveler and his beast of burden. Nowhere about him on the vast sandy waste could he see a sprig of vegetation that would suggest a life-saving oasis—’”
“Oh Babs, have a heart! I’d heaps rather have you spiel about ice cream sodas and cool things like that if it’s all the same to you.”
Virg smiled back over her shoulder. “Perhaps we ought to have waited for a cooler hour,” she said. “I forgot that you Eastern girls are not as used to our Arizona sun as I am, and, I’ll confess, it is rather warm, but there’s hope ahead, for in just a few moments we will have sighted the canon up which we will soon be riding.”
Betsy drew her sombrero farther down over her eyes, and then peered ahead through the air that was quivering with the heat.
The canon which they were nearing did not look inviting. There were no green growths that would have suggested a cool brook flowing down among them, only bare jagged rocks with here and there a scraggly mesquite bush growing in the cracks of rock where sand had gathered.
“Well, I don’t wonder the neighbors call the gentleman who chose that canon as his dwelling place ‘foolish,’” she remarked with a little disdainful grunt.
“Oh, but that isn’t his chief folly, or rather, not the one for which he is noted far and wide,” Virginia looked over her should to inform them.
“Why is he called Foolish Andy, Virg? I’ve often wondered,” Megsy inquired.
“It’s because he is an inventor. He is very well educated, and seems always to be inventing something which he is sure will bring his little family fame and fortune. Mrs. Wallace tells me that they were comfortably well off, once upon a time, but that all they could save had been squandered on one invention after another and they became poorer and poorer until now they can hardly keep alive, but nothing seems to quench Mr. Wallace’s faith in his inventive powers. I heard brother say that the instrument he is now trying to perfect, he believes will not only bring him the money he needs but be a great boon to mankind, or at least to that portion of it that chooses the desert places for a home.”
“What is the instrument, Virg?” Megsy inquired.
“It’s some very sensitive mechanism that is supposed to locate water and that is why Mr. Wallace choose the driest section of the desert in this neighborhood. He particularly likes Hog Canon, and his theory is that since it was, once upon a time, overrun with small hogs, there must then have been water. He believes, that the stream took to flowing underground as they so often do in Arizona and that his instrument will locate it. Then this land, which he has taken up, homesteaded I mean, will be invaluable. Brother says he is right about that, but the other ranchers have no faith whatever in his invention. At least it hasn’t succeeded. Mr. Slater is a very wealthy, progressive man and when the Wallaces first moved here, he took an interest in the instrument. When he was about to have a well dug for his new windmill, he sent for Mr. Wallace to help him locate a spot where he would be sure to find water. Fate was against the inventor, for the very spot where an excellent well has been dug, the instrument reported no water. That is why the poor man, who still clings to his faith in the invention is called ‘Foolish Andy’.”
“He ought to be put in an insane asylum,” was Betsy’s indignant verdict. “The very idea of his being permitted to bring such misfortune on the heads of his innocent wife and children. Why doesn’t she leave him?”
“For the simple or rather wonderful reason that she loves him and has faith in him,” Virginia replied, “but, unfortunately, if he ever does succeed, I fear it will be too late for his wife to share in whatever prosperity will follow. If they don’t find water very soon now, the little woman will have slipped away. Slim tells me that she seems to be holding to life by a thread. That will mean three more children left motherless in the world.”
Betsy flared. “I just hate that selfish man! I’m sorry we came! I know I won’t be able to speak civilly to him.” But Virg remarked, “You’ll be surprised to find how different he is from the man you have pictured. Now, here’s where we turn to enter the canon. Why, what is the matter with Old Stoic?” The girls whirled in their saddles to look at the pack horse. To their amazement they saw that it had stopped and was staring at the dark entrance of the canon ahead with a look of fear, ears thrown back and every muscle quivering.
“Oh, it must be a bear,” Betsy cried, when, with a shrill frightened whistle, Old Stoic turned tail toward the mountains, and, burdened though he was, raced across the trackless sand, but not toward home.
CHAPTER IX
WAS IT A BEAR
“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.”
CHAPTER X
A VISIT TO HOG CANON
Half an hour later the girls saw Annette’s brother returning, leading the faithful old pack animal who had evidently forgotten his former fear and was plodding along with his usual lack of interest in all about him, until, as they neared the mountains a breeze evidently carried the scent of the creature he so feared.
However the lad had been expecting this very thing to happen and he was on the watch. At the first movement of Old Stoic, Gordon had whirled in his saddle and was holding firmly to the rope by which he was leading the pack animal.
But try as he might to persuade, to assure, to command, the stolid creature would not move. He did not attempt to run away but having planted all four feet squarely in the sand, mule fashion, there he stood and would not budge.
Laughingly Virginia leaped to her horse’s back, and galloped out to lend what assistance she might.
