The girls had reached home just in time, for hardly had they removed their sombreros when there arose a shouting without and a pounding of horses’ feet.
“Good, the boys are back,” Babs cried running to throw open the wide front door.
“Ohee, what a bulging mail bag,” Betsy who had closely followed shouted gleefully. “There must be a million letters or more in it.”
Malcolm swung from his tired horse and giving it a friendly slap, bade it go to the corral with its companions. Lucky and Slim, as he knew, would attend to its needs.
“We had a close call.” Malcolm tossed his sombrero on the table, placing the mail bag beside it, then sank wearily in his favorite grandfather chair.
“What happened?” Virg inquired with interest. “Did that wild steer try to lead a stampede even with the drag on?”
“No, not that,” her brother replied. “The poor creature seemed to have lost all desire to make a break for freedom. The close call was that when we drove the herd into the corral at the station, Mr. Wells came running up and said that he had just received a wire that the cars were to be taken on by a freighter that was due to arrive two hours sooner than scheduled, and didn’t we work though.
“Then was the time the young steer might have made trouble had he but known. However, he didn’t attempt it, but walked up into his prison as meekly as a sheep would have done.” Then the boy laughed, “I suppose you’ll think I’m foolish, but I certainly had a decided impulse at that moment to give him his freedom. It came over me how I would rejoice, were I in his place, if I once again found myself roaming where I would, out on the range with only the blue sky above me and the distant mountains for walls. Luckily the freighter came along before I had carried out my sentimental inclination, else our check would have been that much less, Virg, when it comes from Chicago.”
Margaret, remembering what Virginia had said about hating to raise cattle just to have their freedom taken from them, realized that something of the same sentiment was in the heart of the brother, although he had not fully realized it as the girl had.
“You look just too weary for words, Malcolm,” Megsy said, leaping up from the window seat. “I’m going to make you some lemonade.”
“Make enough for Lucky too, will you? Slim won’t need any. He’ll be dead to the world before you could get a lemon squeezed. He hasn’t had an hour’s sleep in two nights and a day.”
“I’ll help.” Babs skipped by the side of her friend kitchenward.
“And while you’re gone, I’ll sort the mail.” Virginia was emptying the contents of the leather pouch out on the long library table as she spoke.
Betsy watched eagerly. Suddenly she pounced on a large envelope addressed in a boy’s hand writing. “It’s from Cousin Bob, sure certain! I wonder if they’re still quarantined. If so I ’spect this letter has been—what do you call it—fumigated.”
“Two for Babs and two for me and not one for Megsy. That’s too bad. I hope she will not feel left out,” the youngest said, but Virg glanced up smilingly. “No indeed! Margaret is too generous and loving to ever feel neglected or left out. That is a form of selfishness. Then, more-over, all of Megsy’s home people are right here, for, you know, Betsy, she belongs to us. Malcolm is her guardian and I am her adopted sister.”
“I hear a jingle approaching,” Malcolm rose as the little pitcher bearer entered the room. He went forward ostensibly to carry it, but he took the opportunity to say softly, “I’m mighty glad my little ward is home again.”
The flush which always mounted to the quiet girl’s cheeks when this lad addressed her made her unusually pretty, but, as yet Malcolm had given it no thought. Virg had been the only girl he had ever known intimately and he supposed a certain reserve, which Margaret surely had, was responsible for the pretty flush.
“Any mail for me?” Babs was following with a tray on which were five tumblers.
“Two letters and both from boys or I miss my guess.” Betsy was peering at the letters that lay side by side on the table.
“Then it is easy to know who they are from.” Babs having passed the tumblers, picked them up and looked at them curiously. “This one is from dear old brother Peyton.” Then lifting an eager face she addressed her hostess. “Virg, I hope you won’t think I’m lacking in appreciation of your hospitality if I say that I’d like to ride over to my brother’s ranch tomorrow. I’ve made you a real long visit.”
“Three days isn’t an eternity!” Betsy put in, but Megsy said: “It seems like one sometimes, when one is separated from home folks.”
“You are right,” Virg said, slipping a loving arm around the waist of the pretty friend who was sometimes called “The Dresden China girl.” “We would love to have you stay longer with us, but I know you must be ever so eager to see Peyton.” To herself the thought came, unbidden. “And so too am I.” Then to her brother. “Why isn’t Peyton here Malcolm? I thought surely he would be at the train to meet us with you.”
The boy drank the lemonade gratefully before he replied. “I don’t know, sister. I have been expecting to hear from him for a week. I did hear in a round-about way, that is one of Mr. Slater’s cowboys passing V. M. last Friday week, stopped and took dinner with us. He said Peyton was having some trouble with his Mexican herders and didn’t think best to leave them, although he was inclined to believe that a new one, who had recently arrived, might prove more trustworthy than the others had. But suppose you read your letter, Babs. That may tell us what you want to know.”
