Valerie had out the little sketching block she always carried with her. With a strong talent for sketching and limitless subjects on which to try her skill, Val rode with her pencil and pad in her hands nearly all day. She wanted to take back home sketches of the spots that interested her most on this trip.
“I’ll never be able to make it look as beautiful on paper as it really is,” she sighed. “No one could really hope to.”
“I’d like to have one of the sketches you made of the Canyon the other day,” Gale said. “I intend to frame it and keep it as a memento.”
“Isn’t it funny, Gale,” Val mused aloud, “how you never miss anything until you’ve seen it.”
“You might feel as though you miss something,” Gale agreed, “but you don’t know what it is.”
“I shall miss all this a lot when we go back East,” Val declared, looking about at the Arizona sunset. “Everything is so—big out here. I feel awf’ly small. When I think of the silly things we quarrel over in school and the things we think we can’t get along without in the city, it makes me ashamed of myself.”
Gale laughed. “If you lived out here long enough, I’m afraid you would have a bad inferiority complex.”
“No, but don’t you feel that way?” Val demanded. “Tomorrow we start for Monument Valley near Kayenta. That’s one hundred and seventy-five miles from the nearest telephone. Imagine what that means! Back home we don’t think anything of a telephone because nearly everybody has one.”
“Yes, and just think, I haven’t had a chocolate soda since I came out here,” chimed in Janet, coming up behind them. “I hope I shall survive.”
“You look as though you might pull through,” Valerie laughed.
“Come and get it!” Tom called and there was a concerted rush for the makeshift supper table.
Day after day they rode through cañons and winding intermittent gullies, shallow basins, and dry washes. They followed trails through thick sagebrush and cottonwoods, over dry beds of streams and sunken deserts, marveling how the dull gray and olive of the sagebrush and trees mingled. They learned that many of the mountains were extinct volcanoes and admired the brilliant colored sandstone and shale formations. Once or twice they ran into heavy thunderstorms that turned dried-up streams into rushing torrents of muddy swirling waters.
They explored with keen interest Monument Valley with the spire-like rock of El Capitan at its head, and its fantastic flat topped pillars rising thousands of feet into the air. A day’s ride from Kayenta the riders came upon Betatakin, one of the most interesting, although least known, of the cliff dwellings, standing silent within its mammoth cave.
“Just think, hundreds of people lived and died here a thousand years ago,” Virginia commented.
“I’m glad we don’t live in houses like these,” Janet said, as she climbed up the worn stone steps to the next level. “I’ve no desire to climb all these steps every time I want to go home.”
“If you walked in your sleep it was just too bad,” added Carol, looking back down at the stones over which they had come.
“It gives me an appetite,” Madge complained. “When do we eat?”
“The sooner the better,” put in Phyllis.
For hours the girls prowled around in the dark houses of the cliff dwellers, taking their time to examine everything of interest. The next day they resumed their riding, heading south toward the K Bar O.
During the days Gale and Phyllis had a lot of practice with their revolvers and now could succeed in coming fairly close to the bull’s eye every time they tried. Gale, too, was becoming proficient with her rope. Jim spent hours teaching her and she proved an apt pupil.
Riding with Virginia behind Jim as they swung along the trail, Gale was looking up at the trees and the blue sky, thinking how she would hate to leave all this when it came time for the Adventure Girls to go back East.
“Look out, Jim!” Virginia screamed suddenly.
There was a snarl and a streak of yellow leaped from the low-hanging limb of a tree. Jim’s horse reared wildly and plunged away as its rider was dragged from the saddle by the impact of the cougar’s weight.
For a second none of the riders could do anything but check their mounts. All the horses threatened to run away and careened wildly, almost unseating their riders. Meanwhile, Jim was thrashing about on the ground, struggling for his life while his companions watched helplessly.
“Quiet, boy,” Gale said, a soothing hand on her trembling pony’s neck. With her other hand she unfastened her rope.
“Look out, I’m going to shoot,” Tom said, raising his rifle to his shoulder.
