“So, when Moon was turning in here, and we figured he and the sheriff were looking sharp at the house, Dave and I dropped out, and ran around the back way while they parked in front. We hopped into bed, and that’s all.”
“You took desperate chances, boys, and rather illegal ones, I am afraid,” said Mrs. Mallow. “You have aroused the suspicions of Mr. Moon in the bargain.”
Doris thanked the boys sweetly for all they had done in her behalf. Dave and Marshmallow were rather crestfallen as goodnights were exchanged and everyone repaired to bed and to sleep, if possible, after the exciting events.
In the morning, as the five trooped across the patio to their breakfast, Miss Bedelle’s airplane roared overhead, and all wondered where she was going at such an early hour.
The breakfast was just about over when a familiar-sounding automobile drove into the yard and Ben Corlies jumped out. Without the least ceremony he dashed into the house and hurled something on the table with a cowboy whoop that brought everyone to his feet.
“Why—oh! My handbag!” cried Mrs. Mallow. “Mr. Corlies, how can I ever reward you?”
“Don’t talk that way, Ma’am,” Ben grinned. “Jest open the bag and see if all your belongings is in it, for I didn’t lift the clasp on it.”
“If you will excuse me, then?” Mrs. Mallow smiled, and the smile grew as she examined the contents of the handbag. “Everything is here. Where did you find it?”
“Miss Bedelle found it,” Ben said. “She found it between the wall and a seat of that cast-iron katydid you all flew out here in.”
“We will drive over some time today and thank her,” Mrs. Mallow declared. “We owe Miss Bedelle many more thanks besides.”
“Well, I—I don’t know,” Ben said, shuffling his feet and twisting his sombrero. “I don’t think Miss Bedelle would like any company just now. Anyhow, she ain’t home. She flew off this mornin’ in a hurry with Pete Speary.”
Then, as if overcome with indignation, Ben blurted out:
“It’s that ornery brother of hers, an’ I hope he gets bucked off his hoss into a cholla cactus! He’s showed up again, and no one knows where from, but he got into a peck of trouble somewheres along the line. I ain’t no eavesdropper, but Miss Bedelle had to jly over to some place in a hurry this mornin’ to straighten out the mess, an’ I don’t know where the boy lit out to at all. He was missin’ again last night.”
“I can tell you,” Marshmallow spoke up. “He was at the hotel last night with that Henry Moon who is bossing the oil crew.”
Ben’s face darkened, and he shifted the holste? in which his long-barreled six-gun rested.
“Those crooks, hey?” he snarled. “They got their orders to keep off our land, and I’m one person who will keep ’em off, too! And now the boy has got mixed up with ’em, has he?”
Doris stared into her empty cocoa cup.
“Ben,” she said, lifting her clear blue eyes to the rancher, “I’ll tell you a secret. Those men are our enemies, too. We are certain they stole some very valuable papers, deeds to the land they are drilling on, from my uncle.”
Ben’s jaw dropped.
“Is that the truth, now?” he exclaimed. “Well, Miss Bedelle will help you all she can. She’ll be glad to have you come up, I know. And Ben Corlies’ll stand by you, come rain or shootin’, or I’m a—”
Words failed him. He strode up and solemnly shook hands all around.
CHAPTER XVIII
Doris’s Disappearance
“We won’t make another move, now, until Miss Bedelle gets back,” Doris decided.
“That is the wisest plan,” Mrs. Mallow said. “It is Sunday and Mr. Moon probably won’t do anything today.”
Ben, muttering to himself, announced that he, at any rate, had plenty to do.
“I’ve got to round up Miss Bedelle’s brother,” he said.
Refusing Mrs. Mallow’s repeated offer to reward him for returning the purse, Corlies very soon drove off.
“Everything looks brighter and more cheerful,” Kitty observed. “We have a powerful new ally, Mrs. Mallow has her money and rings back, and Marshmallow and Dave are still out of jail.”
The day was spdnt in scanning the skies for the airplane, but to no avail. Wherever Miss Bedelle’s errand had taken her, it was no one-day trip, even in an airplane.
