Although the occupants of the other car could not hear the words, they had seen the almost affectionate way in which the words had been spoken.
Dora thought, “Aviators are evidently lightning workers.”
Jerry’s expression did not reveal his thoughts. He spoke to both Dick and Harry. “I did something last night, I reckon, Ineverdid before. I laid my six shooter down on a rock and in all the excitement I plumb forgot it. Would you mind if we went up this road a piece—”
“Oh, Jerry,” Dora cried, “can’t we go with you all the way and see where you found the bandits?” Then, as the cowboy hesitated, Dick said, “I think it would be perfectlysafeto go, don’t you?”
“I reckon so.” Jerry was about to start his car when Mary called, “Jerry Newcomb, I never once thought to ask you or Dick if there were anyoldmen among those bandits, I mean, any whomighthave been the ones who held up the stage and kidnapped Little Bodil.”
Jerry replied, “I reckon not. They were too young.” Then he turned his car into the side road.
Harry, following, exclaimed, “What’s all this about a kidnapping? It sounds interesting.”
Mary was glad to have something to talk about which could not possibly suggest a compliment to her. She found it embarrassing to be so much admired by a boy who was almost a stranger to her. She told the story briefly, but from the beginning, and Harry was an appreciative listener. “That’s a bang-up good mystery yarn!” he said. “I’d like mighty well to be along when Jerry and Dick climb up into that rock house. Gruesome, isn’t it, knowing that the old duffer buried himself alive? Clever, that’s what he was, to make up a yarn about an Evil Eye Turquoise that would keep thieves all these years away from his gold.”
The side road into the mountains was in worse condition than the one they had left, and so, for some moments, Harry was silent that he might give all his attention to guiding the car over an especially dangerous spot. Then he turned and smiled at Mary. “And soyouhad hoped that one of those bandits who were captured last nightmighthave been Bodil’s kidnapper. That would hardly be possible. Such things don’t happen in real life and, also, as you say, the little girl may have been dragged away to the lair of a mountain lion.”
Mary’s attention had been attracted by the car ahead. “Jerry’s stopping again,” she said.
Harry put on the brakes. The cowboy had leaped out and was coming back toward them. “I don’t believe we’d better try to go any further along this road,” he told them. “Harry, if you will stay with the girls, Dick and I will—”
“Hark, Big Brother,whatwas that?” Mary held up a finger and listened intently. On their left was a deep brush-tangled arroyo. They all heard distinctly a low moan that seemed to form the word “Help.”
The boys looked at each other puzzled and wondering. Jerry’s hand slipped instinctively to his holster and, finding it empty, he held out his hand for Dick’s gun. Then he went cautiously to the rock-piled edge of the arroyo. Dora asked, “Does Jerry think it’s one of the bandits, do you suppose, who tried to get away and was hurt somehow?”
“Probably,” Dick replied. He leaped out to the road and Harry joined him. They watched Jerry’s every move, ready to go to him if he beckoned. Suddenly Mary screamed and Harry leaped back to her. They had heard the report of a gun although Jerry had not fired.
The shot undeniably had been fired from the brush-tangled arroyo. Jerry stepped back that he might not be a helpless target while he conferred with the other boys.
“I cain’t understand it at all,” he said. “If we missed getting one of the bandits, he wouldn’t be staying around here. By this time, he’d be miles away.”
“You’re right about that,” Dick agreed. “My theory is that the man who called for help was the one who fired the shot.”
Harry said, “Don’t you think that possibly someone is hurt and fearing that his call wasn’t heard, he fired his gun to attract our attention? He may have heard our cars climbing the grade. They made noise enough.”
Jerry, feeling convinced that this was more than likely a fact, went again to the edge of the arroyo, and, keeping hidden behind the jagged pile of rocks, he looked intently through the dark tangle to the dry creek in the arroyo bottom. As his eyes became accustomed to the dimness he saw the figure of an old man lying on his back, one leg bent under him, his arms thrown out helplessly. One hand held a gun. Undeniably he it was who had fired the shot.
Without waiting to inform the others of his decision, Jerry leaped over the rocks and crashed through the brush. Dick and Harry followed a second later.
As they stood looking down at the wan face of a very old man their hearts were touched.
