CHAPTER XXIIA SURPRISE
Dorothy had great difficulty in explaining to the kindly woman that her father not only had not accompanied her and Tavia to Desert City, but had no intention of doing so.
“But two young girls like you havin’ the courage to travel all this ways alone!” the woman ejaculated, staring at them as though, in Tavia’s words, they were “twin animals out of the zoo.” “If that don’t beat all!”
On the way to the house, and as briefly as possible, Dorothy explained to the woman—who was Mrs. Hank Ledger, wife of the foreman of the Hardin ranch—what had brought her to Colorado so unexpectedly.
The woman listened, her handsome head cocked to one side, and occasionally put in a pertinent question.
“Land sakes! I declare, that’s too bad,” she said, at the conclusion of Dorothy’s brief recital. “I can’t think what could have possessed the boy to have done such a thing. But there, that isn’tmy business, I guess. Guess I’d better stir you up a bite to eat. Near starved, ain’t you?”
The girls were grateful for her good-hearted tact that spared them the embarrassment of further questioning.
They saw nothing of the little Mexican girl who had formerly helped the foreman’s wife around the ranch house. In her stead was a rather stolid country girl who responded to the name of Merry.
“I wonder where Flores is,” said Tavia, when they were in their room for a quick wash and a change into their riding clothes which they had very thoughtfully packed in their grips. “It doesn’t seem like the same old ranch with her missing.”
“We must ask Mrs. Ledger about her when we go down,” said Dorothy absently, and Tavia, noting her tone, turned thoughtful eyes in her direction.
“Worrying about Joe, Doro?”
“Do I ever do anything else lately?” retorted Dorothy, with a sigh. “But I am dreadfully worried about Garry too, Tavia. What Lance told us about this gang that is out to ‘get him’ is anything but comforting.”
“Suppose you will be stepping over to Garry’s ranch as soon as we get a bite to eat,” suggested Tavia, and Dorothy nodded.
“If we can be said to step on horseback,” she added.
“Well, the horse steps, doesn’t it?” retorted Tavia, but Dorothy was again so absorbed in her unhappy thoughts that she did not hear this weak attempt at humor.
“Tavia,” she cried, at last facing her chum, “why do you suppose Garry didn’t come to meet the train to-day? I don’t know whether to be dreadfully angry at him or terribly frightened for him.”
“I don’t believe I would be either until we find out more about him than we know at present, Doro,” said Tavia gravely. “One thing is certain, we know Garry well enough to be sure he had a good reason for what he did.”
“The kind of reason we won’t enjoy finding out, maybe,” muttered Dorothy so softly that Tavia asked for a repetition.
But instead of answering, Dorothy turned toward the door and opened it.
“I am going downstairs and get a piece of bread and butter if there is nothing else,” she cried. “I can’t stand the suspense any longer. I must know what has happened to Garry and Joe.”
She was out of the room and down the stairs before Tavia had finished brushing her hair.
The latter, following more slowly, found herchum seated before a repast of cold sliced chicken, current jelly, apple pie and milk.
“Make believe this doesn’t look good to me,” said Tavia, and she, too, sat down to prove her appreciation. Long before she had finished Dorothy rose and ran outside, calling to one of the Mexican boys to saddle two fast ponies.
She saw Hank Ledger, who shook hands with her formally, and hastily told him the story she had told his wife.
When she questioned him eagerly, asking him if he had seen Joe in the vicinity, he answered in the negative.
“Wherever he’s been, he ain’t come here,” he assured her. “Hurry up with them ponies, lad,” he called to the swarthy, grinning Mexican boy. “These here ladies are in a hurry.”
Like his wife, Hank Ledger evidently believed in showing his sympathy in action rather than in words, and again Dorothy was grateful.
The Mexican appeared presently, leading two splendid ponies from the corrals which he presented to Dorothy with a white-toothed, cheerful grin.
“Fastest ponies we got,” he assured her, and Dorothy recognized him as one of the lads who had been on the ranch during the eventful vacation she and her chum had spent there. “Nice ones, too. No bite, no kick. Gentle like kittens.”
Dorothy thanked him with a smile and swung herself to the back of the little mustang, leading the other toward the house.
“I can send some of the boys over to the Knapp ranch with you, if you say so, Miss Dale,” Hank Ledger called after her. In surprise Dorothy checked the pony and looked around at him. His voice had sounded anxious and his face, now that she saw it, matched his voice.
But anxious about what?