It was a somewhat disappointed group, therefore, that retired that night, but morning brought new excitement.
Doris had just asked the boys to drive her into town, and had been reminded that the automobile had been abandoned at Raven Rock, when a man rode into the yard, tossed the reins over his cayuse’s neck, and asked for Miss Force.
“I am Miss Force,” Doris said, stepping forward.
“I got a telegram for you, Miss,” the stranger grinned amiably. “It came late last night, but I knew there wasn’t any hurry about it, because your uncle won’t get here until after sundown.”
“My uncle!” repeated the amazed Doris. “What do you know about my uncle?”
“Well, I declare, now,” said the strange messenger boy, fishing in the crown of his huge hat and extracting the envelope. “Here, read it yourself. I seen the operator typing it out.”
Doris ripped open the envelope and read:
“Your Uncle John took air express should arrive Monday.—Wardell Force.”
The girl handed the telegram to her companions. “How do yotl know he won’t arrive until after sundown?” she demanded of the messenger.
“The airline don’t go through Raven Rock,” he explained. “Prob’ly wouldn’t stop here if it did. It lands down at the junction, and your uncle can make the 5:07 from there that gits in here ’bout 7:30.”
“Well, I am certainly thankful to you for all the extra information,” Doris laughed. “This is the first time I learned more from a telegram than the sender wrote.”
“Oh, you’re welcome,” grinned the young man, blushing for no reason at all. He leaped into his saddle and rode off.
“Better and better!” Dave cried. “Say, when the army of ‘General’ Force moves on the enemy, won’t they get a shock?”
“Now that Uncle John can take charge of the affairs himself, perhaps we had better not interview Miss Bedelle until he arrives,” Doris suggested.
“A fine idea,” praised Dave. “Now what shall we do?”
“Let’s ride over the property again to make sure we remember the boundaries that Plum showed us,” Doris said. “Then we can point out to my uncle exactly what the lay of the land is, so far as we know it.”
“Good!” cried Marshmallow. “Maybe Mrs. Saylor will pack us a lunch.”
Mrs. Saylor would, and did. The young folks donned their riding clothes, and the middle of the forenoon saw the cavalcade mount the rise above the ranch house, wave goodbye to Mrs. Mallow, and then vanish over the slope. Poor Wags, his paws swollen from an encounter with a fish-hook cactus, had to remain behind.
None realized into what thrilling adventures they were riding, as they spurred on their horses.
After locating the first boundary post, or benchmark as Plum had called it, the quartet decided that such success deserved a treat, and so they had their lunch.
“Let’s take a bee-line from here and cut across to the opposite marker, instead of looking for the next one on this side,” Doris proposed.
“Good, that will test our plainscraft and take us over new country, too,” Dave seconded.
Instead of following the four sides of the great square, the friends struck diagonally across the first “section.”
It was rough going, and confusing. Cattle paths criss-crossed the earth, hills and deep gullies forced the group to detour. They crossed the road over which Marshmallow had driven them early the week before, the only familiar spot in the landscape.
“Pss-st!” whispered Doris, who was for the time being in the lead.
Following her outstretched finger, the others saw a solitary horseman clambering up the steep sides of a h
ill about a quarter of a mile away.
“What’s a man want to climb up there for?” Marshmallow panted. “It’s hard enough riding along the level.”
“Everybody duck!” Doris commanded. “I have a hunch! Into this gully, quick!”
Four horses were wheeled on their hind legs and were forced over the stony brink of a small arroyo.
“Golly, what’s the idea?” Marshmallow demanded.
“I have an idea that man is going up the hill to be a lookout,” Doris said. “He’s the one who ducked out of sight when we went through here with Plum.”
“A lookout for what?” Kitty asked, bewildered.
“That’s what we’ll find out,” Doris said grimly. “Marshmallow, you creep up the bank of this gully and keep your eye on that horseman, and Dave, suppose you walk on and see where this leads to.”
The boys obeyed as if they had recognized Doris as the leader of the expedition. The girls remained on the spot, holding the bronchos.