“Poor fellow,” Jerry said, kneeling and lifting the hand that held the gun. “I reckon firing that shot was the last act he did in this life.”
“I’m not so sure.” Dick had opened the old man’s torn shirt and was listening to his heart. “He’s still alive. Hadn’t we better get him back to Tombstone to a doctor?”
For answer the boys lifted the stranger who was lighter than they had dreamed possible and carried him slowly back up to the road. The girls, awed and silent, asked if they could help, but Jerry shook his head. At his suggestion the old man was placed at his side. The girls rolled their sweater coats to place under his head and shoulders. Dick, from the back, through a tear in the curtain, held him in position.
Turning the cars was difficult but not impossible. Awed and in silence they returned to town.
Dr. Conrad, luckily, was in his office in a small adobe building near the hotel. The old man was still breathing when he was carried in and laid on a couch. Restoratives quickly applied were effective and soon the tired sunken eyes opened. The unkempt grizzled head turned restlessly, then pleadingly he asked, “Jackie, have you seen him?”
There was such a yearning eagerness in the old man’s face that Mary hated to have to shake her head and say, “No.”
Jerry asked, “Who is Jackie?” But the old man did not reply. As though the effort had been too much for him, he closed his eyes and rested.
Dick exclaimed eagerly, “Jerry, you know that young boy we brought over with the bandits. Couldn’t we ask Deputy Sheriff Goode to bring him over here? He would know if this old man belongs to the robber band, although that boy certainly didn’t look like a criminal.”
The plan seemed a good one and was carried out. The boy, fair-haired and about nine years old, cried out when he saw the old man and running to him, threw himself down beside the lounge and sobbed, “Granddad! Granddad! Oh,dowake up. I’m so glad you found me. I thoughtthistime they’d make away with me for sure.”
Slowly a smile spread over the wan features. The sunken eyes opened and looked directly at the tear-wet face of the boy. “Jackie,” the old man said, and there was infinite love in his voice. “Thank God you’re safe! They’ve ruined me. Theymustn’truin you. Go to Sister Theresa. Hide there.” For a long moment he breathed heavily, his gaze on the face of the boy he so loved. Then he made another effort to speak. “I’m dying, Jackie. I give you to Sister Theresa. Goodbye. Be—a—good boy.”
The girls, unable to keep back their tears, turned away, but Mary, hearing the child’s pitiful sobs, went over to him and, kneeling at his side, put a comforting arm about him. Trustingly he leaned his head against her shoulder and clung to her as though he knew she must be a friend.
Later, when the boy’s grief had been quieted, the young people, at the doctor’s suggestion, took him into another room and questioned him.
“How had he happened to be with the robber band?”
“Who was his grandfather?”
“Where would they find Sister Theresa that they might take him there as his granddad had requested?”
Still in the loving shelter of Mary’s arm, the boy, at first chokingly, then more clearly, told all that he knew. His grandfather, he said, had been a marked man by that robber band. He had done somethingyears agoto turn them against him, Jackie didn’t know what. They had robbed him. They had destroyed his ranch and his cattle. They had stolen Jackie once before, but he had gotten away that time, but this time they had watched him too closely. Granddad had been hunting for him.
Sister Theresa? She was a nun and lived in a convent on the Papago reservation up to the north, quite far to the north, Jackie thought.
Deputy Sheriff Goode came in and listened to what Jerry had to tell him of the child’s story. He nodded solemnly. “I know that good woman,” he said; “she is one of the world’s best. I reckon the kid’s telling the truth. If you have the time, Jerry, I wish you’d take him over there right away.”
The combination ambulance and police car was brought out. That it was seldom used was evidenced by the sand on the seats and floor. Jerry drove it to a gas station and had the tank filled. Jackie, who clung to Mary as though she alone could understand his grief, nestled close to her in the big car.
Harry said to Jerry, “Old man, I think I’d better fly over. The Papago reservation is close to Tucson, isn’t it, and I must turn in a report. Then I’ll join you all and come back with you perhaps.”
“Oh, please do!” Mary called to him. “I want you to meet the nicest dad in the world. He’ll be so interested in hearing about your trip from the East.”
A crowd of townspeople had gathered in the square and silently watched as the big police car started and the “Seagull” took to the air.
