Margaret Penrose

“ It was plain to the girls that he meant to steal a ride upon the fast train.
“Oh! he’ll be killed,” gasped Dorothy, half rising from her seat.
“Sit down, Doro Dale!” exclaimed Tavia. “If you tell anybody, he’ll be put off.”
Dorothy was greatly troubled. She never saw a Grand Army man without being interested in him. And she had never seen one before who so looked like a tramp.
“That worries me,” said Dorothy Dale, the tears standing in her beautiful eyes. “I fear that poor man will fall off the steps of the car.” ”

“ A rude prospect opened beside them as the girls turned their ponies’ heads up the steeper hillside.
On their left the ground fell away into another gulch, quite as deep and rugged as that gorge on the other side of the river, in which Tavia had had her awful experience with the rattlesnake.
Suddenly Dorothy pulled in her pony and pointed down the steep incline.
“What is that, Tavia?” she asked, startled.
“What—for goodness’ sake, don’t say you see one of Nat’s bears, Dorothy Dale!”
“Hush! not so loud.”
“Is it a bear?”
“It’s a man. I can see him plainly now. He’s coming this way—up the gorge.” ”

“ We are going to celebrate Dorothy’s graduation by taking a trip West.
“The Major does not feel equal to the journey, because of his lameness; I am to take over the property jointly in our names. I shall need you four young people, of course, to advise me,” and she laughed.
“Say! Say! what four young people?” demanded Roger and Joe in chorus.
“Why,” said their Aunt, “you know somebody must remain to look after the Major. That duty, Joe, devolves upon you and Roger. Ned and Nat are going with me, and of course Dorothy can’t go without Tavia.” ”

“ FLORES
“I never want to hear even a baby’s rattle again,” sobbed Tavia, after she and Dorothy were alone in their room at the ranch house. “Anything from the rattle of a dry seed in a pod to a load of bricks being dumped on a cement walk, will remind me of that dreadful snake.
“Why, I had a little stick in my hand, and I poked it into that crack in the rock to see if there was anything there, and up darted that rattler’s head!
“Oh, dear, me, Doro! if you hadn’t come as you did, I would have been bitten all to pieces!”
“Nonsense!” laughed Dorothy. “A snake isn’t a bulldog. ”

“ But maybe he isn’t really a tramp. Only he stole a ride clear from Killock,” and she hastily told her cousins about the stowaway on the steps of the car. “And Ned!” added Dorothy Dale, “I want to save him from punishment. They are going to take him before the magistrate—and the conductor says the magistrate will send him to jail.”
“I expect so,” said Ned, slowly.
“Come, Ned!” exclaimed the girl, anxiously, shaking him by the sleeve. “Let Nat take Tavia to Aunt Winnie, and you come to court with me. Maybe we can help the poor old man. A Grand Army man, Ned!” ”

“ Petterby overheard this, and she blushed and whispered: “I got one o’ them bottles that keeps things hot or cold, as you want ’em. You get some milk off the ice, and then it will be all ready to have the egg broke into and shaken up when your auntie wants it, by and by.”
40 “That’s nice of you!” cried Dorothy, and proceeded to call the waiter and order the cold milk.
“But where’ll you get an egg—a real fresh egg, I mean?” sniffed Tavia. “Not on a dining-car.”
“That’s so!” groaned Dorothy. “And Aunt Winnie is so particular about her eggs. She can always tell if an egg is the least bit stale.” ”

“ She shook hands with the cowboy and then hastened Tavia into the saddle again. Lance evidently wished them to linger and tried to keep Tavia engaged in conversation.
Slily Dorothy touched the flank of Tavia’s pony with her heel. The nervous little beast sprang away—almost unseating its rider; but the movement broke up any “private confab” between her chum and the cowpuncher.
“Good-bye, Mr. Lance!” cried Dorothy, spurring after Tavia.
Tavia was again her trifling self. She chuckled as they rode away.
“Poor Lance! He’ll wake up some day. Hope it will be a real nice ‘cowgirl’ who gets him. ”

“ First came Hank Ledger, the foreman of the ranch, to whom Mrs. White had a letter of introduction from the lawyers. With him was his wife—a handsome, buxom woman, who came with floury arms and an apron on, being in the midst of preparations for supper for her husband and the hands.
Two Mexicans appeared, too, who greeted José Morale, the stage driver, in his own language. Last of all came a very pretty, dark and rosy girl, younger than Dorothy and Tavia in years, yet with something indefinably “grown-up” about her. ”

“ They saw a small bunch of steers being driven through a back street of the town and learned that they were from the Double Chain Outfit.
“That is a big concern, they tell me,” said Ned White, who was much interested in cattle—or seemed to be since his mother had become part owner of a range and ranch. “Colonel Hardin sold most of his herd before he died.”
“But the Double Chain isn’t very near this town?” asked Tavia. “That Mr. Lance told me it was a day’s ride—and you can ride a long way in a day on these cow ponies—can’t you, Doro?”
“Those dear little things!” cried Dorothy. “They just fly.” ”