Marshmallow inched his one hundred and seventy pounds up the shelving side of the arroyo, while Dave, hugging the bank, moved forward as rapidly as caution permitted to scout the lay of the land.
“Your spy is perched on top of the hill,” Marshmallow called down softly. “Most of the time he looks toward the town, I think. Now he’s looking all around.”
“Keep an eye on him until Dave comes back,” Doris replied.
Kitty looked at her chum with new respect.
“It’s too bad you are going to waste your time on opera singing,” she said. “You would make a success as manager of something—a store or a detective agency, or an army.”
“I hope we can help Uncle John settle this mystery in a jiffy,” Doris said, “so I won’t have to miss my lessons. And also, I want to meet Miss Bedelle.”
“Nothing new,” came from Marshmallow. “He’s still admiring the scenery.”
* * * *
It was nearly half an hour before Dave reappeared, but there was excitement written in his every move as he came toward them.
“There’s a gang working down below here,” he called softly, when he came within earshot. “I think they are drilling.”
“How far?” Doris demanded.
“About a half mile from here the gully opens into a big bowl, like a crater,” Dave reported. “It is pretty deep, and they are down at the bottom.”
“Did you hear that, Marshmallow?” Doris cried. “Come on down and we’ll investigate.”
The four mounted their patient ponies and in single file, sticking close to the bank and out of sight of the lookout, they rode forward.
“Let’s hitch the horses here,” Dave said at length. “We’ll be in sight of the men around the next turn.”
Although the ponies were trained to stand without hitching when the reins were thrown over their necks it was concluded that the safest thing to do would be to tie them to the shrubby creosote bushes that studded the arroyo.
Then, creeping in single file after Dave, they advanced upon the land thieves.
The gully dipped downward and came to an abrupt end near the crest of the bowl-like depression Dave had described.
“There they are,” he announced.
Throwing themselves flat on the ground, the four young people crept forward and peered into the hollow.
It was fifty or seventy-five feet deep and about half a mile across, and in the middle a significant steeple-like structure some twenty feet high had been erected out of new lumber.
Three or four men were busily engaged in and near the strange structure, which the four recognized as the rigging for a drill. A light truck and two cars, one of them plainly Moon’s, were parked near it, and Moon himself was conspicuous in his shirt-sleeves, ordering his crew about.
Doris clutched Kitty’s shoulder, and spoke so all the group could hear.
“Look,” she exclaimed, “there is his coat on the slope just below, near that extra big clump of bushes.”
“I see it, but what about it?” Kitty asked.
“Just look at those envelopes spilling out of the pockets,” Doris said. “I’ll bet our missing deeds and papers are there.”
“You’ve better eyes than I have,” Dave commented, “and I passed the eyesight test one hundred per cent before taking up aviation. They may be papers, or they may be handkerchiefs, for all I can see.”
“Well, I’ll find out,” Doris decided.
“How, for instance?” Marshmallow spoke over her shoulder. “Are you going back for a telescope?”
“I’m going down to get theml” Doris announced.
“Doris, you’re not!”
“I shan’t let you!”
“You’ll be shot!”
Doris’s companions chorused their protests, but she paid scant heed to them.
Instead, she crept backward, out of sight of the men in the hollow, and to the astonishment of the others tugged at a big bush until she had wrenched it from the loose soil.
“Camouflage,” she explained. “Protective coloring, or whatever it’s called. Is anybody looking?”
“Wait a minute,” Marshmallow warned, “—the man on top of the hill—all right, he has turned again.”
“Oh, do be careful,” cautioned Kitty.
Holding the sprawling-branched, dense shrub in front of her, Doris sat on the ground and began to move cautiously down the slope by hitching along with her spurred heels.
“I can see, but I hope I’m not seen,” she said as the others watched her descend, apprehension and doubt in their eyes. “Anyhow, my shirt and breeches and boots are the color of the ground. But phew! This bush smells like a freshly-tarred road.”
Breathlessly, the three watched Doris inch down the slope. It was a dramatic scene. The plucky girl was so plainly visible to them that it was incredible she could not be seen by those in front of her.