As they were rumbling along, Dora, across from Mary, silently pointed at the boy. “He’s asleep, little dear,” she said softly.
Dick was on the driver’s seat with Jerry.
“Dora,” Mary whispered, “how tangled up things are. Wewerehunting for one child and find another. Something seems always to lead us farther away from solving the mystery of poor Little Bodil.”
“I know,” Dora agreed, “but after all, we could hardly expect, I suppose, after all these years, to unravelthatmystery.”
It was not a long ride. The road was smooth and hard. The car rolled along so rapidly that the forty miles were covered in less than an hour. Dora, looking out of the opening in the back of the wagon, was delighted when she saw tepees along the roadside. Also, there were small adobe shacks with yucca stalk fences and drying ears of corn and red peppers in strings hanging over them.
“Oh, how fascinating this place is!” she whispered. “Do look! There’s a Papago family. The mother has her baby strapped to her back.” The convent was an unpretentious rambling adobe building painted a glistening white. Jerry turned in through an arched adobe gate over which stood a wooden cross.
At a side door he stopped, got out and, climbing a few steps, pulled on a rope which hung there. Almost at once the door was opened by a sweet-faced nun who smiled a welcome. Jerry asked, “May we speak with Sister Theresa?”
“Yes, will you come in?” Then, glancing out at the car and seeing the two girls, she added hospitably, “all of you.”
Jerry lifted out the sleeping boy and carried him into the long, cool waiting room. The sister who had opened the door had gone to call Sister Theresa and so she did not see the child.
Mary glanced skyward before she entered the convent and, seeing the silver plane circling about, wondered if Harry would be able to land. Evidently he decided that it would be unwise, for he was dropping the small aluminum bottle once again. Mary ran to the spot where it fell and read the note. “Unsafe to land on the sand. Will return to Tombstone and wait for you there.”
Dora glanced at Mary’s face and saw an expression which told her disappointment. Once again she thought, “Poor Jerry!”
Dick, who had waited for them, said, “He’s a wise bird, that Harry Hulbert. He takes no chances.” Then they three went indoors and joined Jerry who, seated on a bench, held the sleeping child.
Jackie wakened and opened wondering eyes at the moment when a kind-faced woman in nun’s garb entered from an inner corridor. With a glad cry he slipped from Jerry and ran with arms outstretched.
The young people rose and waited, sure that this woman, who had stooped to comfort the sobbing child, must be the Sister Theresa to whom he had been given. She was evidently questioning him and brokenly he was telling that the robbers had carried him off and that Granddad was dead.
She lifted a sorrowful face toward the strange young people and without questioning their identity, she said, “It was very kind of you all to bring Jackie to me. Did Mr. Weston send me a message?”
Jerry, realizing that formal introductions were unnecessary at a time like this, replied, “Yes, Sister Theresa. The old man was so nearly dead when we found him in an arroyo over near ‘The Dragoons’ that he could say little. However, hedidgive Jackie to you.”
The nun had seated herself and had motioned the others to do likewise. The boy, standing at her side, was looking up into her face with tear-filled, anxious eyes.
“Poor little fellow,” she said. “His life has been full of fear, but now, if those tormentors of his grandfather are in prison, he will be free of the constant dread of being kidnapped.”
“Sister Theresa,” Mary leaned forward to ask, “whydid those cruel men wish to harm so helpless a child?”
The nun shook her head sadly. “It is a long story,” she said, “and one that causes me much pain to recall, but I will tell you. Years ago this good man, who had the largest cattle ranch in these parts, was riding over the mountains carrying about his person large sums of money. He was overtaken by two highwaymen, who, after robbing him, forced him to continue with them over a lonely mountain road. When they were at a high spot, they heard a stage coming and they forced Mr. Weston to hide with them around a curve. When the stage was almost upon them, the bandits rode out, shot the driver and stole the bags of gold they found. The frightened horses plunged over a cliff taking with it the dead driver and one man passenger. A child, that man’s sister, was thrown into the road. The bandits thought only of escape, and, for a time, they forgot their captive. Seeing a chance to get away, he turned his horse and galloped back toward his ranch. Finding the child in the road, he took time to snatch her up and take her with him. He brought her to this convent where she has been ever since.”
The listeners, who, one and all had guessed the speaker’s true identity, could hardly wait until she had finished to ask if she were the long lost Little Bodil.