It did, for in it Peyton told his sister that he had deeply regretted not having been at the station and then he related his reason, which was much the same as that which had been reported by the Slater cowboy.
But it was the last part of the letter which caused a stir in the little group.
“Much as I want to see you, dear sister, I’m going to ask you to remain at V. M. a short time longer or until I am sure whether or no there is going to be an outbreak among these Mexican herders. I am writing Virginia today to ask her to permit my little sister to be her guest a few days, perhaps a week longer. By that time I will know how much I can rely on my new overseer. You understand, Sis, I wouldn’t want to ride over to V. M. and find, when I return, that these peons had driven my prize cattle across the border, nor would I want you and your friends to come here until I am sure that my herders are not of the bandit class.
“I hope youaredisappointed, however, for selfishly I very much want my sister to come and open up the old house that she is to make into a home for her loving brother.
Peyton.”
Virginia looked at Malcolm with an expression of anxiety. “Do you feel that Peyton is in any real danger?” she asked. “If an outbreak of any kind should occur, I mean.”
“No, I think not,” Malcolm replied. Then Virg read her own little letter from Peyton whom she had once known as “Trusty Tom,” but that former time was never referred to by any of them.
Megsy noticed that her adopted sister did not read aloud her letter from the brother of Barbara, and she believed that she knew why. It was not hard for even a casual observer to notice how sincerely the lad admired Virginia.
“Well, then that’s settled,” the hostess smiled lovingly at Babs. “Now we may keep with us a certain little girl whom we all love.”
“Why Barbara,” Margaret then exclaimed as she noted a look of real concern on the pretty face, “what has Benjy written to make you seem so troubled? Has he found his mother worse?”
“He didn’t know when he wrote this. It’s just a few lines that he scribbled at the station in Red Riverton. You know he expected his brother Harry Wilson to meet him, and he wasn’t there but his own horse had been sent for him. Benj is just ever so sure that means his mother is not so well. I do hope she will live. I never knew two boys to care more for a mother than they do.”
“She is such a lovable, motherly woman,” Virginia said earnestly. “Everyone who knows her, loves her. She always reminds me of a hen with a brood and even when the chickens are away, she is sort of spreading her wings with a welcome for any one in trouble who needs their comforting shelter, but it’s nearly a year now that she has not been well.”
“It’s too bad that Harry doesn’t seem to care to marry. If only Mrs. Wilson had a nice daughter to take the responsibility of home-making for a time, she could get a real rest.”
Virginia astonished the others by saying, “Girls, surely you know that Harry does care for someone, but I’m afraid his mother would never willingly accept that someone for a daughter.”
Margaret said. “I, too, have felt sure that Harry cares for our wonderful Winona, as who, knowing her well, does not. She is one of the noblest characters I have ever met, and I know you think so too, Virg.”
“Indeed I do,” was the emphatic reply, “but one can understand how a mother might feel that a member of the Papago tribe would not be a suitable wife for her idolized son, but Winona would. They are more nearly kin, mentally and—and what shall I say, in their love for the wide spaces of the desert, than any two I ever knew. You know Harry likes nothing better than to ride far away into the mountains studying the rocks and trying to read the messages of the ages in the different formations. Had he been able to leave home, he would have studied along those lines. Of course he is, even now, and what is more, our Winona is the very first girl who has ever appealed to him as a companion.”
“Isn’t it about time Winona finished that course of practical nursing that she was taking when she left us at boarding school?” It was Barbara who asked the question.
Virg nodded, then for the first time glanced at the second letter that she held. “Oh, good, this is from our Winona and since it was written on the train, she may be in her walled-in village home this very minute.”
“May we all hear what she has written?” Babs asked.
“Of course,” Virginia made herself comfortable on the window seat and then began to read. Malcolm, having excused himself, had retired to his own room for a much needed nap.
Dear White Lily:
At last I am homeward bound glad, deep in the heart of me, that I have learned a way to be of real service to my father’s people, who, having lost faith in their old Medicine Man, had no one to whom they could take their little ones when they were hurt or ill.
I shall be there in two days, and, dear friend, I am not alone. With me is a comrade of my childhood, but I must tell you how it all happened.
One day when I went on duty, I found in the ward much excitement for a lad who was being called brave had been brought in and no one knew who he was. He was too exhausted to be conscious it seemed, for he had no real illness and so could not tell about himself.
The story was that in one of the city tenements a plague broke out which terrorized the neighborhood. Many became ill and those who were not strong died. It was so terrible a plague that few volunteered to help. Kind old Doctor Quinton gave his services and risked his life but alone he could do little. It was when he was completely worn out that this youth, who said that he was a medical student, volunteered to take the place of the good doctor while he took a much needed rest. Nor would the lad leave his post when the older physician returned. They were too much occupied with real service to ask who he might be or from where he had come, but, at last, he too had succumbed, not to the plague but to weariness and they had brought him to the hospital.
I listened to the story and said that I would like to see the lad who had been willing to sacrifice his life for humanity.