“ Directly beneath her she could see the broken top of the old army hat.
“He’s there!” gasped Dorothy, running back to Tavia. “Whatever shall we do about it?”
“I wish Lance was here,” said her friend. “He’d know what to do.”
“We can’t have men-folk around to help us out of all our troubles,” sniffed Dorothy.
“This isn’t trouble,” declared Tavia. “It’s really nothing to us——”
“But suppose the poor man should fall off?”
“We’re anxious for nothing, I wager,” said Tavia. “He is probably used to riding on car steps.”
“It’s such a narrow place,” groaned Dorothy. “He can’t more than cling to it. Oh! ”

“ I do get into such perfect bunches of trouble, Doro. Life, for me, seems to be just one silly scrape after another!”
By morning, however, Tavia had put the lesson of her adventure into the background. There was so much to do and see on the ranch that she could not really spend the time in thinking of a rattlesnake that was already dead!
The four young folk rode hard with one of the Mexicans that day. Dorothy and Tavia were rather shy of the long, wicked looking horns and the tossing heads and flashing eyes of the cattle, so gave them a wide berth. ”

“ But you are something else,” declared Tavia, still quite serious of countenance.
“Sure! A graduate of Glenwood School. Oh, Tavia! how I wish Ned Ebony, and Cologne, and244 half a dozen of the other girls, were here. Wouldn’t we have had fun?”
“Yes. But that is another story——”
“It’s the truth!”
“Ha! you do not know your Kipling,” cried Tavia. “But never mind. The point is, Doro, that I have come to the conclusion that you are something more than human.”
Dorothy looked at her in amazement. “How you talk! What is the joke?”
“It is no joke. Seriously,” said Tavia. ”

“ As the mustangs gathered their feet under them and whipped the tottering old coach up the side of the arroyo, Dorothy slid into the place the Mexican had deserted.
Fortunately she had watched him manipulate the brakes. And the mustangs had the drag of the coach behind them going up hill. Going down it might have been a very different story. True it was, that when the panting, straining horses came out upon the level at the top of the rise, they were glad to stop to breathe. With Dorothy giving them the brakes and the old Grand Army Veteran on the lines, the four rascals were glad to stop. ”

“ She threw off Tavia’s clutching hands quickly, reached for some fuel, and threw it on the flickering campfire. Almost at once the flames burst out and mounted higher. Their glare revealed193 the immediate surroundings of the rude encampment, but nothing of the strange marauder but the glittering eyes was visible to the girls.
Dorothy was quite sure that while the fire burned brightly no wild animal would throw itself upon them. Wolves, she knew, were cowardly alone; only in the pack were they courageous enough to attack man. ”

“ The girls and Mrs. White’s sons were vastly amused by the egg incident. Aunt Winnie thankfully drank her egg and milk, but her boys joked about the production of “Ophelia” being so quickly “swallowed up.”
“And why didn’t the old lady bring along Hamlet?” demanded Nat. “The Prince of Denmark would have found life in a Pullman endurable, I fancy. He was a philosophical old shark.”
“Speaking of eggs,” Ned said, ignoring his brother’s irreverent observation about the Melancholy Dane, “speaking of eggs——”
“Well! speak, I prithee!” said Tavia. ”

“ They urged the ponies on again and Tavia put the surveyors out of her mind—quite. Not so Dorothy Dale. She could not solve the puzzle of their presence on the Hardin estate, and she was troubled.
It was almost two o’clock when the girls reached a little lawn hidden on the mountainside. It was quite surrounded by the forest, both above and below, and they had had hard work pushing through the brush to it. There seemed to be no practicable path for the ponies, leading upward.
“Let’s leave them and go on afoot,” cried the eager Tavia. “We must reach the top.” ”

“ Naturally, even Dorothy—with all her suspicion of Philo Marsh—did not pay much attention to the business of the water-rights, only when the subject was brought up in family conclave. The young folk were having too good a time to think of much but their own pleasure—the boys in their way, and the girls in theirs.
Old Mrs. Petterby had caught Ophelia and now was anxious to go back to the Nicholson place, where she was to meet Lance again. She was to drive over in a buckboard, one of the Mexican hands being employed as driver, and of course there were two empty seats. ”

“ What’s the old fellow found?” and he stretched forth a bold hand and took the letter.
“It belongs to Mr. Dempsey,” said Dorothy, with chilling directness. “I shall tell Aunt Winnie you are here, sir.”
“Oh! don’t let me hurry her,” said the man.
His sharp eyes were fixed upon the letter as Dorothy turned away to go to her aunt’s room. When she returned a little later, Mr. Philo Marsh had settled himself in a chair on the veranda to await Mrs. White. John Dempsey beckoned her into the office and closed the door.
“Have a care of that fellow, Miss,” he whispered. “He’s a snake in the grass.” ”