Tense emotion brought tears to the woman’s kind eyes. “My dears,” she said, looking from one to another of them. “My dears,canyou tell me of my brother, Sven Pedersen? I have always thought that he must have been killed when the stage plunged over the cliff. At first I hoped this was not true, but when he never came to find me—”
Mary interrupted, “Oh, Sister Theresa, your brother never stopped trying to find you.”
Jerry said, “He advertised in newspapers.”
The nun shook her head. “We do not take newspapers here and Mr. Weston, who had a nervous collapse for a long time, was not permitted to read. Yes, that accounts for it. My poor brother! How needlessly he grieved.”
Jerry and Dick exchanged glances and Dick’s lips formed the word “money.”
The cowboy said, “Sister Theresa, from the tale of an old storekeeper in Gleeson, who knew your brother well, we have learned that he has a letter for you written in Danish which tells where he left some money for you.”
“I shall be glad to have the letter,” the woman said, her face lightening, “not because of the money which I will use for others, as we here take the vow of poverty, but because of some message I am sure the letter will contain.”
Mary, thinking of the Dooleys, wanted to ask if the money might, part of it at least, be used forthembut she thought better of it.
The nun, looking tenderly down at the boy who still nestled close to her, said lovingly, “Poor Little Jackie, how I wish Icouldkeep him here with me, but that would not be permitted since he is a boy.” As though inspired, she told them, “If that money is found, I will give a good part of it to someone who will make a happy home for this little fellow.”
Mary also was inspired. “Oh, Sister Theresa,” how eagerly she spoke. “I know the very nicest family and they’re in great need. Caring for Jackie would be a godsend to them and bring great happiness intohislife, I’m sure of that.”
Then she told—with Jerry’s help—all that she knew of Etta Dooley and her family.
The nun turned to the cowboy. “I like what you tell me about that little family. If there is money to pay her, I would like to see your friend Etta.” She was rising as she spoke. A muffled gong was ringing in the inner corridor. The young people also rose.
“I am sure Etta will come, Sister Theresa,” Mary said.
Jerry promised to try to bring the letter on the morrow. The nun, smiling graciously at them all, held out her hand to first one and then another, saying, “Thank you and goodbye.” The little boy echoed, “Goodbye.” He was to remain with Sister Theresa until she had met and approved of Etta Dooley.
As the young people were about to leave the convent, the young nun who had admitted them appeared and said, “Sister Theresa invites you to lunch. It is long after the noon hour.”
She turned, not waiting for a possible refusal and so they followed her through a side door, along a narrow corridor which ended in descending steps. They found themselves in a bare basement room. There were plain wooden tables, clean and white, with benches on both sides. No one was in evidence as the noon meal had been cleared away. The young nun motioned them to a table, then glided away to the kitchen. She soon returned with four bowls of simple vegetable soup, glasses of milk and a plain coarse brown bread without butter.
“I hadn’t realized how starved I am!” Dora said when they were alone.
“Isn’t it too story-bookish for anything, our finding Little Bodil at last?” Mary exclaimed as she ate with a relish the appetizing soup.
“Righto. It sure is,” Jerry agreed.
Dick asked, “Do you think Etta Dooley will be too proud to take the money?”
“I don’t,” Mary said with conviction. “She won’t suspect that we hadwantedto find some way of giving her the money. She’ll think that our first thought had been to recommend a good home for Jackie. That will make it all right with her, I’m sure.”
Dora glanced at Jerry somewhat anxiously. “They can stay where they are, can’t they? Etta said that if it weren’t for her feeling of being dependent on charity, she would simply love being there.”
Jerry nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sure Dad will be glad to have them. I reckon he hasn’t any other plans for that cabin. We could lease them, say three acres, and if they paid a little rent that would make Etta feel independent.”
Dora added her thought, “If Etta passes those examinations she’s going to take in Douglas, maybe she could be teacher in that little school near your ranch, Jerry.”
The cowboy’s face brightened. “Say, that’s a bingo-fine idea! That school had to close because we hadn’t any children. All we need are eight youngsters to reopen it. Let’s see, there are the twins, Jackie will make three.” Then, anxiously he glanced at Mary. “How soon can Baby Bess go to school?”