White Lily, when I saw him, so thin and tired, lying on a cot in the ward, I knew him at once. It was Fleet Foot, one of the Papago boys who accompanied the kindly missionary who had taken three of our lads as you recall, to a school for Indian boys. I had not seen him since that long ago day, but he had changed little.
You, White Lily, will know what finding Fleet Foot meant to me, for is he not one of my father’s people? I cared for him as tenderly as a sister might. Then the good doctor took him to his country home, that he might grow strong away from the noise of the city, but, when I had finished my course, Fleet Foot wished to return with me to our village and so together we are now nearing the end of our long journey. Will you not soon ride north to our village and remain with me as long as you wish.
My friendliest thoughts I send to Margaret and Barbara if they are with you.
Your\ \ \ \Winona.
At the close of the letter, the four girls were all thinking the same thing but it was the quiet Margaret who voiced it. “Poor Harry!” she said. “For of course this Papago lad, who is of her own people, will be the one Winona will love and eventually marry.”
“I shall be sorry if this is true,” Virginia remarked, “for Harry Wilson is so unlike other boys. He may never again find just the companion he wishes.”
Then, as the dinner gong was sounding, the girls sprang up to hastily remove their khaki suits and don their house-dresses.
Meanwhile what of the neighbors farther north?
In the meantime when Benjy Wilson left the train at Red Riverton, he glanced about anxiously hoping that his brother Harry would be there to meet him. He had been the only passenger to descend to the platform and, almost at once, the station master hurried up to him to say that his brother had been in a few days before and had told him to keep on the watch-out for Benjy. “He said he mightn’t be able to get in to meet you an’ if he didn’t, you’d find yer little horse Clipper over to the stables waitin’ for yo’.” Then the kindly man searched in the pockets of his blue denim coat and drew from one of them a letter. “Likewise he left this for you to sorto’ explain things.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hendrix. I’ll go at once after Clipper,” the boy said with a break in his voice, which drew from the sympathetic old man the query. “Yo’ ma wan’t any worse last yo’ heard, was she? Hal was in a hurry t’other day, I didn’t get to ask.”
“I’m afraid mother isn’t very well,” then fearing that he would cry from dread and loneliness, (never before had his older brother failed to meet him), the lad picked up his bags and hurried away toward the stables that were just beyond the station.
The boy naturally happy and optimistic was sadly troubled. The pony was glad indeed to see his young master and showed it in every way that he could.
It was not until the town had been left behind and Benjy was riding on a desert trail that he opened the letter which the station master had given him. With tear dimmed eyes he read:
“Dear Ben,
“I have not wanted to worry you needlessly and I have not been sure, (even now I am not sure), that there is real need for alarm, but I decided that I must warn you before you arrive, that you may be prepared for a great change in our mother’s appearance. She was strong and well when you left eleven months ago, but now she is frail and wearies at the least exertion. I am telling you, not to frighten you, (for it may merely mean that our mother is growing older or that she needs a complete rest), but I want you to be prepared for the change so that you will not exclaim about it when you arrive. It would be a great shock to our father, who, (perhaps because it has come so gradually), seems as yet unconscious of it. In mother’s own brave, cheerful way, she hides it from him. When he comes home each night, weary from a hard day’s work on the ranch, she is always at the head of the table, with her bright smile, and a good supper is waiting. Of late I have managed to ride home an hour earlier each night that I might help to prepare it.
“The one thing which has prevented my being greatly worried is mother’s own attitude in the matter. She insists that there is nothing radically wrong; that she is merely tired, as one often is in the spring, and she laughingly, said last night: ‘When little Benjy comes home, I’m going to play fine lady for a fortnight. Then you will see how well and strong I will be.’
“Ben, old pal, don’t take this letter too much to heart, but I do think best to have you prepared for the change in the mother who is our all. If I were sure that I could get to the station to meet you, would not have written this. I’ll be there if I can possibly make it.
“Your brother,\ \ \ \Hal.”
But he hadn’t been there.
As the boy rode along over the hard sand trail he thought of his quiet, dependable brother, who was so like their mother.
“Hal would have come if he could possibly have made it,” he said with a half sob, as he realized the probable meaning of his older brother’s absence.
“He never promised to do a thing in all his life but that he did it.” Then the lad’s thoughts returned to his little boyhood, when he had learned that the older brother’s word could be trusted unfailingly.
“If Hal promised to make a kite or whittle a top on the first stormy day that we were shut in, he never forgot it, never tried to get out of it. Quite the contrary, Hal would be the first to say: ‘Bring along your kite materials, little Ben. This is the day I promised I’d make one for you.’
“I’m going to be just like him,” Benjy thought. “Mother is right. The man you want for a friend is the one you can trust.”
The first half of the ride was over level desert trails that had been beaten hard by cattle and horses, but farther on the way grew rough and rocky and there was a high rugged mountain range to be crossed, for, on the other side, lay the wide, sheltered valley belonging to the Wilson ranch.