“Don’t!” Carol cried. “You might hit Jim.”
“But the beast is killing him,” Janet said with a shudder. “Somebody do something!”
Despite Carol’s warning, Tom discharged his gun and succeeded only in frightening the ponies more. Jim was fighting madly to keep the sharp claws and teeth away from his face and throat.
Once more Gale spoke to her pony and patted him reassuringly. He jerked nervously under her hand, but he was by far the quietest one of the beasts. During the days in the saddle Gale had learned the tricks and tendencies of her mount and she had instilled a trust in him for his rider. Now, though he longed to flee from this spot with its danger, he stood quietly obedient to her voice and touch. In her hand Gale held her coiled rope. Tom had dismounted and handed the reins of his horse and of the pack horses to Carol and was edging nearer to those thrashing figures on the ground. Virginia, too, had dismounted.
At the first opportune moment, Gale’s rope slithered out and fell over the two. The loop caught a hind leg of the cougar. Immediately it tightened and the snapping teeth were diverted from Jim to the rope about its leg.
“Go it, boy!” Gale urged her horse.
The horse darted forward. Behind her the rope pulled the cougar clear from Jim. The pony sped down the trail, its rider bent low in the saddle, the rope dragging the squirming, struggling mountain lion over the stony ground. Gale did not slow her mount till she was sure that the animal was dead. Then she turned her horse and trotted him slowly back to the group.
Tom and Virginia were busy with Jim. The cowboy’s shirt hung in ribbons, and the flesh of his shoulders and arms was streaming with blood. He had a long scratch along his cheek, but otherwise he was safe and sound.
“Never thought that rope trainin’ would come in so handy,” he grinned at her. “Reckon I owe you a heap for pullin’ that fella offa me, Miss Gale.”
“Is he dead?” Janet asked tremulously with a glance for the dust covered thing at the end of Gale’s rope.
“If he isn’t, he ought to be,” Gale replied, dismounting. “Are you hurt much, Jim?”
The cowboy insisted that they should not stop their day’s ride on his account. After Tom’s first aid treatment had been administered and Jim remounted his horse, they started forward again. Tom had cut the cougar loose from Gale’s rope and pulled him to one side of the trail.
“That’s what I like about the country out here,” Janet said to no one in particular. “Always something doing. Any time at all you might step on a rattlesnake or get jumped on by a ferocious animal. Nice country!” she declared with a grin.
“Pleasant thoughts you have,” Carol laughed. “It’s no worse than back home. There we have to dodge street cars and taxi cabs.”
“Give me the taxi cabs,” Madge murmured. “They at least give you a warning.”
It was late when they stopped for their camp. Riding and excitement had whetted their appetites and while they ate, Tom and Jim told them of other experiences each had had with animals in the surrounding country. Jim took the whole affair as all part of the day, and refused to declare himself a bit thrilled over it.
“At least we’ll have something to talk about when we get home,” Phyllis smiled.
“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Valerie declared. “We’ve met nearly everything the West can produce, haven’t we?”
“Nearly,” Virginia laughed. “Do you feel like going home now?”
“No!” came unanimously from all the girls.
“Well, whether you like it or not, we are,” Tom declared. “Tomorrow we get back on K Bar O soil. Two more days and we’ll be at the ranch house.”
“We’ve got to go home, our supplies are running low,” Virginia explained.
“Can we go on another trip then?” Carol asked immediately.
“If we have enough time,” Valerie commented. “The days have gone so quickly. We’ll be going home soon.”
“We’ll refuse to think of that,” Phyllis said firmly. “Let’s hear some more of your experiences,” she suggested to Jim and Tom.
For another hour while the fire crackled and shadows danced over the tents and figures around it, Jim entertained them with memories of the range lands. Valerie and Phyllis retired first. After them went the other four girls. Gale alone remained beside the fire with her cousin and the cowboy.
“Tom—” Gale began hesitantly.
“Yes?” Tom encouraged, tossing another log on the fire.