She asked this question aloud, and Hank Ledger’s frown relaxed into a sheepish grin.
“Folks say that those as look for trouble generally git it,” he answered enigmatically. “There ain’t no reason for me orderin’ a bodyguard for you, Miss Dale. Only I’d be mighty glad if you would let one of the boys go along with you. Your father not bein’ here, I feel sort of responsible-like.”
Still puzzled, Dorothy thanked him, but refused the bodyguard.
She wondered still more as she approached the house why the phlegmatic foreman had thought it necessary even to suggest such a thing.
Surely, bandits did not roam the roads in broad daylight!
Was it Stiffbold and Lightly and Larrimer he feared? But what danger was there to her and Tavia from any of these men?
She thought of Stanley Blake and the little man, Gibbons, who were in reality Stiffbold and Lightly. They would know soon—probably did already, for they had seen her and Tavia in conversation with Lance Petterby—that she and her chum had other interests in Desert City than the pursuit of a runaway boy.
Stiffbold had even confided in her to some extent concerning his plans. Would it not be natural then, when he learned, as he must, that she was engaged to Garry Knapp, for him to include her in any villainous schemes he might be hatching?
Dorothy felt a thrill of foreboding. She had been so busy worrying about others that she had never given a thought to her own safety.
But what did it matter? As long as she could feel that Garry and Joe were safe she would not very much care what happened to herself.
But she must get to Garry. In spite of all the Stiffbolds and Lightlys, she must get to Garry!
She saw Tavia coming from the house and beckoned to her impatiently.
“You never give a fellow half a chance to eat, Dorothy Dale,” grumbled Tavia, as she came up to her. “I wanted another piece of apple pie and I went without it for your sweet sake. You ought to appreciate it—you really ought.”
“Which I don’t in the least,” snapped Dorothy,at the limit of her patience. “Are you going to get on this pony’s back or must I go to the Knapp ranch alone?”
“Well, if I must,” sighed Tavia, and threw her leg over the pony’s shining back.
Something must have frightened the animal at that particular moment, for in a flash he flung up his head and dashed off across the fields in the direction of the corrals, with Tavia clinging wildly to his mane.
Dorothy gasped, touched her pony with her spur, and was off like a flash in pursuit.
Anything might have happened, but fortunately nothing very serious did.
The young Mexican who had saddled the animals saw the pony coming, swung to the back of another, and caught the bridle of the running pony as it passed, dragging it to a quivering standstill.
Tavia shifted to a more secure position in the saddle, felt her hair to see how greatly it had been disarranged, and, when Dorothy came up, was smiling winningly at the Mexican.
The latter whispered something in the runaway’s ear, slapped it chidingly on the flank and turned it gently about till it was headed toward the roadway once more.
The pony seemed entirely tractable after that, and the two girls cantered slowly toward the road.
Suddenly Dorothy checked her mount and looked ahead with eager eyes.
“Look Tavia!” she cried. “Some one is coming!”
The rider proved to be Lance Petterby.
He drew up at sight of the two girls and waved his big sombrero at them.
“Been up to Garry’s,” he shouted, as the girls spurred up to him. “Been away all day. With most of his boys, too. Only an old, fat, half-deaf feller in charge, and he says Garry don’t aim to be back much before nightfall.”
The two girls exchanged glances and Dorothy’s face fell.
“You didn’t see anything of my brother Joe about the place, did you, Lance?” she asked, and the cowboy reluctantly shook his head.
“He warn’t nowheres where I could get a sight of him, Miss Dorothy,” he said, adding with an obvious attempt at reassurance: “But most likely if Garry aimed to be away all day he has took the lad with him for safe keeping.”
“Then, I suppose, there is no use going to Garry’s ranch if no one is at home,” sighed Dorothy. “I don’t understand it at all. Oh, Lance, what would you do if you were in my place?”
“I tell you what I’d do, ma’am,” replied Lance Petterby cheerfully. “I’d come right along home with me, you and Miss Tavia, and see Ma. She’smighty much offended that you ain’t looked her up already. It might sort o’ take your mind off things till Garry gets back.”
“Oh, Dorothy, let’s!” cried Tavia gleefully. “I do so want to see my namesake, my darling Octavia Susan, again. She is such a perfect pet and she loves her auntie, so she do.”
Lance grinned and Dorothy’s anxious expression relaxed into a smile.
“Very well,” she said. “Only we must not stay very long, Lance. Garry may get back sooner than he expects.”