“She’dhaveto go if Etta did,” was the laughing reply.
Dora suggested, “Couldn’t there be a kindergarten department?”
“I reckon so.” The cowboy’s face was troubled. “Four kids aren’t eight.”
Dick, remembering something Mr. Newcomb told his wife, inquired, “Jerry, your dad asked your mother if she minded having a cowboy next winter who had a wife and six children.”
“Jolly-O!” Dora cried. “What did Mrs. Newcomb say?”
It was Mary who replied, “You know what dear, big-hearted Aunt Mollie would say. I can almost hear her tell Uncle Henry that ‘the more the merrier.’”
“Of course,” Jerry told them, “even if we can work the school plan, the salary is mighty small. It wouldn’t more than pay their grocery bill but it’ll help all right, along with—”
Mary caught the cowboy’s arm, her expression alarmed. “Jerry,whatif thereisn’tany money in that rock house after our planning?”
“Tomorrow we will know,” Dick said. Then, as the young nun reappeared, they arose and thanked her for the good meal. Dora noticed that as Dick passed out he dropped a coin in a little box labeled, FOR THE POOR.
In the lumbering old police ambulance, the four young people returned to Tombstone and found Harry Hulbert sitting in a rocker on the hotel porch waiting for them. He ran toward them waving his cap boyishly. The “Seagull” reposed in the middle of the square surrounded by interested and curious cowboys who had ridden in from the range for the mail. Many of them had come from far and had heard nothing of the “Seagull’s” part in the recent raid.
“Where do we go from here?” Harry asked when he had learned of the morning adventure.
“If you can take Mr. Goode’s small car,” Mary began, but Harry interrupted with, “Can’t be done! They’re both out, one gone to Bisbee and the other to Nogales.”
“Oh, Big Brother,” Mary exclaimed, “couldn’t Harry sit in the front side door of your car? We girls used to ride that way at school sometimes.”
“Sure thing!” the cowboy agreed. “All aboard, let’s get going.”
Mary smiled up at him happily. “If the calf has been milking the cow all this time, it—”
Jerry shook his head. “No such luck—for the calf. Mother can milk in an emergency.”
The ride to Gleeson was a merry one. Harry sat, literally, at Mary’s feet, looking up at her admiringly and directing his conversation to her almost entirely. Jerry was very silent. No one but Dora noticed that. When Gleeson was reached, the small car stopped in front of the store and they all rushed in and astounded the old storekeeper with their exultant shout, “We’ve found Little Bodil!”
“’Tain’t so!” He stared at them unbelievingly. “Arter all these years! Wall, wall! I’ll be dum-blasted! So Little Bodil is one o’ them nun-women.” While he talked, he went behind his counter, took an old cigar box from a high shelf, opened it and held out an envelope, yellowed with age. He handed it to Jerry. “Take it to Little Bodil. I’ll be cu’ros to hear what all’s in it.”
“So are we, Mr. Harvey,” Mary began, then exclaimed contritely, “Oh, how terrible of us. We haven’t introduced the hero of the hour. Mr. Silas Harvey, this is the air scout who located the train robbers, Harry Hulbert. He seems like an old friend to us, doesn’t he, Jerry?”
“Sure thing!” the cowboy replied, then glancing at the old dust-covered clock, he quickly added, “Dick, I reckon I must be getting along over toBar N.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Harvey. Glad to have met you.” Harry shook hands with the old man.
When they were outside the post office, the air scout turned to the cowboy. “Jerry, can’t I be your letter carrier?” he asked. “While I was waiting for you in Tombstone I enquired about the stage. I can get back there in about an hour. Then I must fly to Tucson for a meeting at headquarters tonight. I can motor out to the convent and be back here tomorrow morning with the letter translated.”
“Sounds all right to me,” Jerry said.
“And during the hour that you have to wait for the stage,” Mary turned brightly toward Harry, “you may become acquainted with the nicest dad in the world.”
Forgetting the presence of the others, Harry replied, “Isthatwhy his daughter is the nicest girl in the world?”
Mary flushed bewitchingly, but it was evident that she was embarrassed.
Jerry drove them up to the Moore house, waited while Dick bounded indoors to speak to his mother, then they two rode away, promising to return as soon as they could the next day.