“That trail we passed just before we camped—was it the bandits’?” she asked.
Tom and Jim exchanged a fleeting glance.
“What made you think of them?” Tom asked.
“Before we started on this trip,” Gale said, “Valerie and I overheard you and your dad talking about rustlers. We didn’t mean to listen, but we did. Had that trail today anything to do with them? I thought you both looked worried when you saw it.”
“We were worried,” Jim admitted. “It was a fresh trail and the same men who held you prisoner that night in the hills, made that trail. We thought we had lost them sure, but it doesn’t look that way.”
“What are you going to do?” Gale wanted to know.
“Nothing,” Tom said promptly. “We are going to take you girls safely back to the K Bar O.”
“The bandits are probably making for the border into Mexico,” Jim murmured. “The Sheriff and his men will catch ’em.”
Tom laughed. “They haven’t done much catching so far. I’ll bet the bandits get clean away.”
“Then there is nothing to worry about,” Gale said.
“No, nothing to worry about,” agreed Tom.
When Gale had entered the tent she shared with Valerie and Phyllis, she went immediately to sleep and did not know that long after she retired, Tom and Jim talked seriously and long about the possibility of meeting the rustlers before they reached the ranch safely.
CHAPTER X
Rustlers
“Oh, how I love to get up in the morning,” sang Janet between yawns as she stumbled from the tent with Carol close behind her. “Hullo, are we getting company?”
Two cowboys on dust covered, lathered ponies had dashed into the camp circle and pulled their mounts up short beside the campfire. Jim who had been on his knees poking at the ashes to stir the flames to life got up slowly with a wide grin of welcome. Tom joined the four and Virginia, coming from the tent, greeted them also.
“Let’s get an earful,” Carol proposed. “Evidently they are riders from the K Bar O.”
“Then ya didn’ see anythin’ of ’em?” one of the new arrivals was murmuring to Tom.
“Not a thing, Lem,” Tom replied with a serious frown. “How many did they get?”
“Close to a hundred head, I reckon,” Lem declared viciously.
“By now they are across the border,” Virginia murmured. “Why did you look for them up here near the hills?”
“A couple of the boys went toward the border,” Lem’s partner answered. “We found a trail leadin’ up this way.”
“They didn’t pass near here or we would have seen them,” Virginia said again and her brother and Jim nodded in agreement.
“Then we got to be goin’ farther,” Lem said remounting his pony.
“But can’t you wait and have a bite of breakfast?” Tom wanted to know.
“Not now, son,” Lem replied. “We’ll eat a cold snack from our saddle bags. We want to find those birds before the trail is gone.”
“Wish you luck,” Jim sang out as the ponies darted forward.
“Who were they?” Phyllis asked as she, with Gale and Valerie, appeared.
“Riders from the Lazy K,” Virginia answered. “Rustlers stole close to a hundred cattle last night. They were following them.”
“But they didn’t bring the cattle up this way, did they?” Carol put in.
“No, but the boys figured some of the riders came this way. I hope they catch ’em,” Virginia said viciously. “We’re probably due for a raid tonight.”
Jim and Tom said nothing as they busied themselves getting breakfast ready. Whatever thoughts they may have had on the subject, they kept to themselves.
Breakfast was eaten, for the most part, in silence. Even when camp was struck and they started on their way again, there was not the usual light-hearted banter and teasing. Each one realized that the situation at the K Bar O and other ranches was coming to a head. Rustlers had been busy too long. Now the ranchers were acting. Instead of going to the ranch for safety from rustlers and bandits, it seemed that the girls were running into more trouble. Jim led the way, silent and foreboding. Tom brought up the rear with the pack horses. He too was silent and grim. It was their attitude that brought home to the girls just how serious the situation was.