She patted Old Stoic, assured him that it was only a tame bear and was not in any way a creature to be feared, but the stubborn animal blinked and winked his expressionless eyes and just stood.
“I’ll tell you what,” Virg suggested. “Let’s lead him away from your camp. There’s a trail up to the Wallace cabin from beyond that jutting out rock. It’s about an eighth of a mile from here and as the wind is not blowing in that direction, I believe Old Stoic will soon again forget the near presence of a bear.” This was done. The small horse began to walk when Gordon pulled him in another direction. When the watching girl observed that the pack animal was willing to be led to the point she had indicated, she said that she would ride back to the covered wagon and tell the girls to accompany her. Although Gordon had recently visited the cabin in the canon in search of water, he had seen no one but the boy Peter who had gloomily told him that they didn’t have any to spare.
The lad having always had a secret desire to be an inventor, and having, in fact, won the admiration of his boy friends by fashioning all kinds of mechanical devices for toys in his own shop, was very eager to see the man who had a vision which he could not fulfill.
“May Annette and I go with you?” he asked eagerly.
“Why, of course, you may. We’ll be glad to have you. You will like poor Mr. Wallace. He is very lovable in spite of his queerness.”
Meanwhile Betsy having been permitted to peep at the tame bear (which to her thought had growled at her in a manner most untame) was glad indeed when Virg rode up and told them all to accompany her. Single file they rode up the narrow rugged trail, Virg in the lead and Gordon last that he might still hold the guiding rope attached to Old Stoic not knowing at what minute the wind might change and startle the pack animal into flight.
As they neared the shack-like cabin, half hidden by overhanging boulders, Virg gave a call with which she always heralded her approach. Instantly three children ran pell mell to the top of the trail, their homely freckled faces shining with their joy at seeing the good angel friend whom they had so missed.
Little Jane, aged six, hopped up and down so fast (clapping her hands all the time) that her two braids bobbed merrily.
Thoughtful eyed Sara, who was so like her faithful mother, smiled too, but made no move of welcome although her heart was just as glad. Twelve year old Peter raced to meet them down the trail and catching Virginia’s bridle, he looked up with adoration in his red-brown eyes. “Oh, Miss Virgie,” he cried, “Ma’s been that eager to have you come home from the East. Often I’ve heard her say, ‘Somehow things will be better when Miss Virginia comes’.”
There were sudden tears in the eyes of the girl, and reaching down she put her hand over the small brown one on her horse’s head.
“I’m glad to get home, Peter. How are your mother and dad?”
There was a shade of anxiety on the boy’s freckled face. “Pa’s been took queer this very day,” he said looking up toward the cabin as though he feared he might be overheard, “and Ma says now with the water most gone, she just doesn’t know what we are to do. There weren’t any late rains and the cistern’s most empty.”
“Dear boy, your mother must not worry about that. There’s plenty of water at V. M. and you are welcome to all you can carry.” But the girl’s heart was heavy for even as she made the offer, she knew that there would be no convenient way of packing water so many miles across the desert.
Having dismounted on the small flat space which served as a dooryard, the others turned anxiously to Virg. “Ought we to remain,” Annette Traylor inquired. “If the Wallaces have this new trouble, we might be intruding.”
But Gordon stepped forward and said earnestly, “Miss Virginia, I would like to meet Mr. Wallace. I believe that I can be of service to him.”
Mrs. Wallace, more pale and fragile than when Virg had gone east to school, appeared in the doorway and Virginia went forward to greet her. The girls saw her bend and kiss the sunken cheek and were touched at the light of tenderness in the face of the older woman.
It was evident that the girl was inquiring about poor Mr. Wallace. “I don’t know what has happened exactly. Something that discouraged him so much that he just gave up and ever since he’s sat there in his chair around on the north side of the cabin and staring into space, though once in a while he does say something, but it’s about his instrument and I don’t understand.”
Meanwhile Gordon had seen the listless figure of the man, and, with an earnest desire to be of service, he had walked toward him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wallace,” the boy said, hoping to attract the attention of the inventor, but the dreamy grey-blue eyes of the thin, kindly-faced man did not move from what seemed to be one definite spot farther up the canon.
The boy, noting that the girls had gone in the cabin with the mother, sat on a rock near to wait until a more opportune moment to again address the man who seemed deep in thought.
At last, in a voice that seemed infinitely sad, the inventor spoke. “I’ve failed! I was so sure it could be done, but now, I know the truth. I’ve failed!”
“In what way have you failed, Mr. Wallace?” Again hopefully the boy ventured a remark.
This time the dreamy grey-blue eyes turned toward him. “I was sure there was a hidden spring up there,” he said more to himself than to a listener. “But the instrument doesn’t show water and I won’t dynamite until it does.”
Gordon, more interested than he thought wise to show, asked, “Mr. Wallace, may I see your instrument?”