“You can fix that just to suit you, ma’am,” answered Lance obligingly. “I know how you feel, but I can tell you that if your brother Joe is with Garry Knapp his troubles and your’n are pretty nigh over.”
“Yes, if he only is with Garry,” Dorothy agreed wistfully.
They started down the dusty road away from the Knapp ranch and Desert City beyond, heading in the general direction of Dugonne.
They had only gone a short way, however, when Lance turned away from the road and led them down a trail that wound through the deepest part of the woodland.
“Talk about the primeval forest!” cried Tavia, in glee. “If this isn’t it I am a dumbbell. Oh, forgive me, Doro darling. I really didn’t meanto say that dreadful word. I am about to join the nation-wide movement for a purer, better English—”
“I feel sorry for the movement then,” said Dorothy wickedly, and Tavia went through the motions of turning up the collar of her riding coat.
“That was unnecessarily cruel,” complained Tavia. “Before Lance, here, too! Never mind, I am quite sure he enjoys my slang; don’t you, Lance?”
“You bet I do, Miss Tavia,” agreed Lance, his grin broader than ever. “I never see you but what I add a few words to my vocabulary. Not that it needs it none,” he added, with a chuckle.
They rode for a considerable distance through the woods, the ponies doing excellent work over the rough trail, and presently came to a small clearing in the center of which sat a tiny cabin that had “home” written in every line and angle of it.
Lance gave a peculiar whistle that brought both his “women folks” running to the door.
Yes, Ma Petterby ran, too, in spite of the fact that she was no longer young and that her old joints were crippled with rheumatism.
She received the girls with literally opened arms and seemed so genuinely overjoyed to see themthat Dorothy was glad she had yielded to Lance’s suggestion.
The little house was as homelike inside as out, and the girls were shown through it all by the proud Sue, who had herself brightened and enriched the unpretentious rooms with pretty needlework and bright cretonnes.
They came back at last to the living room and Octavia Susan, rescued from a perilous position in her crib, was placed, cooing and gurgling, in the delighted Tavia’s arms.
Ma Petterby regaled them with all the gossip of the countryside. Then, when questioned concerning Ophelia, the hen, she told the story of the little hen’s entry into farmyard society with so much dry humor that the girls were thrown into gales of merriment.
It was Dorothy who finally suggested that they should be on their way back to the Hardin ranch.
Lance, who had disappeared to give the “women folks a chance to git real well acquainted,” was nowhere to be found when the girls were ready to go, and both Ma Petterby and Sue urged the girls to “set and wait” till Lance got back.
But Dorothy, driven always by her anxiety concerning Joe, felt that she could not wait any longer. Garry would almost surely be back bythis time and she must get to him at the first possible moment!
Neither of the girls was the least afraid to go back alone. The trail, though narrow, was clearly marked and they knew that it would be very easy to return the way they had come.
“But it isn’t safe for two young girls to wander around these woods alone,” Ma Petterby protested. “Lance would be terrible put out if he was to think I’d permit it. He’ll most likely be back before you get around that curve yonder.”
“What did you mean when you said it wasn’t safe in the woods?” asked Tavia, in her eyes the joyful gleam that the prospect of danger and excitement always brought to them. “Any lions or ‘tagers’ or such-like beasts loose, do you suppose?”
But Ma Petterby did not return Tavia’s smile. She remained unusually grave and the face of Sue reflected that gravity.
“No lions or tigers that I knows on,” she replied. “But they’s been a panther hauntin’ these woods of late.”
“A panther! How gorgeous!” cried the irrepressible. “I have always wanted to meet one, Mrs. Petterby.”
“Panthers aren’t likely to attack without provocation, are they?” asked Dorothy, and this time it was Sue who answered.
“Most animals—wild animals, that is—would rather slink off without making a fuss unless they’re cornered and have to fight,” she said. But after a momentary pause she went on with a grim tightening of her mouth that made her suddenly look like a man: “But there are some of ’em that are just naturally mean an’ that likes to kill for the sake o’ killin’. This panther’s one o’ that kind.”
“Better wait inside for Lance,” urged Ma Petterby again. “Under the circumstances, he wouldn’t like for us to let you go.”
But the girls persisted, pointing out that it was better for them to go then than to wait until evening should fill the woods with shadowy lurking places.
For once Tavia agreed with Dorothy and seconded her. Not that she was particularly anxious concerning Joe, for she had long since decided in her own mind that he was safe with Garry, but that mention of the panther had roused her curiosity and interest and made her doubly eager to start on the trail again.
