CHAPTER XVIISOME RASCALS REAPPEAR
Dorothy’s eyes followed the direction of Tavia’s momentarily petrified stare and she suddenly and sharply drew in her breath. There seated side by side with their heads close together were Stanley Blake and the small black-eyed man whom he had called Gibbons.
Dorothy felt extremely uncomfortable, but she retained her presence of mind sufficiently to urge Tavia to go on as quickly as possible.
Tavia was quick to take the hint and, pretending they did not see the two men and hoping that the latter would not notice them, they hurried by. With relief they found themselves a moment later safe and unrecognized in the dining car.
There was a short line of passengers awaiting admission to the tables and Dorothy was greatly relieved when she and Tavia were finally beckoned to places at the front of the car.
Facing each other across the table, their eyes spoke volumes but their tongues were tied by the fact that they were not alone at the table, atwhich were already eating two men in loud, checked suits and flashy neckties.
Dorothy, facing the door of the dining car, watched it constantly in apprehension lest the two men appear. Tavia, watching the direction of her glance, understood her thought and spoke reassuringly.
“I don’t imagine there is any danger of meeting them here now, Doro,” she said. “You remember they were always the first in the dining car on the way out and probably their habits haven’t changed much since then.”
Dorothy nodded.
“Lucky for us we waited until the second call,” she said.
After that they spoke only of trivial things until the two men at their table, traveling salesmen, by their conversation, got up and lumbered fatly off.
Tavia found herself wondering with an inward chuckle why men who indulged a passion for checked suits almost invariably were fat.
An anxious question from Dorothy brought her back to consideration of the immediate problem confronting them.
“Do you think they are going to Desert City?” asked Dorothy in a voice so low it could hardly be heard above the pounding of the train.
“I shouldn’t wonder if that were their destination,Doro mia,” agreed Tavia reluctantly. “Having mentioned Garry’s ranch and being now bound in the general direction of Colorado and Desert City, it seems only fair to assume that their destination is more or less identical with ours.”
“If I could only find out what they are up to!” cried Dorothy, adding, as her pretty mouth set itself firmly: “And I intend to find out, too, before I get through with those rascals.”
“I have a shorter and uglier word for them,” said Tavia. Then she leaned across the table toward her chum and asked with interest: “This begins to sound thrilling, Doro, do you mind telling an old friend—if not a trusted one—when and how you intend to start in the business of mind reading?”
“I am sure I don’t know!” admitted Dorothy, as she stared absently at her practically untouched plate. “It is one thing to determine on an action and quite another to carry it out.”
“There speaks great wisdom,” gibed Tavia, in good-natured raillery, adding with genuine concern as her eyes also focused upon Dorothy’s plate of untouched food: “But why don’t you eat, Doro? One must, you know, to live——”
Quite suddenly Dorothy’s eyes filled with tears and her lip quivered. Tavia looked astonished and alarmed.
“Now what have I done?” she cried. “If I said anything——”
“Oh, it isn’t you,” Dorothy interrupted. “I was thinking of Joe.” She stared across at her chum with tragic eyes. “Tavia, have you stopped to think how Joe is going to—to—eat?”
“Why, with his mouth I—” Tavia began in her usual flippant tone, then stopped short, staring at her chum.
“One doesn’t eat these days unless he pays for what he gets,” said Dorothy bitterly.
“And Joe spent his last cent for railroad fare,” Tavia said, in a small voice.
“Exactly,” retorted Dorothy. She gave a comprehensive sweep of her hand toward the tempting contents of her plate. “Then with that thought in mind, do you wonder that food chokes me?”
“Poor Doro!” said Tavia softly. “You surely have more than your share of trouble just now. But you had better eat, dear,” she added very gently. “It won’t do Joe any good for you to starve yourself, you know. You are going to need all your strength for the business of finding the poor foolish lad.”
Dorothy, practical and sensible as always, saw the wisdom of this and forced down about half of her lunch and hastily swallowed a glass of milk.
“I hate to go through that car again,” she confided to her chum, when there was no further excuse for lingering.
“So do I,” confessed Tavia. “However, I think the waiter is of a mercenary turn of mind. He hovereth over the check like a hungry hawk.”
“Your description is picturesque, if a trifle strained,” murmured Dorothy, as she motioned to the waiter and took out her pocketbook. “Your imagination does terrible things to you, Tavia.”
But in her heart she was mutely grateful that Tavia had been created as she was with an unquenchable sense of humor and scant reverence for solemn things. To her, trouble was merely a cloud before the sun that would presently pass and leave the day brighter than ever. And one had the feeling that if the sun did not come out quickly enough to suit her, Tavia would find a way to hurry it!
On the way through their car Tavia was quick to notice that Dorothy made no attempt to avoid the gaze of the two men; in fact, seemed rather to court it. Tavia had a moment of intense admiration for her chum’s ability as an actress. She would never have suspected it of Dorothy, the sensible, practical and straightforward.