Reaching the water-hole about noon, Benjy dismounted to permit his horse to drink.
Again in the saddle, he petted the beautiful pony’s head. “Clipper, old pal,” he said in a tone of sympathetic understanding, “I’m sorry to ask you to climb High Pine Mountain trail without giving you a chance to rest before we start upgrade, but I’ll have to do it this time. I’ll make it up to you, though, old pal, you see if I don’t.”
The pony seemed pleased to feel his young master’s caress. He tossed his head, looked back over his shoulder and whinnied a reply. It was at that moment that the horse stepped on a rolling stone, scrambled madly to keep his foothold, stepped off the narrow, ascending trail and rolled with his rider into a shallow ravine. The fall had been but slight and Benjy leaped to his feet unhurt, but Clipper arose with more difficulty, and when he attempted to walk he limped and held his right forefoot as though it pained him.
Poor Benjy felt as though everything was against him, but, just at that moment he seemed to see his dear mother’s face and to hear her say as she so often had, “Benjy, Boy, courage wins.”
“I know it, mother,” the lad replied aloud with a half sob, and putting one arm around the pony’s neck he choked back the tears that had tried to come, as he said, “I’m awfully sorry you’re hurt, Clipper. I ought to have let you rest for a while at the water-hole. I guess we’ll have to keep going somehow, but I won’t ride you. If you don’t have to carry a load, don’t you think you can climb the trail, old pal?”
Clipper, looking at his young master, whinnied again, but, though he tried he could not walk without pain.
Just at that moment, Benjy heard a pounding of horses’ feet. At first he thought it might be a herd of the small wild ponies that sometimes were seen near the mountains, but as he waited and watched around the jutting rocks there appeared a tall Indian lad seated on a pony, leading another that he had evidently just captured from a wild herd and followed by a third small horse.
Benjy climbed high on a rock and halooed at the top of his voice but the rider was going in the direction of the Indian village and away from Benjy. Again the lad shouted but each second took the galloping horses farther and farther away from him.
Realizing that his voice could not be heard, the boy stood still watching the retreating figures and wondering what he ought to do, when suddenly he became tense and alert.
The wild pony that had been captured by the Indian lad made a sudden break for liberty. After rearing, it made a backward lunge and the rope that had been an improvised halter was torn from the hand of its captor; then snorting shrilly, the small horse galloped away and back toward the mountains.
The dangling rope, snapping this way and that at his heels, terrorized him, and, with eyes wild, he raced as he had never raced before. Plunging blindly, he headed directly for the spot where Benjy stood watching. In an instant the boy had formed a plan. Leaping behind a mesquite bush, he crouched waiting the oncoming horse. Nearer and louder came the swift pounding of hoofs, then, just as the lad had hoped, the dragging rope was flung toward him. The boy endeavored to seize it, but the pony had seen him, and, rearing on his hind feet, he whirled, but that very motion made him captive, for the rope swung around the stout mesquite bush and held long enough for Benjy to make it fast.
Then the boy wisely ran out of reach of the wildly plunging horse, which enraged at his unexpected recapture, snorted and dragged so hard on the rope that Benjy feared the bush would be uprooted.
The Indian lad was galloping toward them at top speed, followed by the faithful pony. “Hold him if you can!” was the cry that reached Benjy’s ears. It was English, which meant that the rider was either Strong Heart, or Fleet Foot of whom he had not heard.
A lasso whirled through the air as the rider neared. It coiled like a snake about the forefeet of the rearing pony and pulled him to the ground.
“What a beautiful little horse you have there,” Benjy said by way of greeting.
The stoical Indian lad bowed. “I had none and so I have captured him for my own, but he would have been lost again if you had not made him fast.”
Then he asked, “What is wrong with your pony?”
Benjy told in a few words about his great anxiety concerning his mother, of his eagerness to reach her soon as possible and about poor Clipper’s mishap.
The Indian lad lifted the hurt foot, and taking his soft leather belt, he wound it tightly about the strain. Rising, Fleet Foot, for it was that fine Indian lad, bade Benjy place his saddle on the horse that had been following, adding that he would take Clipper to the village and give him care. “He will be all right in a few weeks,” the Indian lad said. “I hope so,” Benjy replied, “Clipper and I have been pals ever since I was a little shaver.”
Then, having thanked Fleet Foot the boy again started up the long hard trail.
It was nearly dusk when he reached the summit. Looking down into the valley, he could see the group of white-washed buildings that were home to him. With a sob he reached out both arms. “Mother! Mother!” he said, “I’m coming. I’ll be with you soon now.”
As Benjy neared his ranch home he saw that a dim light was burning in his mother’s room. This confirmed his fears that the one he so loved was really ill. Urging his steed to a gallop, he was soon dismounting at the corral, where he left his pony. The front door quietly opened and his brother appeared. He advanced with outstretched hands.