The two girls turned to wave to Susan Petterby with little Octavia Susan in her arms and to Ma Petterby just before a sharp bend in the trail hid the small cabin from view.
“Cute little place they have,” remarked Tavia, as she played idly with her pony’s mane. “Howhappy they are and how comfortable, and how simple that sort of life is, Doro. Just think, no bother about money, no worry about what you are going to eat for the next meal—just go out and kill a chicken if you are hungry——”
“Not Ophelia!” said Dorothy.
“Not Ophelia, of course,” returned Tavia gravely. “That would never do. But, honestly, I think it must be fun to live that way.”
Dorothy gave her a curious glance.
“Yes, you do!” she gibed. “I can see you living in that atmosphere just about one week, Tavia Travers, before you’d die from boredom. Excitement is your meat, my dear. Without it, you must starve.”
“How well you have read my nature,” said Tavia, with a sigh. “However, there is apt to be excitement enough if you can believe Ma Petterby and Sue,” she added, with a giggle. “How about that man-eating panther they were telling about?”
“That may not be so much of a joke as you seem to think it,” retorted Dorothy, with a nervous glance over her shoulder. “I’ve heard Garry say that panthers are often seen in this part of the world.”
“Maybe; but I bet I’d never have the luck to see one,” retorted Tavia dubiously, and Dorothy added a fervent:
“I certainly hope not!”
They had gone some distance along the trail when Tavia announced that she was a little stiff from riding and would rest herself by walking and leading her pony a little way.
“Good idea!” returned Dorothy, also dismounting with relief. “It takes a little time to become accustomed to horseback after you’ve been out of the saddle for a while. Whoa, now! What’s the matter?”
This last remark was addressed to the horse, who had snorted and reared suddenly. His ears lay flat against his head and his eyes were distended with some nameless terror.
At the same moment Tavia’s pony showed symptoms of fright and danced nervously off the trail, being brought back to it only by persistent persuasion on Tavia’s part.
“Now, what on earth ails the beasts?” said Tavia, in exasperation. “Stand still there, will you? Do you want me to think you have St. Vitus’ dance?”
“Something scared them—” began Dorothy.
“Oh, you don’t say!” Tavia’s retort was sharp and sarcastic, for the action of the ponies had alarmed her more than she cared to admit. “I could almost believe that without being told.”
Dorothy took no notice of the acid in Tavia’s tone, but continued to soothe her frightened pony.
After a moment of petting and coaxing he consentedto go on again, but his ears moved nervously and he walked daintily as though the rough ground of the trail were a carpet of eggs.
Tavia conquered her pony also, but as they went on again she was conscious of a nameless dread creeping over her.
Had she really heard something back there in the shadows of the woodland or had it been only an oversensitive imagination?
It was ridiculous to connect Ma Petterby’s story of the panther with this suspicion. That miserable little pony had given her nerves a jolt, that was all.
She glanced at Dorothy to see if she shared her uneasiness, but aside from a frown of concentration Dorothy displayed no anxiety. She was still talking to her pony and stroking his shining coat.
“I won’t look back into those woods. I won’t!” declared Tavia, and immediately did that very thing.
She shivered and started violently. Something had slunk behind the trees—something that padded on stealthy feet!
Tavia had caught but a glimpse of that shadowy bulk, but it had been enough to crystallize her fears. She wanted to cry out to Dorothy, to shout her a warning of the danger that threatened them. But she was afraid to raise her voiceabove a whisper, fearing that any sudden noise might precipitate a tragedy.
Dorothy, leading her pony gingerly a few steps behind Tavia, was blissfully unaware of any danger. And the worst of it was that Tavia herself could not be sure.
What was it that she had sensed slinking among the trees? She had seen something, but whether it was man or beast it was almost impossible to say.
The panther? That prowling, sinister beast? But it could not be! Panthers did not stalk their prey so long and patiently.
Again, against her will, she stole another glance into the shadows of the woods and glimpsed again that lurking form keeping always within the shelter of the trees.
There could be no doubt this time! This was no human being that followed them, but some great beast of the forest.
Perhaps it was not stalking them with the desire to attack. Perhaps, as she had read often of the wild inhabitants of the forest, it was following them out of curiosity. Sometimes, she recollected, trappers and hunters had been forced to endure this sinister, silent companionship for considerable distances until the beast tired and left them for more interesting company.
