CHAPTER XIXAN OLD FRIEND
Later Dorothy related the details of this conversation to Tavia, and even that sanguine one could find little of use in it.
“It seems to leave us just about where we were before,” she commented. “Never mind, honey, we shall soon be in Desert City, and, once on the ground, I reckon we’ll find ourselves in possession of more unpleasant facts than we need or want.”
“How comforting you are,” complained Dorothy, as she turned restlessly in the velvet-covered seat. “I am horribly nervous, Tavia. Suppose Joe hasn’t reached Desert City! Suppose he took the wrong train or something! So many things may happen to a boy traveling all alone. Remember, he didn’t even have money to buy himself food!”
“Now you stop worrying, Doro Doodlekins.” Tavia’s arms had circled her chum in a comforting embrace. “If that telegram has reached Garry, as of course it has, I’ll guarantee he has Joe as safe as a bug in a rug by this time.”
A little sound broke from Dorothy that wasmore sob than laugh, but she tried to turn it into a laugh as she answered Tavia’s reassurance with a wistful:
“That does sound wonderful, Tavia. If it is only true!”
“Of course it’s true. Did you ever know me to tell a fib?” retorted Tavia, and wished in her heart that she was as certain as her words sounded.
Then came their arrival at Dugonne and the embarrassment and indecision of the two girls as to just how they were to get rid of their two acquaintances now that they had reached their destination.
“I imagine we won’t have to worry about it much,” Dorothy remarked shrewdly. “When they find that our destination is the Hardin ranch and that I am engaged to Garry Knapp whose property adjoins the Hardin ranch, they probably will keep their distance from us.”
“That’s all right after they learn,” assented Tavia. “What I was worrying about was the meantime.”
As it happened, they were spared the embarrassment of sending Blake and Gibbons about their business by the sudden and unexpected appearance at the station of an old friend of theirs, or rather, of Tavia’s.
The girls had descended to the platform hoping that, since Blake and Gibbons were almost atthe other end of the train, they would be able to get away before the men came up to them.
Dorothy searched with eager eyes the faces of those who had gathered to meet the train, expecting confidently to see Garry.
Had she not wired him of her impending arrival and of the very time of her arrival? And of course Garry would be there, eagerly looking for her, as she was for him.
But Garry was not there. Dorothy realized this with incredulity. Garry was not there!
Then suddenly her incredulity was engulfed by a terrible apprehension. If Garry was not there, there could be only one reason. Garry could not come! Something had happened to him!
“Well, that young Knapp fellow seems to be conspicuous by his absence,” Tavia observed flippantly. “Guess we’d better get a bus, Doro, and ride up to the Hardin ranch in style. Horrors, here come those awful men!”
Dorothy gave a quick glance up the platform and saw that Blake and Gibbons were bearing rapidly down upon them. Something must be done right away. They couldn’t stand there gaping like Eastern “tenderfoots.”
It was at this critical moment that Tavia discovered her old friend.
“Lance! Lance Petterby!” she called, literally dragging Dorothy along by the hand to the farend of the station where stood a dilapidated Ford car. “Well, if this isn’t the greatest luck ever!”
The broad-hatted young fellow behind the wheel of the battered car looked bewildered for a moment. Then he smiled broadly and, with a sweeping gesture, removed his sombrero.
The next moment he had leaped to the ground, his tanned, good-looking face alight with smiles.
“Well, if it ain’t Miss Tavia and Miss Dorothy!” he cried. “Jerusha Juniper, but it’s good to see you both!”
The familiar exclamation brought a smile from both the girls, for it was the phrase with which Lance greeted every emergency of his life.
“What can I do for you?” asked Lance, as he looked about at the fast-diminishing throng around the station. “No one to meet you, eh?” He was surprised, for he had heard of Garry Knapp’s engagement to Dorothy.
“Not a soul,” agreed Tavia. Lance stepped aside and she saw with embarrassment that he was not alone in his ancient equipage. “Oh,” she cried, “we didn’t know you had any one with you.”
“’Tain’t no one, only my wife,” said Lance, with a fond possessive smile. “Ladies, meet Mrs. Petterby, and a finer, prettier wife you wouldn’t meet nowheres.”
The plump young person thus described smiled genially and the girls saw that she was very prettyindeed and of the type generally described as “wholesome.”
“Lance is always ridiculous, but most so when describin’ me,” she said, in a pleasant drawl. “Do be still, Octavia Susan!”
Tavia started, and was very much taken aback until she saw that this remark was not addressed to her but to the small infant in the arms of Susan Petterby.
Lance immediately captured the infant, bringing it forward for closer inspection by the laughing girls.
Octavia Susan Petterby was a pretty little thing, resembling closely her blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked mother.
“My godchild!” exclaimed Tavia dramatically. She stretched out her arms, intending to clasp the baby in a warm embrace, that seeming the right and proper thing to do with one’s godchild. But she got no further than the gesture, for Octavia Susan suddenly shut her eyes and opened her mouth and let out a wail that would have daunted a more phlegmatic person than Tavia.
Even Lance seemed to be slightly apprehensive, for he restored the infant to its mother’s arms with marked alacrity.
“She doesn’t like me!” cried Tavia, in mock chagrin, adding, with a chuckle: “I don’t believe she even knows I’m her godmother.”
“There’s a heap she’s got to learn yet, Miss Tavia,” Lance agreed, with a grin. “And probably that’s one of them. But say, Miss Dale,” he added, turning to Dorothy, “I suppose you are hankerin’ to get out to the Hardin ranch. If you don’t mind hittin’ the high spots in the old flivver, me and the wife will have you out there in a jiffy. Funny nobody came to meet you,” he added, as the girls accepted with thanks and climbed into the tonneau of the car.
The reiteration irritated Dorothy and she was about to reply rather sharply when she thought suddenly of the two men, Blake and Gibbons, who had been hurrying to meet them when Tavia spied Lance Petterby and his car.
Her quick glance scanned the platform, but she saw they had gone. Seeing her and Tavia with Lance, they had probably thought it advisable to go away quickly.
“By the way, Miss Dale,” Lance asked in his drawling tones, “I meant to ask you when I first saw you. Was you lookin’ for your brother Joe?”