“Hal,” the young lad said, with a sob, “is our mother ill?”
“I don’t know, Benny Boy,” was the reply. “Mother insists that she is merely tired and that she is going to remain in bed until she is rested, and you must pretend that you believe her. It will be hard for you, fearfully hard, but it must be done. Come. Our mother has been listening all day. Just now she called to me and said: ‘Son, go quickly and open the door. My little boy has come home.’ She knows that you are here and so we must not delay longer or she will think it strange.”
Never before had the young lad been through so hard an ordeal. He longed to put his arms about his big, strong brother and sob out his dread and grief, but instead, he had to choke back his tears and enter the dimly lighted room with a smile.
“Little Ben,” the woman on the bed called, with infinite love and tenderness in her voice.
“Mother mine,” the lad replied as he sank on his knees and pressed his cheek against hers. Tears would come but in the dim light they were not seen and his voice sounded cheerful.
“Brother tells me that you are taking a week’s rest. I am so glad. You have needed one for a long time and now Hal and I will show you what fine daughters we would have been, if we hadn’t been sons.”
Harry, standing at the foot of the bed was proud of his brother. Benjy had always been so loved and petted, (even he had given in to the younger lad sometimes when he thought it might be unwise), that he had feared Benjy might not be strong enough to rise to the emergency, but he was doing so bravely. In a voice that sounded natural to his mother, Benjy said: “I’m most starved, Mummie, I hope your new cook can make pies and things as well as you can.”
The older boy had noted a sudden anxious expression on the dear face, for the mother was reproaching herself for having remained in bed when her little Ben was coming home, hungry.
“Indeed, I can,” Hal hastened to say: “You’ll find the larder filled with the choicest viands.”
Kissing the pale cheek, Benjy left the room, turning at the door to toss a kiss and send back a bright smile, but it was to his own room that he went. Throwing himself down on the bed, he sobbed and sobbed. There Hal found him ten minutes later. “I can’t live without my mother,” the younger boy said, “I can’t! I can’t!”
Harry put a comforting arm about his brother. “May heaven grant that we need not for many years to come.”
Then placing a hand on each shoulder, he looked straight into his brother’s eyes. “Benny boy,” he said, “I’m counting on you. It’s hard; well do I know how hard, but cheerful courage is all that our father and mother must see. I have been waiting for your return. Now I am going to ride to Red Riverton for a doctor. I will be back tomorrow morning early, if all goes well.”
“Hal!” Benjy exclaimed, “you aren’t going to take that long hard ride tonight. You know that it isn’t safe to go through Red River mountain pass alone after dark.”
“Even so, there must not be another moment’s delay. I must go tonight. I want you to keep your door open. If our mother stirs, go to her.”
“I won’t try to sleep,” the younger boy replied. “I do not waken easily. I’ll sit up all night.” Hal grasped his brother’s hand to show his approval and then he was gone. It was the hardest night that Benjy Wilson ever lived through, but in it he left his heedless, selfish boyhood in which he had accepted all that his mother had done for him, as due, and realized that he, too, must share the burdens and responsibilities that came every day. When Hal returned at the grey of the next dawn, one glance at his tired brother assured him that his confidence in the younger boy had not been misplaced. Then followed a long half hour filled with anxiety of waiting while the kindly physician made a thorough examination of the little woman so loved by these two boys.
“Where’s our father?” Benjy suddenly asked as he looked up from the fire on the hearth at which he had been thoughtfully gazing since the kindly physician had entered their mother’s room fifteen minutes before.
“Father went to visit the North camp last week and he has not yet returned,” Harry said. “I am glad, for he does not know that our mother has given up trying to keep about. That of course would worry him greatly. I hope that she will be much better before he returns. Dad depends on mother so completely for his comfort and happiness that I fear he would collapse if he knew the truth, as, of course he must know it soon.”
Again they were silent and it was still another quarter of an hour before the door opened. Both boys were on their feet at once eagerly scanning the face of the physician. His cheerful smile was encouraging.
“Lads,” he said as he placed a hand on the shoulder of each, “your mother is not going to die. Mrs. Wilson has unwisely permitted a condition to exist for a long time which should have been corrected months ago. There are very few casualties resulting from the operation which your mother must undergo.”
There was a sudden glad light in the face of the older lad.
“Doctor Warren,” he said, “the hope you are giving us is the greatest joy that has ever come into my life.”
The elderly physician, gazing at the earnest faces, thought that he had never met finer boys. Worthy sons of a brave, courageous little mother.
“Now tell us what we are to do.” The load of dread that had been crushing Harry’s heart having been lifted, the lad was eager to be of active service.
“Your mother must remain in bed until we can build up her strength,” the physician replied. “Perhaps for two weeks, and then we will take her to the Red Riverton hospital and have the slight operation performed, but, first of all I must procure a nurse.”