“If the spy on the hill looks down he’ll be sure to spot her,” Marshmallow whispered.
“That isn’t all that worries me,” Dave replied. “I really don’t think he will watch every bush closely. But look at that other automobile down there. Don’t you recognize it?”
“No, of course not,” the two others replied.
“Well, I do,” Dave said. “It is Ben Corlies’ car. I think he has turned traitor on us!”
“Sure enough, it’s Ben’s,” Marshmallow gasped. “The big crook! Wait until I get my hands on him—”
“Oh, the lookout!” Kitty sputtered.
The horseman posted on top of the hill had dug spurs into his mount and sent it scrambling down toward the drillers.
“He has seen Doris!” Kitty wailed.
“No, he’s getting off,” Dave exclaimed. “Look, he is creeping up the hill on his hands and knees— he has seen someone coming from that side!”
“Doris is just about in grabbing distance of the coat,” Kitty added.
It was a hair-raising moment!
Suddenly, from behind them came the frightened snort of a horse, then a shrill whinny followed by the clash of hoofs against the rocks.
“Dodge!” yelled Marshmallow, throwing away all caution.
The three rolled and scrambled close to the banks of the gully as Doris’s pinto dashed past them, fire in his eye, and charged down the slope —in a straight line for his missing rider!
“There goes the old ball game,” yelled Dave, jumping to his feet. “You two ride as fast as you can to the ranch for help. Bring everybody. I’ll stay here and cover Doris’s retreat.”
He pushed and tugged at Marshmallow and Kitty, saw them mount, and gallop toward the ranch.
Then Dave rushed back to see what was happening in the hollow. There was the panic-stricken pony, evidently stampeded by a snake, galloping across the bottom, and the workmen spreading to head it off. There was Henry Moon running toward his car.
But Doris. Where was she? Dave could not see her anywhere.
He rubbed his eyes and stared again.
Doris had vanish
ed as completely as if the ground had swallowed her!
CHAPTER XIX
Two Missing
Neck and neck Kitty and Marshmallow galloped up the rocky canyon.
“Can’t you go faster?” Marshmallow panted. “N-no! Can’t you?” the girl called in reply.
“I didn’t mean you, Kitty,” Marshmallow said. “Talking to this horse.”
He drummed with his heels on the broncho’s lean sides.
“Dave will send Doris on his horse, I guess,” Kitty gasped. “He’ll hide out until we bring help.”
“Li-listen,” Marshmallow answered, the breath nearly jolted from his body. “Suppose I get offand go back to help D-Dave stand off those crooks? You lead my pony—whoops! Nearly went off that time!—and when yours tires, change to mine.”
“You—you stick to me, Marshall Mallow!” Kitty replied. “I’m not sure of the way and I’m almost scared to death!”
“All—all right!” Marshmallow puffed. “I’ll stick to you if I can stick to this grasshopper.” Saving their breath, the two galloped on in single file up the sloping arroyo. The sides grew shallower and closer together, the ground rockier and shrubbier.
Suddenly Kitty saw Marshmallow’s horse’s nose pass hers, until he was a full neck in the lead.
“Where—did—your horse get its—second wind —oh! oh! Marshmallow!”
Kitty made a grab at the loose rein of her companion’s steed, which was darting ahead of her, riderless.
The horses halted willingly enough, their sides heaving.
Kitty turned, prepared for the worst. What she saw was superlative to the worst.
Marshmallow had disappeared!
Kitty’s chin trembled, and a tear streaked its way down her dusty cheek.
Never before in her life had she fled anything more menacing than a spider, nor had she ridden horseback except on decorous jaunts.
Now she was riding on a life-or-death mission, and—
“Kitty! Help!”
“Marshmallow! Oh, Marshmallow, where are you? Are you hurt?”
Kitty scrambled down from her mount and ran back through the waist-high rabbit-brush and creosote bushes.
“Here, give me a hand,” Marshmallow’s voice sounded. “I’m not hurt—much, but—ouch!”
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 37