“ A belated bird flew overhead and its cry had startled Tavia. Dorothy laughed at her again.
“Let’s be brave, Tavia.”
“What for? There’s nobody to see us. It’s other folks looking on that makes people brave. ”

“ The Fire Bird looked like an express truck—or so Nat said. They had loaded up the boys’ auto with more than a fair share of the baggage.
“But just the same, you girls have got to find room in here,” declared Ned. “Nat and I must have somebody to chin to while we’re driving over Hominy Ridge. They say there are ‘ha’nts’ in the woods, and we’d be afraid to go alone.”
“Poor ’ittle sing!” crooned Tavia. “Doro and I know just how scared you are. But we’ll go with you—providing you can find us room.”
“We’ll make room,” said Nat. “Mother will have to carry some of the baggage in her car. ”

“ The party Dorothy Dale and her companions were following into the wilder section of the great Hardin Ranch, had almost an hour’s start of their pursuers. If they were ignorant of such pursuit they might not ride at top speed; therefore the pace set by Lance Petterby on his pony, Gaby, must bring the pursuers to the river at about the time Philo Marsh struck it. Only Dorothy and her friends were bound to strike the stream higher up and nearer the point where Lance believed the dynamite was to be used by the men working for the big mining corporation. ”

“ There ain’t nawthin’ yere but a boardin’ shack, an’ there ain’t a woman ever stops thar only Miz’ Little, whose old man runs the shack and keeps the corral yere.”
“Goodness!” gasped Dorothy.
“Gracious!” gasped Tavia.
“Oh, they’re nice folks, but they ain’t fixed right to entertain ladies,” said the man.
“And we don’t want to be entertained,” wailed Dorothy. “We want to get on.”
“Shore you do,” granted the cowboy. “No other good train on this road, as I say. If you follered by slow trains you’d never catch that flyer—not in a dawg’s age.” ”

“ But, as Tavia said, this was no moment to “worship at the shrine of beauty.” “Oh, Doro! I’m thinking of Mrs. Ledger’s hot biscuit, and ham, and potato chips. Goodness! how hungry I am. Never mind the sunset.”
“I am not minding it,” Dorothy said, quietly. “But you suggested leading the way down this ‘bad eminence’ to which we were reckless enough to climb. Go on.”
Tavia started, and stared about the opening in the trees. It would seem to be a simple matter to leave this place, descend through the woods to the plateau, and so down the riverside. ”

“ Philo Marsh says he is acting for the Desert people; but you don’t really know if it is so.”
“Child! it can’t be possible that the man would boldly conspire to gain my signature for a different purpose from that Colonel Hardin intended?”
“That’s exactly what I believe Marsh is aiming to do,” cried Dorothy. “Don’t you sign.”
“I won’t. A bad promise is better broken than kept. I shall write to Mr. Jermyn. When I spoke to him in Dugonne he said he had had no reason for looking into the matter, but he supposed that Mr. Marsh was acting in good faith. Lawyers, I am afraid, are like doctors. ”

“ The ethics of the profession sometimes stand before their duty to a client.
“But Mr. Jermyn shall come out here and examine the papers and talk with Mr. Marsh in my presence, before I sign,” added Mrs. White.210 “Thank you, my dear, for being so helpful. Go tell Dempsey to find a man to ride into Dugonne at once with a note.”
Dorothy ran to do as she was bid, while Mrs. White went to write the letter. A man came to the ranch-house in a few minutes, a-straddle of a vicious pony. He was a sullen, rough looking fellow, but Mrs. White presumed he was to be trusted as a messenger. ”

“ They made much of Lance at the ranch-house the evening of the stampede, for the adventure lost nothing in Dorothy’s telling. Tavia undertook to “play tricks with her eyes,” as Dorothy accused, and was taken firmly to task for it by her chum.
“Now, Tavia, you are not going to act like a grown-up society girl with Lance Petterby. I won’t have it,” Dorothy said. “He’s a fine fellow, and you shan’t try to make him look silly. He helped us, that time we were left behind, to follow Aunt Winnie and the boys, and now he’s actually saved my life.” ”

“ For once let them mining people turn the river their way (they kin get it to their works a sight easier than the Desert City folks kin handle it) and yuh aunt would have a stiff fight on her hands in the courts. Possession is all of nine p’ints of the law—specially in water-rights,” added Lance, nodding vigorously.
“They must be very wicked men,” said Dorothy, “to wish to rob the poor farmers down there in the desert of water. And they will be robbing us, too.”
“I expect they’ll settle at a fair price—only yuh aunt won’t git Lost River back intuh its banks—no, sir!” ”