CHAPTER XXIIIGONE AGAIN
It was decided by the girls and Lance Petterby that they would tell no one of their perilous adventure. Dorothy and Tavia were deeply grateful to Lance, who had followed them as soon as he had learned that they had left his cabin, and had, by so doing, undoubtedly saved their lives. At the same time, they were very anxious that no one outside of their little trio should know of the incident.
Lance, after catching and bringing back to them the two frightened ponies, escaped bashfully from the repeated expressions of gratitude of the girls, left them at the Hardin ranch with the declaration that he would ride straight to Garry’s “diggings” and, provided that he had returned, would send him directly to them.
It was only a short time after that that Dorothy, still astride her little Mexican pony, espied a rider in the distance.
“Seems to be in a big hurry, too,” said Tavia,as her eyes followed the direction of Dorothy’s pointing finger. “I wonder where the fire is.”
“Tavia!” Dorothy’s tone was sharp with excitement. “I think it is—why, I believe it is Garry!”
“Looks like a cloud of dust to me,” scoffed Tavia. “In your case, I think, the wish is father to the thought, Doro mia.”
“Well, let’s wait here and see who it is, anyway,” urged Dorothy. She noted the fact that Tavia looked at her curiously. “At the rate he is going I would hate to get in his way,” she added. Dorothy was of no mind to tell her chum of Hank Ledger’s mysterious behavior or of her own apprehension in regard to Stiffbold and Lightly.
They waited at the edge of the road for the horseman to come up. As the dust cloud cleared away and they could see him more plainly, Dorothy cried out with joy and urged her pony forward.
Tavia stared for a moment and then followed at a slow canter.
By the time she reached them, Garry’s gray, dust-covered mare and Dorothy’s little pony were close together. As for the riders, Tavia could not immediately tell which was which!
“Don’t mind me!” she laughed. “If I am tooentirely out of the picture, just let me know and I will take myself hence.”
Dorothy put aside the iron grip of Garry’s arms and her pony reared uneasily. Garry caught its bridle, drew the little mustang up against his gray mare, and looked at Dorothy as though he were ready to begin all over again.
“Garry—don’t!” she gasped. “Don’t you—can’t you—see that Tavia is here?”
“He doesn’t,” sighed Tavia. “But I forgive him even that.”
Garry laughed and urged the gray mare across the road. He held out his hand and Tavia grasped it forgivingly.
“Sorry I didn’t see you right away,” apologized Garry. “You see,” with an ardent glance in Dorothy’s direction, “my vision was momentarily obscured.”
“Not momentarily—perpetually when Dorothy is around, Garry, my lad,” scoffed Tavia. “I’ve watched you when you weren’t looking.”
“Horrors! What spying wench is this?” cried Garry and, looking at Dorothy, saw that her face had suddenly become grave.
“Garry,” she asked, “why weren’t you at the train to meet us?”
“Well, listen to that!” cried Garry looking at his fiancée helplessly. “How could I meet a trainwhen I hadn’t the remotest idea you had taken one!”
“Then you didn’t know we were coming?” cried Dorothy. “You never got my telegram saying when I was coming?”
“Of course not, dear girl,” said Garry gravely, as he took her pony’s bridle and led it gently from the road and back up the graveled drive that led to the Hardin ranch house. “Do you suppose for a minute that if I had known you were coming out here I wouldn’t have been cooling my heels at the station an hour ahead of time?”
“Of course, I supposed that,” admitted Dorothy, turning her eyes away from the look in Garry’s. “But I can’t understand why my telegram didn’t reach you.”
“I got one telegram from you,” said Garry. He looked around as though to make sure that no one was near them and said in an instinctively lowered tone: “You said something about overhearing some plot or other in which the conspirators hoped to land me one with a good large brick. Such plots as those are no novelty in my young life,” he added grimly. “But I appreciate the warning, coming from a little brick.”
“But, Garry,” Dorothy’s voice was tremulous and in her eyes was a haunting fear, “there is one thing I want to ask you. I’ve been hoping you would tell, because I didn’t want to ask you.I was afraid to ask you. Garry, have you seen Joe?”
Garry’s face darkened and he pulled his horse to a standstill before the ranch house. Dorothy drew in her rein also and sat tensely watching him.