The older man nodded and pointed toward a long narrow wooden box on the ground near.
Reverentially the lad knelt and lifted the cover. There lay an instrument of delicate mechanism. At the sight of it, the inventor’s eyes burned and leaning forward he said, Gordon thought almost angrily, “Give it to me! I’ll break it into a thousand pieces. I’ve given my life’s blood to try to perfect it, I’ve caused untold suffering to my wife and children, but, God knows, I meant no harm. I had faith in it. I dreamed that a fortune would be theirs, everything, everything, schooling for the kiddies, Peter was to go to Yale where I went.”
Gordon was on his feet at once, and, grasping the thin hand of the man, he cried in boyish glee, “I say, Mr. Wallace, I’m bully glad that you went to Yale. And don’t you worry. It’s always darkest before the dawn, you know that. Peter’ll make college. Everything will turn out all right. You see if it doesn’t. Don’t give up. Keep your faith.”
The dreamy eyes had turned toward the boy when he began this enthusiastic outburst, and in them there gradually dawned a light of understanding.
“Who are you?” the man inquired as one awakening from a sleep. “I haven’t seen you before, have I?”
“No, Mr. Wallace. I’m just passing this way, but I’m ever so interested in your invention. Won’t you come up to the spot where you are sure there is water, or ought to be, and show me how it works.”
There was a sudden renewed eagerness in the eyes of the poor man who had been so scoffed and laughed at. “Why, would you really like to see it work?” he asked as though hardly able to believe his ears.
“Wouldn’t I though,” the lad had hold of the man’s hand and was firmly lifting him to his feet. Then he added confidentially, “I’m something of an inventor myself in a small way. I say, Mr. Wallace, I’ll bet you have a good thing there. May be it needs a little different adjusting. Let’s try it out.”
It was pitiful to see the joy in the dim eyes of the man who had failed. Here was someone, what if only a boy, someone who had faith in him. With shaking hands he lifted the instrument he had a moment before threatened to break into a thousand pieces, and with an eagerness he had never again expected to feel, he led the way up, up the canon with a sureness of step that amazed the lad who had such a brief time before pitied his weakness.
“Are you good for a stiff climb?” the man turned to call. “There’s a wall of rock ahead that’s as perpendicular as a barn door, but there’s no way but to go up over it to reach the spot which I am sure long years ago was the source of a water way. See! See!” he cried excitedly. “Now, you know why I am so sure there has been water here.”
The lad, looking ahead at the huge boulder, saw on its surface a smooth, many-colored groove which could only have been made by running water. “It wasn’t much of a volume, I’ll agree, but there was water, but where is it now?” Then again inquiringly, “Do you think you can climb it?”
“Certainly, sir, if you can,” the boy replied, amazed though that the man so recently weak, could even think of making the attempt.
“Well, then, follow me closely. I’ve been up so many times, I know just where the indentures in the rock will serve for steps.”
The lad inwardly confessed that it was an almost impossible feat, but if one Yale man could accomplish it, he assured himself, then so too could another.
At length they stood above the boulder and saw that the canon had narrowed until the rocks overhanging on one side often touched the opposite wall.
“There’s a hidden spring, I am convinced, somewhere about here,” the man’s eyes were no longer dreamy but shining with the light of rekindled faith.
“I believe you are right, Mr. Wallace.” The lad leaped to a spot where he saw another of the smoothed grooves in the rocks. “Let’s try it here,” he suggested. The instrument was set up, and Mr. Wallace explained that if there were water, it was his hope that the sensitized swinging needle would dip and point toward it, but it made no movement at all.
The lad on his knees was watching it intently. Looking up he saw the old expression of despair returning to the ashen face of the man. That would never do. Hope must be kept alive.
“I say, Mr. Wallace, don’t you think maybe that needle’s held too tight? Have you ever tried loosening that minute screw there? Gee, but I’d jolly like to try that experiment.”
Almost mechanically the inventor put his hand in a large leather pocket and drew out an infinitesimally small screw driver. “Do what you wish,” he said as he sat upon a flat rock and leaned his head on his hands. “I’ve failed. Not that I have any reason to be sure that there is water here, but it did not move over at Slaters and there was water.”
While the man talked, the boy, with heart beating like a trip-hammer, was actually praying for inspiration while he loosened ever so little the tiny screw that held the sensitive needle. But even then, it did not stir.
“I say, Mr. Wallace, may I take it higher up? Way to the very top of the canon?”
The older man shook his head. “No use, son. There aren’t any watermarks farther up and it’s almost impassible.”
“But, may I try?”
A silent, resigned nod was the only answer and so securing the instrument, the lad carefully climbed over boulders, higher and higher. At last he stopped. Mr. Wallace had spoken truly, there were no signs of the water marks that had been made, no one knew how many years before. Retracing his steps, he turned a little to the right. Something seemed to impell him to stoop and look into a fissure where a boulder, perhaps ages before, had been rent asunder by some tremendous power, an earth-quake, without doubt.