The physician put his hands in his pockets and turning, gazed thoughtfully at the fire. “There is an epidemic in Red Riverton and I do not like to engage a nurse from there to care for your mother.” Then he glanced up at Hal. “Do you know of anyone near here who would come?”
“I do,” was Benjy’s eager response. “Our good friend Winona will come, I am sure she will, Doctor Warren. She just received a diploma as a practical nurse from the Red Cross Hospital on the Hudson.”
“Fine!” the physician replied. “How soon can we have her here? Where does she live?”
The reply brought a puzzled expression to the face of the doctor.
“An Indian maiden?” he said with a rising inflection. “I have heard of the Papagoes and that they are a remnant of a very superior tribe of red men, but I had not supposed that an Indian girl could possess the qualities required for a nurse. Are you quite sure that it would be wise to have her?”
Strange things happen, stranger than fiction. Before Hal could reply, there was the sound of horses’ feet in the yard, and a moment later a light rapping on the front door.
Hal sprang to open it, and there stood the maiden about whom they had been talking, with little Red Feather at her side.
“Friend Harry,” she said. “Fleet Foot told me that your mother is ill. I thought you might need me.”
The lad stepped forward, his hand outstretched.
“We do indeed need you,” he replied, his voice tense with emotion. Then turning to the older man he added, “Doctor Warren, this is Nurse Winona.”
The physician was deeply impressed with the quiet dignity of the really beautiful Indian girl. Like all others, who knew her, the good man at first could not have told why he thought her beautiful.
Before entering the house, the maid turned and said a few words in the Papago tongue, then little Red Feather, without a word of farewell, mounted his small horse and rode away.
Doctor Warren asked to be permitted to speak alone with the young nurse, and the boys withdrew to prepare a lunch for both the newcomer and the physician who had a long and hard ride ahead of him.
After asking about the training which Winona had received at the Red Cross Hospital, Doctor Warren said:
“Your remuneration will be the same that would be given a nurse from Red Riverton.”
Then it was that the older man knew why the Indian girl was beautiful. “It is a service of friendship that I came to offer,” she quietly replied. “Will you tell me what I am to do?”
An hour later the physician left feeling sure that his directions would be carried out to the letter. He had learned that an Indian maiden could not only be a sincere friend but also an intelligent nurse.
Before Doctor Warren departed he asked Harry to accompany him to the corral. As they walked together, the physician said: “From the conversation I have had with your nurse, I believe her to be very capable, and luckily, just before she left the East, she had the care of a little woman whose condition was the same as your mother’s and so we will trust her to use her own judgment whenever she wishes to do so.”
Mrs. Wilson who had supposed that she had not much longer to be with the little family she so loved, was overjoyed when she realized that she would soon be strong again.
She was lying in the darkened room when Harry entered a few moments after the doctor’s departure. At his side she saw someone dressed in blue with white cap and apron. She was too weak to wonder from where the apparition had come, and so she accepted Winona’s presence as a matter of course believing that she had accompanied the doctor from Red Riverton. Harry merely said, “Mother, this is your nurse.”
The little woman held out a frail hand and smiled wanly, then she closed her eyes and rested. She was conscious all that day that she was being tenderly cared for, and, toward evening when Benjy knelt at her side, in answer to her anxious query, he told his mother that the new nurse was also a fine cook. Mrs. Wilson who had wished that she was up that she might prepare the good things her younger son so liked, felt a sense of relief that did much toward restoring her needed strength.
Never once in the two weeks that followed did the little woman suspect that the slender dark-eyed girl who cared for her was the Indian maiden of whom she had heard. Winona, with her black hair coiled under her nurse’s cap in her blue and white gown might easily have been taken for a French girl.
Harry, wishing his mother to learn to love Winona without prejudice had asked Benjy to address her merely as “Nurse.”
At the end of a fortnight, Mrs. Wilson was strong enough to sit up. When Harry believed that his presence was no longer needed at home, he rode to the northern camp to tell his father what had happened. He was greatly relieved because he could now honestly say that all would be well.
This was not hard for the older man to believe, for on their return they found the little mother seated in the living room and beaming a welcome when they opened the front door. From that day, she rapidly regained her strength, and, at the end of the fortnight, she was driven in a big comfortable car to Red Riverton. It was on that ride that Mrs. Wilson made a discovery which pleased her greatly. It was that her son, Harry, really cared for the girl who had nursed her so tenderly. How she knew this she could not have told, perhaps it was just a mother’s intuition.
Another two weeks passed and the happy family was once more gathered in the ranch home. Mrs. Wilson was soon strong enough to walk about the house, and, the long weeks of anxiety having ended, the members of the household again went about their tasks in a natural manner. Benjy returned with his father to the North Camp and Harry asked Winona if she would like to ride with him to inspect a water-hole not far away. Mrs. Wilson had urged her to go, saying that for an hour she could get along nicely alone. It was during that hour that she learned the real identity of her nurse.