The handsome eyes of Stanley Blake discovered them immediately and he rose with what should have been flattering alacrity.
Tavia noticed that his pleasure was for Dorothy and knew what she had suspected from the beginning, that her chum had been the real object of his admiration.
Gibbons did not seem quite so pleased to see them. Tavia noticed that his eyes had narrowed in a surly and suspicious manner.
Dorothy answered quite sweetly and pleasantly Blake’s interested questions concerning the number of their reservation, and after a moment of light and amiable conversation, the two girls passed on, leaving the men to stare after them, one with admiration, the other with suspicion.
“Well, now you’ve gone and done it,” said Tavia, looking at her chum with dancing eyes when they regained their seat. “You couldn’t possibly snub our gay fellow travelers after that lusciously friendly greeting.”
“I don’t want to—just yet,” returned Dorothy significantly.
At the next station the train stopped for a few minutes to take on coal and water and Dorothy took this opportunity to send a second telegram to Garry.
In this she told him of the presence of the two men on the same train with her and Tavia and their probable destination.
She told him also of her anxiety concerning Joe and begged him to watch out for the lad,saying that he had undoubtedly gone out to join him, Garry, at Desert City by way of Dugonne.
Somehow, after sending this telegram, she felt easier in her mind concerning Joe. Provided that the lad reached Dugonne in safety Garry could be depended upon tokeephim in safety until she could get to him.
As the train moved on again, Tavia settled back in her seat contentedly and regarded the flying landscape with dreamy anticipation.
In her own mind Tavia had decided that Joe was either already safe with Garry or soon would be, and she was preparing to enjoy the rest of the trip.
“It will be great to see Desert City and a ranch again,” she said, putting some of her thoughts into words for Dorothy’s benefit. “I wonder if it will all look the same as it did when we left it, Doro.”
“A great deal better, probably,” said Dorothy, rousing herself from a troubled reverie. “With Lost River to solve the irrigation problem all the ranchland in the vicinity of our ranch and Garry’s should have benefited a great deal. I shouldn’t wonder if we should see some wonderful changes, Tavia.”
“I reckon that mining gang were sore when they couldn’t get Lost River for their ownschemes,” chuckled Tavia. “Do you remember Philo Marsh?”
“Do I remember him!” repeated Dorothy, with a shiver. “You might better ask me if I can ever forget him!”
“Oh, well, he wasn’t so bad,” said Tavia, still chuckling. “He certainly kept our vacation from being a dull one.”
The girls were recalling incidents of their first memorable trip to Desert City and the Hardin ranch. The ranch had been willed jointly to Major Dale and Dorothy’s Aunt Winnie White by Colonel Hardin, an old friend of the Major’s.
It had been Colonel Hardin’s wish that Lost River, a stream which had its origin on the Hardin ranch and which, after flowing for a short distance above ground, disappeared abruptly into the earth and continued for some distance underground, be diverted for the good of the farm- and ranchlands in the vicinity.
An influential group of miners represented secretly by a lawyer of shady reputation, the Philo Marsh spoken of by Tavia, had nursed quite different plans in connection with Lost River. They needed the stream in their mining operations and were determined to get it.
The Major and Mrs. White, however, were quite as determined to act according to the wishes of Colonel Hardin. They successfully combatedmore than one attempt by the mine owners to get possession of the river, but it remained for the young folks, Dorothy, Tavia and the two White boys and a young Mexican girl on the ranch, to outwit the final plot of the unscrupulous men.
Lost River had consequently gone to the ranchlands in the vicinity as Colonel Hardin had wished and there had followed a period of rare contentment and prosperity for the farmers.
Garry Knapp’s land adjoined the Hardin estate and had been left to the young Westerner by the will of his uncle, Terry Knapp.
The latter was an irascible, though kind-hearted, old fellow who had quarreled with his nephew on a point of ethics and had promptly disinherited him. Consequently, Garry was very much surprised and affected to find that his Uncle Terry had repented of his harshness and on his death bed had left the old Knapp ranch to him.
Naturally, Garry had benefited, as had his neighbors, by the diversion of Lost River and there had seemed until lately nothing in the path of his ambition to raise the finest wheat crop in all that productive country.
Of course Garry had had enemies, Dorothy knew that. There were those who envied him his good fortune and who would willingly have taken the Knapp ranch away from him.
With the help of Bob Douglas, Terry’s foreman while he lived and now as devotedly Garry’s, the young ranchman had been able to laugh at these attempts.
But now it looked to Dorothy as though something more serious than ever was afoot to rob Garry of the fruits of victory, and she was anxious.
“Wake up, Doro darling,” she heard Tavia hiss excitedly. “The villains approach. Now is your opportunity to prove yourself a great melodramatic actress if not worse.”