Dora, who had been watching Jerry’s face, knew that he had been deeply hurt, but she was sure he would not say anything to influence Mary. Dora thought, “He wants her to choose the one of them who would make her happier, I suppose. Believe me, it wouldn’t takemelong to decide.”
Mr. Moore had heard nothing of the robbery or the raid. Mrs. Farley had not wished to cause him a moment’s anxiety about the safety of his idolized daughter. She had told him that the girls were spending the night with Mrs. Goode in Tombstone, and, since the wife of the Deputy Sheriff had been a close friend of Mary’s mother, he had thought little of it. Even now that it was all over, they decided to merely introduce Harry as a friend of Patsy and Polly, who had come West to be attached to the border patrol.
Mr. Moore welcomed the boy gladly, and, for half an hour, they talked together of the East and the West. Mary and Dora slipped away and returned with lemonade and a plate of Carmelita’s cookie-snaps.
Then the two girls walked down to the cross road with Harry and waited until he climbed aboard the funny old ’bus and rode away.
He bent low over Mary at the last moment. Dora had not heard his whispered words, but she knew by the sudden flush that they had been complimentary.
Arm in arm they turned and walked back up the gently ascending hill-road toward their home.
“How do you like the newcomer?” Dora tried to make her voice sound indifferent.
Mary laughingly confessed, “I’d really like him lots better if he didn’t flatter me so much.”
Dora replied, “I know how you feel. I’d heaps rather have a boy be just a good pal. It makes a person feel, oh, as if she were the sort of a girl a boy thought he had to make love to, or she wouldn’t be having a good time. I’ve known steens of them, fine fellows really, who came over from Wales Military to our dances. They thought the only way they could put it over big was to flatter their partners. You knowthatas well as I do. Why, we Quadralettes have compared notes time and again and found the same boy had said the same complimentary thing to all four of us.” Mary made no reply, so Dora continued, “Dick and Jerry are the sort of boy friends I like. They treat us as if we could be talked to about something besides ourselves. I tell you, the girl who can win the love of Jerry Newcomb is going to win one of the finest men who walks on this green earth.”
Dora’s tone was so earnest that Mary laughed. “Goodness!” she teased. “Why all this eloquence? There isn’t any green earth around here for Jerry to walk on. It’s all sand.”
Suddenly Dora changed the subject. “Why do you suppose Little Bodil is called Sister Theresa?” she asked.
Mary replied rather absently, “Oh, I think they give up their own and choose a saint’s name. Anyhow, I’ve heard they do.”
It was evident she was thinking deeply of something else.
Her thoughtfulness continued until after supper.
“What a wonderful moonlight night!” Dora said as the two girls seated themselves on the top step of the front porch to gaze out across the shimmering desert valley, below the tableland on which they lived. “I wish Jerry and Dick would come and take us for a ride.” Hardly had she said the words when they saw a dark object scudding along on the valley road.
“Somebodyiscoming toward Gleeson from theBar Nranch way,” Mary said, and Dora noted that her voice was eager, as though she wanted,very much wanted, to see her silent cowboy lover.
For a long time they sat watching the narrow strip of cross road beyond the post office. If the car turned, it would surely be coming to the Moore place. If it passed, it would be going on to Tombstone probably. It turned. More slowly it climbed the grade.
“It’s the little ‘tin Cayuse,’ all right,” Dora said. She was watching the eager light in Mary’s face, lovely in the moonlight. Then, suddenly its brightness was shadowed, went out. Dora saw the reason. On the front seat with Jerry was another girl, a glowing-eyed, truly beautiful girl, Etta Dooley. In the rumble with Dick were two freckle-faced boys, the twins. Their ruddy faces were glowing with grins of delight. “Hurray!” they shouted as the small car stopped near the front porch. “We’re out moonlight riding.”
Dick quieted them, remembering that Mr. Moore might be asleep. Mary, looking pale in the silver light, went down to the car and asked Etta if she wouldn’t get out. “No, thank you,” that maiden replied, “I’ve left Baby Bess with Aunt Mollie and we’ve been gone more than an hour now, I do believe.”
“It hasn’t seemed that long, has it?” Jerry was actually looking at Etta and not at Mary.