Mrs. Wilson sat in a big comfortable chair in front of the wide hearth on which a log that the boys had dragged down from the mountains, was cheerily burning. The frail woman smiled happily as she watched the flames. How wonderful it was to know that after all she was going to live, perhaps many more years to minister to her little family. In her heart there had been a secret fear for months that she was soon to leave them.
She leaned back among the pillows that her nurse had arranged so comfortably before she had departed for a short horseback ride with Harry.
From where she sat Mrs. Wilson could look out of the window and watch the trail down which she would soon see the young people returning.
Then again she fell to dreaming. Perhaps she would live long enough to see both of her boys married, and it might be that in some future day she would be seated in front of this same fireplace watching another log burn and holding a wee grandchild. Tears sprang to her eyes as she pictured her beloved husband growing old with her and little ones playing about them.
This happy reverie was interrupted by the sound of approaching ponies. It might be the men from the North Camp for the nurse and Harry had not been gone long enough to be returning. She sat watching the picture framed by her window. As the hurrying hoof-beats neared, she guessed, and truly, that there were more than two ponies, for, down the part of the trail that she could see, single file, came six small, wiry horses. Instantly she knew that their riders were from the Indian village.
The little black-haired boy in the lead wore a red feather in the band about his head, and, at his side rode a tall, slender girl with a scarlet blanket about her shoulders. There were four others, but they were dressed in khaki. It was only by their black hair and dusty complexions that she knew that they, too, were Indians. Then it was that Mrs. Wilson recalled something which of late she had forgotten. It was that an Indian maiden from this same Papago village had been East to a fashionable boarding school with Barbara Wente, the fairy-like little girl who was so liked by Benjy.
Perhaps the Winona of whom she had heard, was the tall, graceful Indian maiden riding in the lead with the lad of the red feather, Mrs. Wilson thought, and then, idly, she wondered where they were going. Perhaps to some hunting camp farther north in the mountains.
She was not long left in doubt regarding the destination of the riders, for, almost as soon as they had passed from her vision, there came a rapping on the front door.
Harry had made her promise that she would not leave her chair and so she called, “come in,” hoping that one among the strange visitors might be able to understand the language that she spoke.
The door opened at once and a tall young man with a clear, direct gaze stood before her. To the little woman’s surprise, he spoke excellent English.
“Madame Wilson, I am Strong Heart, chief of the tribe of Papagoes. It is my wish to converse with my sister. One month ago Red Feather returned with the message that Winona was to remain with you and be your nurse.”
There was a rush of conflicting emotions in the heart of the listener, and foremost among them was the sudden realization that her son, Harry, loved, really loved an Indian maiden. If her voice shook a little as she replied, Strong Heart did not notice it for her words were friendly as they always were to any fellow-being.
“My very kind nurse then is your sister?” she inquired. “I have been too ill to wonder who she was or from where she came.” Then, fearing that in some way this had lacked in graciousness, she added simply and sincerely: “Strong Heart, we all dearly love your sister. She has truly been an angel in our home.”
And, even as she spoke, Mrs. Wilson knew that it was the truth. Harry loved Winona and so too did his mother. Then she directed the Indian lad to the water-hole toward which Winona and Harry had ridden, and, when the visitors were gone, she sat for a long time watching the fire and thinking: “My boy shall never know that I regret his choice, and yet, do I really regret it, for a nobler girl he could not have chosen.”
In the meantime Winona and Harry had been riding at a canter. Then, letting their horses walk more slowly, they conversed quietly together. They spoke of his mother and Harry expressed to the dusky girl at his side his great appreciation of her services.
By now and then asking a question the lad persuaded Winona to talk about her year at school. She ended by telling of Fleet Foot and she described in glowing terms his deed of heroism. Harry Wilson, listening, believed that Winona cared for the Indian lad about whom she was talking, and, a few moments later he was convinced that his surmise had been correct.
Suddenly they had been halted by a whooping call from little Red Feather, and, turning in their saddles, they drew rein and waited for the Papagoes to ride up. Instantly Harry knew that the tall, arrow-straight youth, who whirled his pony about that he might speak to Winona, was the one of whom he had just heard.
They rode apart, somewhat, and for a time seemed unconscious of the presence of the others as they talked earnestly in low undertones.
Harry tried to be interested in a conversation with Strong Heart concerning the condition of water-holes at that time of the year, but now and then he found his gaze wandering in the direction of his mother’s nurse while his thought assured him that Winona naturally would care more for one of her own people than for one of another race.
When the young Papagoes had ridden away toward the mountain trail which they would have to cross to reach their walled-in village, the other two, after visiting the water-hole, returned to the Wilson ranch. Winona was in the lead and each was thoughtfully silent. As they neared the house Harry hastily hastened his pony and rode at the girl’s side. She looked up with a smile so radiant that the lad was more than ever assured that her visit with Fleet Foot had brought her great happiness.
