CHAPTER XVIIIPLAYING A PART
Dorothy braced up mentally and prepared for the encounter.
Stanley Blake was coming toward them down the aisle with Gibbons following close at his heels like a squat little tug in the wake of a graceful steamboat.
Tavia’s eyes danced as she watched them. She was evidently prepared to enjoy herself thoroughly. To see her outspoken Dorothy Dale play a part was a novelty and a most amusing one.
“Like going to a play, only lots better,” was her unspoken thought. “For this, Tavia Travers, is real drama. True to life, if not truer.”
But Dorothy was in quite a different mood. It was hard for her to act a part and she hated it. If she were forced to do such a thing for any one but Garry——
She closed here eyes for a moment and thought hard of Garry. When she opened them she looked straight into the handsome eyes of “Cal,”aliasStanley Blake, and smiled sweetly.
The latter was armed with two huge candy boxes and Dorothy accepted one of these while she longed to throw it to the floor. She decided hastily that she would get rid of it as soon as the men had returned to their own car.
It was easy to see that Tavia had no such scruples. She had already untied the violet ribbon that surrounded a box of an equally violet—Tavia afterwards pronounced it “violent”—hue, and, with smiling hospitality, was passing it around.
They talked for a while about impersonal things until Dorothy managed deftly and with apparent inadvertence to insert the information that she and her chum were bound for Desert City.
Stanley Blake immediately showed great pleasure, imparting the information that, by a strange coincidence, his destination also was Desert City.
It was the unpleasant-faced Gibbons that inquired with apparent guilelessness whether they had friends at Desert City, and it was here also that Dorothy displayed tact and discretion.
She responded with the truth about her pursuit of Joe and went into details with such candor—as, indeed, why should she not, seeing that she was telling the truth, even if it was not all the truth?—that even the inclined-to-be-skeptical Gibbons seemed impressed.
It ended in their assuring her of their personal aid in the search for her lost brother. Dorothy thanked them and in a few minutes they took their leave, Blake being fairly dragged along by the insistent Gibbons.
Tavia guessed that the mind of the last-named gentleman was concentrated upon the dining car from which could momentarily be expected the first call to dinner, and in this guess she came very near the truth.
“Well done, Doro!” Tavia exclaimed as her chum leaned back wearily in a corner of her seat. “You pulled the wool over their eyes with rare skill. The next thing you know our handsome Cal will be baring his secret thoughts to you.”
“Not while that other fellow, Gibbons, is around,” said Dorothy ruefully. “He hasn’t much brains, but he has more than Stanley Blake, or whatever his real name is. Didn’t you notice once or twice how Gibbons caught Blake up when he was about to divulge some secret?”
“Did I notice?” repeated Tavia reproachfully. “My dear, do you think I was born yesterday? And now,” she added gleefully, “you have given me an inkling why I was thrust into this cruel world, Doro Dale. I believe I was born for this moment!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Impossible to avoid it, my dear,” retortedTavia. “Now listen while I unfold to you my part in this drama.”
And so it came to pass that an ugly-faced individual named Gibbons came to the conclusion that he was irresistible to the fair sex, or at least to one representative member of it named Tavia Travers.
He was bewildered and fascinated, albeit still faintly suspicious. But his vanity was touched, and that is fatal to a man—especially to a man of the Gibbons stamp. Before they arrived at Dugonne the next day he was completely enslaved and suspicion had been almost completely lulled to rest.
As Tavia herself later confided to Dorothy, she had seldom, if ever, worked so hard in her life, for Gibbons was not the type of man a girl naturally takes to, especially a girl of discrimination like Tavia.
“Now, your part was the easy one,” she added, at which Dorothy looked at her pityingly.
“If you think so, you should have tried it!” was all she said. However, the fact remains that, in spite of all their efforts, the girls found out very little concerning the plot involving Garry at which in the hotel dining room these men had hinted.
Dorothy, though spending many hours in the society of Stanley Blake, never dared to leaddirectly up to the subject and the man avoided all reference to his present business in Desert City with a skill that was baffling.
Only once under the stimulus of a good meal and Dorothy’s smiles did he become talkative.
“There are some young fellows out here in the West who expect to make a fortune when they really haven’t got the least idea how to go about it,” he began, and paused, looking over at Dorothy.
The girl said nothing, but evidently he found her silence encouraging for his mood became more expansive as he warmed up to his discourse.
“They expect to strike gold the first thing, or raise a spanking crop of wheat without having, you might say, a bit of experience. Serves their conceit right when some of them get left.”
“Do many of them get left?” asked Dorothy softly, hoping that her face expressed the right degree of indifference.
“A right smart lot of them do, I reckon,” he responded, with a chuckle. “I know one young fellow right now who’s due for a large, hard fall if he don’t keep his eyes pretty spry about him.”
Dorothy started nervously and covered her slip by reaching for a chocolate from Tavia’s candy box. Tavia, by the way, was at that moment sparkling for the benefit of a bewilderedbut appreciative Gibbons on the observation platform.
Dorothy hoped Tavia would continue to sparkle for a few moments more. She felt that she was on the verge of a real discovery.
So she asked, disguising her eagerness behind a yawn of apparently complete boredom:
“Is this young fellow you speak of a miner or is he trying to get rich raising wheat?”
“Trying! Trying is right!” snorted the other, and Dorothy surprised an extremely ugly look in his eyes. “Why, he isn’t sure he even owns the land for his wheat to grow on!”
“The title not clear?” asked the girl, in a quiet voice.
“Sometimes titles have flaws in ’em, sometimes it’s old men’s wills that are not clear,” answered the fellow absently.
Dorothy uttered a startled exclamation and the man glanced at her swiftly. Perhaps it was the look in her eyes or some latent stirrings of caution, but at any rate he changed the subject, speaking aimlessly of the weather.
“Looks like we are running into a rain storm,” he remarked, adding, idly: “Good thing for wheat, anyway.”
Dorothy knew that there was no chance of learning anything further concerning Garry and,as they were rapidly reaching Dugonne, the nearest station to the Hardin ranch, she felt that her opportunity was almost at an end.
At any rate, she had found out one thing.
“I wonder,” she thought wearily as Blake left her and sauntered in the direction of the smoking car, “if there can be any truth in what he hinted. But of course there can’t be. Garry ought to know whether he owns his ranch or not. Oh, how I hate that Stanley Blake!”