It was an almost impossible feat to hold himself so that he could thrust the instrument into the fissure, but he did it, and with a startling suddenness, the sensitive needle dipped straight down.
“Mr. Wallace! Mr. Wallace! Come quick! I’ve found the spring.”
The boy’s triumphant cry rang out, reverberating down the canon and penetrating even the again dulled senses of the inventor. Not for one moment did the boy doubt that the needle was telling the truth.
Unable to wait for the older man to climb to him, Gordon fairly leaped down from rock to rock, though he wondered afterwards at the sureness with which he had stepped, and catching the man’s hand, he dragged him up, up until the fissure was seen in a perilous place beyond and below.
“Why son, you couldn’t get down there. No one could,” the man said.
“But I did! See! I just chanced to find the way. I guess my guardian angel showed it to me. The instrument’s in that fissure and the needle dipped. Mr. Wallace, it dipped straight down. Oh, if only we had some dynamite.”
The boy’s faith was just the spur the older man needed. “There’s dynamite in a cavern just below here,” he said. “Wait, we’ll bring a stick and shoot it off.”
The boy secured the instrument and took it to a place of safety.
“We’ll have to make a long fuse,” the man told the lad. “We don’t want to take any chances with flying rock.” Then he looked at the sun. “We ought to get back to the cabin in half an hour. I’ll time it for about then.”
This was done and then the two scrambled back down the rocks. How Gordon hoped the fire of the fuse would not be extinguished. Too, he hoped the explosion would not take place before they reached the girls lest they should be too greatly frightened.
During the absence of the man and boy, Virginia glanced often at her watch. She did want to see Gordon before she left to thank him for having procured her pack animal and to urge him to bring his sister to V. M. before returning to Douglas. She was sure that Malcolm would wish her to do so. But the afternoon was wearing away and, as they did not return, the girl at last arose saying: “I fear that we cannot wait longer.” Then to the little mother, whose expression was much happier than when the visitors had arrived, she said, “Tell Mr. Wallace how sorry I am, not to have seen him this time, but I shall come again and often, and do remember, dear Mrs. Wallace, the V. M. Ranch house is large and if you run out of water in a few days, as you fear, I want you all to come to us until your cistern can be refilled.”
There were tears of gratitude in the eyes of the frail woman. “I don’t understand why it is,” she said, “but now that you are here, Miss Virgie, I feel confident that all will be well, somehow.”
They were out in the plateau-like dooryard and each girl had a horse by the bridle which was lucky when a deafening report like thunder boomed through the mountains.
“W-what was that?” Betsy cried in alarm, but Mrs. Wallace at once quieted their fears, for it was a sound she had often heard. “It’s my Peter dynamiting for water,” she said sadly. “But he won’t find it. He never has.” But little Peter whose eyes had been afire with enthusiasm had raced toward the canon bed and was seen waving and beckoning frantically. “Ma,” he shouted, “I hear it. I’m as sure as anything that I hear water.”
The girls listened and far up in the canon they heard a rushing sound that came nearer and nearer, then they heard something else. A shout of triumph, then a man and boy appeared and in the face of the inventor was light, an inner radiance of great joy.
He seemed to see no one but the wife he loved. Going straight toward her, with arms outstretched, he cried, “Molly, Molly, little girl! We’ve succeeded at last, you and I! Thank God your days of privation are over.” Then turning to the lad he said, “But I can’t call it all my invention. It was your thought that perfected it. I’ll share with you.” But the boy exclaimed, “Mr. Wallace, you alone are the inventor of that instrument. It would have been only a matter of time before you thought to make the slight change that I suggested.”
Then, although it seemed as though they just must stay to rejoice with their friends, Virginia was reminded by the lowness of the sun that she must start on the homeward way.
Annette and Gordon decided to remain in their present camp until the morrow. Then, although they would like nothing better than to visit V. M., the lad decided that he did not care to chance being stuck again in the sand and so he accepted Virginia’s advice that he start out for Slater’s Ranch early the next day.
“Mr. Slater is the richest man on the desert. You will have no trouble reaching his place,” the girl assured him, “and from there into town is one of the best roads anywhere to be found as he keeps it up himself, or rather he has the peons in his employ constantly working on it.” Then, holding out her hand to Annette, Virg said, “If your father is not ready to return East, we shall be glad to have you and Gordon visit us. If you will send us word, we will come for you in our car.”
Two hours later, when the girls were dismounting near the corral at V. M., Betsy said, “Well, wasn’t that all just like a story book adventure?” Then going to the pack horse, she patted him as she laughingly said, “And, although he doesn’t know it, Old Stoic was the hero.”