“Oh, indeed not!” was the happily given reply. “It’s a treat for the twins and me to fly through space. Once upon a time I had a little car of my own, but that seemsagesago.”
This did not seem like the same Etta Dooley who had been so reserved when the girls had called at her cabin home.Whathad happened to change her, Dora wondered.
When the car turned and the small boys, remembering to be quiet, had nevertheless performed gleeful antics, Mary went up the steps and into the house.
“I’m going to bed,” she said and her voice sounded tired.
Dora, wickedly pleased, could not let well enough alone. “I didn’t know that Etta was so well acquainted as to call Jerry’s mother Aunt Mollie.” She wisely did not add her next thought, “You’ll have to look to your laurels, Mary-mine. Etta’s a mighty attractive girl and she simply loves theBar Nranch.”
When Dora spoke again, it was on an entirely different subject. “Isn’t it wonderful, Mary, to think that we’ve solved the mystery of Little Bodil and that tomorrow, perhaps, the boys are going to defy that Evil Eye Turquoise.”
“I suppose so,” Mary replied indifferently. Dora turned out the light and with a shrug got into bed with her friend.
The next day, directly after breakfast, Mary and Dora began to expect someone to arrive. The roof of the front porch was railed around and when they had made their bed and tidied their room they stepped out of the door-like window and stood there gazing about them. From that high elevation they had a view of the road coming from Tombstone as it climbed to the tableland and also they could see for miles across the desert valley toward theBar Nranch.
“Who do you think will be the first to arrive?” Dora asked as she slipped an arm about her friend’s waist.
Mary shook her head without replying. Then, because her conscience had been troubling her, Dora said impulsively, “Mary, dear, I didn’t mean, last night, that Harry Hulbert says nice things to you without meaning them. No one could help thinking you’re—”
Mary laughed and put a finger on her friend’s lips. “Now, who’s flattering?” Then, excitedly, “I hear a car, but I don’t see it.”
“There it is, by the post office,” Dora pointed, then, in a tone of disappointment, “Oh, it’s only that funny little Jap vegetable man from Fairbanks.”
A moment later, when they were looking in different directions, they both exclaimed in chorus, “Here come Jerry and Dick!”
“There’s the Deputy Sheriff’s little car.”
In through the window they leaped, down the front stairway they tripped and were standing in the graveled walk between the red and gold border-beds when the two cars arrived, Jerry’s in the lead.
Mary’s heart was heavy, though she tried to smile brightly, when she saw that Etta Dooley was again on the front seat with Jerry. Dick, this time, was quite alone. Harry Hulbert, although in the rear, leaped out and bounded to Mary so quickly that he reached her first.
Her welcome, though friendly, lacked the eager graciousness of the day before. Harry, however, did not seem to notice it. “I’ve got the translation here,” he said, waving the old yellow envelope.
Jerry got out of his car, turned to speak to Etta and then walked toward the waiting group. Dick had already disappeared into the house in search of his mother.
Etta, remaining in the car, called, “Good morning” to the girls. Jerry explained, “I haven’t told Etta the whole story, just the part about Little Bodil and the rock house. She was so interested, I told her we’d be glad to have her go with us.”
Mary smiled at him rather wistfully, Dora thought. Then she walked to the side of the car and said, “Won’t you get out, Etta, while we read the letter?”
Jerry, who had followed her, said, “Dick wanted us to wait till we got to the rock house before we read the letter. Can you girls go now?”
“Yes, I’ll get my hat.” Mary turned to go indoors. Dora went with her and they were back almost at once to find Jerry beside Etta, with Dick waiting to help Dora to her usual place in the rumble.
Harry, his rather thin face alight with pleasure, took Mary’s arm and, giving it a slight pressure, exclaimed in a low voice, “The gods are kind! I hardly dared hope that your old friends would let me have you today. I’ve thought of you every minute since I left you last night.”
Mary, seated at his side in the small car, turned serious eyes toward him. “Harry,” she said almost pleadingly, “please don’t talk to me that way. I—I’d rather you wouldn’t.”
An expression of sadness for a moment put out the eager light in his eyes, then, good sportsman that he was, he said, “Very well, Mary. I think I understand.”
After that his conversation was interesting, but general, until they reached the towering rock gate where Jerry’s car was standing, waiting.
“What a lonely, awesome spot this is!” Harry exclaimed.