Along about noon Jim’s horse developed a limp that necessitated their moving more slowly. After deliberation they decided to camp for the rest of the day and night. Perhaps by the morrow Jim’s horse would be well again and they could travel at an increased pace. Now there was an undisguised desire to get back to the ranch house prevalent with all of them. Things were undoubtedly happening there and the girls wanted to be in on the excitement. They thought it high time the ranchers got busy and did something about their stolen cattle. The authorities had failed to capture the thieves so it was up to the ranchers themselves.
After camp was made Val took her sketching board and went off by herself to draw. Gale had not unsaddled her horse and now she mounted him for a ride.
“Not that there is much to see,” Virginia laughed when Gale started out. “Just sagebrush, rocks, and trees.”
Gale liked to be alone sometimes and now she did not feel the need of the companionship of any of her friends. Once in a while the other girls thought her a little strange when she went off by herself. But there was nothing strange about her. Gale was the sort of person who is not dependent upon other people. She could spend a whole day by herself and not be bored with her own company. She couldn’t see why some people had to always travel with a crowd, always have a lot of other people with them. She could enjoy a walk, a movie, or a ride just as much alone as with others. Of course it was fun to travel with a group, but she enjoyed a day all to herself quite as much. When she was alone she could really think.
Gale reined her horse in and looked back at the valley she had just left. She could see all her friends like moving spots against the dull gray and olive background. On the other side, the way she faced, a long flat plain stretched out to the right while on the left was a forest of cottonwoods and fir trees. There was a narrow trail leading down from her position on the crest of the hill through the woods and she urged her horse forward. As she rode, she had to bend low in the saddle to keep from being slapped in the face by low hanging branches. Occasionally she saw a rabbit or a squirrel, but for the most part everything was still.
Her horse was young and frisky and jogged along with light, prancing step. Gale was enjoying herself hugely with no thought of the passing of time. Her surroundings were quiet and inspiring and, as usual with Gale in such circumstances, she was dreaming of a thousand and one things other than the present. When the girls got back to Marchton they would start their last year in the Marchton High School. The next year they started college. As yet the girls had not firmly decided on the school to which they would go afte
r high school days. They were concerned now with ideas of what to do and be when they were finally all through with school. They all firmly resolved that they wanted careers, but just what those careers were to be was a little undecided. Of course it was understood that Val would continue with her art. She was really the only one of them all that had a talent of any kind to which she could cling. Long and repeatedly the girls had discussed the subject of careers. What could they be? Artists? Only Val could do justice to that branch of work. Actresses then? Well, perhaps Phyllis would go in for the Drama. Madge, Carol, and Janet were totally at sea, as was Gale herself.
Gale had always thought she might like to be a doctor. But just the thought of all the years of study and preparation ahead of her was a little disheartening. She liked the study of medicine and had always been interested in it. At first she thought of being a nurse, but now she didn’t like that idea. The thought of being a doctor was much more intriguing. Doctors led such fascinating lives, she thought. In her rush of enthusiasm and ardor she didn’t reckon with the long, tedious hours the doctor devotes to his patients, nor the fact that he has little free time for himself. Then, too, she would like to be a sculptor. She liked to model things in clay and she was sure she could chisel interesting things from marble if given the chance. She sighed and urged her horse along a little faster. It was really quite a problem deciding what to be. At any rate, whatever she went into, she wanted to go into it full of enthusiasm and willingness to work and do her best. She had no intention of idling her life away. She wanted to do something, to be somebody, to be proud of her achievements whatever they might be. She was resolved that she would forge ahead to success and make a name for herself. After all, why not? Other people had started out with nothing and made themselves famous.
A huge drop of water on the back of her neck brought her back sharply to the problem at hand. Riding along and musing with herself, she had not noticed the dark clouds that had gathered overhead from nowhere. Now as her horse came out into an open clearing, rain began pouring down. She could not hope to get back to camp before the worst of the storm broke. If this heavy downpour continued, she would be drenched in a minute. Wildly she looked about for shelter of some kind. Through the trees to the left she saw a log cabin, not much of a building, but enough to afford shelter in the storm. To the rear she found a sheltered hitching post where she tied her mount and ran back to the main cabin.
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