But she shuddered at the thought that theanimal, with the instinct of its kind, might soon realize that they were unprotected—had not even a gun between them. Then——
If she had only dared to pause long enough to mount her pony—to urge Dorothy to do so—they might still have a chance of escape. The ponies were swift and used to the broken trail. They might outstrip their pursuer or baffle it perhaps by the noise and confusion of their flight.
But she dared not pause, even for an instant. Dared call no warning to Dorothy which would almost certainly precipitate an attack by that lurking antagonist.
She cast another glance over her shoulder and felt her heart jump sickeningly as she saw the panther had gained upon them.
It was a panther. She could see the long slim body, not so bulky as the lion or tiger but almost as large, weaving its way, snake-like, through the dense foliage, jewel-like eyes greedily sinister, tail fairly touching the ground.
Dorothy intercepted that look of horror and cried out in fright.
“What is it, Tavia? Did you see something? Did you—” her voice trailed off into silence, for she also had seen.
The face she turned back to the watching Tavia was drawn and white with terror. She said nothing, but quickened her pace by slow degrees untilshe was close behind Tavia on the narrow trail. The ponies now were dancing in terror, trying to break away.
“What are we going to do?”
Tavia asked the question more by the motion of her lips than in spoken words, for she, like Dorothy, felt it almost impossible to break that intense, waiting stillness.
Dorothy made a gesture pleading for silence, at the same time it urged Tavia to a little faster pace. It was plain that Dorothy, like her chum, had decided that their one chance lay in their ability to ignore the beast. By pretending not to notice him, they might gain time, might baffle him temporarily. The road could not be far distant!
There was a sound, slight in itself, but breaking upon that silence with a horrible significance, the sound of a cracking twig.
The creature was becoming bolder, was creeping up upon them!
The girls longed to cry out, to scream for help, yet could not utter a sound.
It was like a nightmare, this steady approach of the implacable beast. Their limbs felt suddenly paralyzed. They had a horrible sensation that they could not have run had they wanted to.
They were going faster, however. Without realizing it they had increased their pace till theywere almost running. Probably it was that that gave the stalking beast confidence. His victims were afraid! The two ponies resisted the efforts of the girls to hold them and broke away, bolting down the trail.
A swift, terrified glance behind her told Dorothy that the panther had advanced to within twenty paces of them. In another moment he would be crouching for the spring.
Dorothy called suddenly to her chum in a queer, high voice.
“Stop, Tavia! Stay where you are. I—I’m going to sing!”
“Sing!” For a moment Tavia could only stare in a paralysis of fright and consternation. Dorothy must have gone mad! Terror had turned her mind!
Dorothy had taken a stand, had faced the crouching beast. She opened her mouth and began to sing, tremulously, quaveringly, at first, in a cracked, thin voice that chilled the very marrow of Tavia’s bones.
But the beast had halted, uncertain, baffled, had crouched close to the ground, baleful eyes fixed suspiciously upon Dorothy, tail angrily switching the ground.
Emboldened, Dorothy sang on, her voice gaining strength and confidence as she saw the effectof her ruse. Tavia, standing still in the trail, mouth agape, watched as though hypnotized.
But it was the panther that was really hypnotized. Here was something he could not understand and which, consequently, disturbed and baffled him. No one had ever sung to him before, and he was instinctively afraid of the thing of which he had had no experience.
Gradually Dorothy and Tavia came to realize that the panther would not attack while Dorothy continued to sing. But how long could she keep it up? That was the question.
The cords of her throat were already aching with the strain, her voice was becoming thin and weak. She could not sing on forever. And when she stopped—what then?
Her voice broke, died away for a moment.
The great beast so close to them stirred, glared ferociously, moved toward them.
Dorothy began to sing again, and Tavia, suddenly ashamed of her silent part in the drama, began to sing too.
Her voice sounded queer to her and she had to labor over each note, but with relief they noticed that the beast relaxed again, ceased the nervous switching of its tail.
The two girls kept up the singing for what seemed to their overwrought nerves an eternityof terror, and gradually they came to the realization that their voices were failing.
The great beast realized it, too. He was becoming nervous, uneasy, lustful. Inch by inch he was creeping forward, inch by inch!
Suddenly Tavia’s voice faltered—stopped.
“I can’t go on, Doro!” she whispered, hysterically. “I can’t—I can’t——”
With a snarl the great beast sprang forward, ears flat to his head, great paws extended!
A shot rang out and the panther fell, clawed desperately at the air in a curiously impotent gesture, lay still!
The two girls, clinging to each other, saw Lance Petterby come out of the shadows, smoking gun in hand.