“If you thinkthisis awesome,” Mary laughed, “wait until we pass through those gates.”
Jerry climbed out, helped Etta, then turned to call, “Don’t get off the road, Harry. The sand’s so soft we’d have a time pulling you out.”
Dora and Dick leaped from the rumble and were joined by Mary and Harry. “We walk the rest of the way,” Dick told the air scout, “and believe me it’s hard going.”
Mary glanced ahead, saw Jerry assisting Etta as in former times he had assisted her when her feet sank ankle deep in the soft, white sand. Harry gallantly took her arm to aid her. Mary smiled at him wanly. “Thank you,” she said. “I wish I were the self-reliant athletic type like Dora. She never needs help.”
Harry bit his lip to keep from saying aloud what he thought. Before he could think of something else to say, Dick looked back and called to him, “Were you ever any place where there was such a deathlike stillness as there is in this small walled-in spot?”
Harry shook his head. “Never!” he replied. Then, glad of the interruption, he asked, “That’s the rock house, up there, isn’t it?”
Dick nodded. “That’s where the poor old fellow they called ‘Lucky Loon’ buried himself alive, if there’s any truth in the yarn.”
“Believe me, that would take more courage than I’ve got,” Harry declared with a shudder.
Jerry, glancing back, and finding that he and Etta were quite far ahead, turned and waited, still holding his companion’s arm.
Etta’s intelligent faceneverhad seemed more attractive to Mary. The melancholy expression, which the girls had noticed, especially, the day they had called upon her, had vanished. Her eyes were bright with interest.
They walked on in a close group. “I’m simply wild to know what’s in the letter Little Bodil translated,” Dora exclaimed.
Dick laughed. “I suppose we will call that dignified Sister Theresa ‘Little Bodil’ till the end of time,” he said.
When they reached the foot of the leaning rock, which had one time been the stairway to the rock house, they gathered about Jerry who was opening the yellowed envelope. Intense interest and excitement was expressed in each face.
Sister Theresa had written a liberal translation between the almost faded lines of her dead brother’s letter.
“Dear Little Bodil—“In my heart I feel you are alive. I have hunted all over Arizona, New Mexico and across the border. No one has heard of you. I can’t search any longer.“Before I die I want to tell you where my gold is. Silas Harvey will tell you where my rock house is. Secret entrance—”
“Dear Little Bodil—
“In my heart I feel you are alive. I have hunted all over Arizona, New Mexico and across the border. No one has heard of you. I can’t search any longer.
“Before I die I want to tell you where my gold is. Silas Harvey will tell you where my rock house is. Secret entrance—”
Jerry paused and looked in dismay at the interested listeners.
“What’s up?” Dick asked.
“The old writing was so faded Sister Theresa couldn’t make it out.”
“How terrible!” Dora cried. “How to getintothe rock house is thevery thingwe need to know.”
“Well, at least we know thereisa secret entrance,” Mary told them. “Isn’t there any more of the translation, Jerry?”
The cowboy had turned a page. He nodded. “Yes, here’s something but I reckon it won’t help much. There are only a few words.” He read, “Find money—walled in—turquoise eye.” Jerry looked from one to the other and said, “That’s all. Doesn’t help out much, does it?”
Mary took the letter. “Here’s a note at the bottom. Sister Theresa wrote, ‘I am sorry I could not make out the entire message. I do hope this much will aid you in finding the money if it has not been stolen.’”
“Well,” Dick was looking along the base of the almost perpendicular cliff on which the rock house stood, “I vote we start in hunting for a secret entrance.”
“O. K.,” Harry said. “Let’s divide our forces, one going to the right and the other to the left.”
Jerry, as though it were the natural thing to do, said to Etta, “Shallwego this way?”
Mary turned and started in the opposite direction. Harry was quick to follow her. Dora and Dick remained standing directly under the rock house. Dora said, “I’m puzzled!Notabout the secret entrance but about Mary and Jerry.”
“Oh, that’ll come out all right.” It was plain that Dick wasn’t giving romance much thought, for he added, “I’m going in between the main cliff and this broken off piece.”
Dora, going to his side, peered into the crack. The winds of many years had blown sand into it. She was surprised to see Dick start pulling the sand away from the wall.