“I have seen Joe—yes,” replied Garry slowly, showing a sudden burst of emotion. “And I wish to heaven I could let the story rest there!”
Dorothy grasped his arm wildly, imploring him.
“What do you mean, Garry? Tell me what do you mean! Oh, don’t you see I’ve got to know?”
“There is so little I can tell you, dear girl,” said Garry gravely. “I saw him. He came to me, half-starved and wild-eyed with an incoherent story about breaking away from a man who was trying to take him off into the mountains——”
“Larrimer!” gasped Dorothy, white-faced.
Garry nodded.
“Certainly Larrimer, judging from Joe’s description and Lance Petterby’s story of having seen the lad in the company of that villain.”
“But, Garry—what next?” Dorothy was conscious that Garry was holding her hand in a tight grip and she clung to him desperately. “There is something else!”
“Yes,” said Garry simply. “This morning Joe disappeared.”
He put his arm about Dorothy, for she had reeled in her saddle and her face was so white it frightened him.
“Let me take you into the house, Dorothy,” he urged. “Mrs. Ledger will fix you up.”
But at the suggestion Dorothy seemed to gain strength.
“No, no!” she cried. “I am all right. Let me do what I must. Please, please, Garry.”
“What is it you want to do, dear?” asked Garry gently.
“Go after Joe—now—this minute! He cannot have got far away if he only disappeared this morning, Garry!” She paused and regarded him intently. “Do you think it is possible Joe might have run away again of his own accord?”
“I certainly do not,” returned Garry vehemently. “And if you had seen the poor lad when he stumbled on to my preserves, you wouldn’t even have to ask that question. Why, he was almost tearful in his gratitude at being safe again, and I am quite sure nothing could have made him leave the place of his own accord. He had no reason to fear me.”
“Then you think he was taken—kidnapped?” asked Dorothy slowly.
Garry nodded, his pitying eyes on her face.
“I wish I could have spared you all this, my dear,” he said. “My men and I have been out scouring the hills ever since we discovered the lad’s disappearance. I had just come back to the ranch to see if there had been any developments there when Lance Petterby came along and told me you girls were here on the ranch. Of course I then spurred right on here.”
“But who would do such a thing?” cried Dorothy pitifully. “What motive could any one possibly have in tormenting my poor Joe?”
“I don’t know,” replied the young Westerner grimly, “unless it was some of Larrimer’s crowd hoping through him to get at me. If that’s their scheme I will pretty quickly show them where they get off! Caught Philo Marsh hanging around the place, and I pretty near kicked him over the fence.”
“Philo Marsh!” cried Tavia, who had listened in silent sympathy to Garry’s revelations concerning Joe. “Is he still around here?”
“He is!” said Garry shortly. “Wherever the smoke is thickest and the trouble hottest, there you may expect to find Mr. Philo Marsh.”
“Same evil, old bird of prey, too, no doubt!” exclaimed Tavia.
“Do you think he was the one who kidnapped Joe?” asked Dorothy. She was strangely quiet now. But in her burned a determination thatgrew stronger with each moment. “Have you any reason to suspect him more than the others?”
“None whatever except that I happened to see him just before Joe disappeared. Philo Marsh is pretty closely connected with Larrimer and those other arch-knaves, Stiffbold and Lightly, just now; but of course it might have been any of the others.”
“What did you mean just now by saying that they might hope to strike at you through Joe?” asked Dorothy slowly, as though she were painstakingly trying to reason things out for herself. “I didn’t quite understand you, Garry.”
“That is only because you do not know my enemies, dear,” returned Garry. “Those fellows have done everything in their power to run me off my land. The longer I thwart them, the more determined they get. They are trying to force me to sell out for a song, sign my lands over to them.”
“But you won’t?” cried Dorothy.
“I guess not!” Garry’s eyes kindled and his fist clenched. “But it is possible that in this move—this kidnapping of the boy—they may hope to force me to something that they never could otherwise.”
“You mean,” said Dorothy slowly, “that if you agree to sign over your land to them at a ridiculous price they will release Joe?”
Garry nodded.
“And if you don’t agree?”
Garry’s face paled. Then he turned to Dorothy, caught her hands in his, gripping them fiercely.
“I promise you, Dorothy, that they shall never hurt Joe!”