“Dear girl,” he thought, “from now on I will try to think of her as I would of a sister. After all, mother will need one of her boys just to care for her.” Aloud he said, “Winona, Ben and I have often wished we had a sister. You have been to all of us in our trouble what I believe she would have been. I hope you will come often to visit in our home.”
The girl turned and looked at him frankly. “Thank you, Harry,” she said, simply. It was then that Hal was convinced that the Indian girl had never thought of him other than a dear friend and companion.
When they reached the ranch house, Harry took both of the horses to the corral, while Winona quietly entered the living room, believing, and truly, that she would find Mrs. Wilson dozing in her comfortable chair.
For a moment Winona stood gazing at the sweet face to which the color of health was slowly returning. Then, quietly, she tip-toed close and, bending, she lightly kissed the forehead beneath the soft gray hair.
She was not usually demonstrative, but, although even her dearest friend had never guessed it, there had always been in the heart of this Indian girl a yearning for that wonderful something that she had never had, the love of a mother.
When a few moments later the little woman opened her eyes it was to see her quiet nurse again in the neat blue and white uniform preparing the evening meal.
Harry came in and offered his services, which were accepted. Winona’s manner, usually so reserved, seemed almost joyous.
“Friend of mine,” she said, “I have a beautiful secret and I think I will tell it to you.”
It was after the evening meal. Mrs. Wilson had been made comfortable for the night and the young people thought her asleep as they sat near the hearth in the living room and spoke quietly together.
“You promised to tell me a beautiful secret,” the lad said, a dread heavy at his heart. “May I hear it now?”
“Yes,” the girl replied, turning her clear gaze toward him. “It is about Fleet Foot.”
“I knew it,” was the unexpected response, and Winona looked up inquiringly. “Why, how could you know it?” Then, as the lad did not answer, she continued: “This afternoon I told you about the kind, elderly physician in the East who was so pleased with Fleet Foot’s spirit of a sacrifice, and how, when the lad was well enough to be moved from the hospital, Doctor Quinton took him to his country home in New Jersey, where he remained through the three lovely months of spring?”
Harry nodded. He could not understand why Winona was beginning her story in this way if the secret was what he believed it to be, that the Indian maiden and Fleet Foot cared for each other.
“Are you listening, Harry?” the girl asked, for the lad was gazing at the burning log with a faraway expression in his grey-blue eyes.
He turned and smiled at her. “Indeed I am, Winona,” he said, “I am greatly interested in what you have to tell me.”
“So am I, greatly interested,” the girl continued. “It is all like a beautiful poem, and yet, true. The summer home of this kind old physician is a picturesque log cabin in the midst of a pine wood just above a clear blue lake which Fleet Foot described as a wonderful mirror reflecting every fleecy white cloud that sailed above it by day and every star at night. When they first arrived at the cabin they heard singing somewhere among the pines, and then, skipping toward them came a gold-and-white fairy of a girl who was Sylvia, the granddaughter of Doctor Quinton. She was delighted because her ‘dear old grand-dad,’ as she called him, had brought a comrade, and, as the days passed, Fleet Foot learned to love this lassie who was so unlike—well, so unlike the Papago maidens.
“He called her ‘Sunshine-on-a-Dancing-Brook.’ Fleet Foot never spoke of his love, for he believed that the physician, much as he liked him, would not wish him to marry his granddaughter, the flower of his life, but when Fleet Foot came West, that little flower drooped, and then it was that Doctor Quinton learned that Sylvia cared for Fleet Foot, really cared, and now comes the wonderful part of it all. Yesterday my friend had a letter from the elderly physician asking him to return to them if he really loved his little ‘Sunshine-on-a-Dancing-Brook.’ Fleet Foot came to say goodbye, for tomorrow he departs.”
There was a glad light in the eyes of the listener.
“Winona,” Harry said, more impulsively than he had ever before spoken, “I thought you cared for Fleet Foot and I was sad, for I do so want to try to win your love.”
Winona did not reply at once, and, as there was only the light of the fire about them, the lad could not tell by her expression what she might be thinking.
When the girl spoke, she said: “Harry, your mother wants you to marry one of your own people.”
It was then that they heard a soft voice calling to them, “Come to me, both of you.”
They entered the dimly lighted room and stood by the bedside. The little woman smiled up at them and in her eyes there was a new tenderness. Holding out a frail hand, she said: “I have always wanted a little girl, Winona. Won’t you be my beloved daughter?”
The young people knelt and she placed their hands together. “Now,” she said, “my dearest wish has been fulfilled. My older son is to have just the wife that I would choose for him.”
A week after the arrival of Peyton’s letter, suggesting that his sister remain longer, another came with quite a different request. In it the lad assured them all of his great faith in his new overseer.
“Trujillo seems to have complete control of his helpers. In fact, at times, I think that they treat him reverentially, which, of course I cannot understand, but I am now confident that there will be no uprising among the peons and so Babsie I do hope that Virginia and your other girl friends will come to Three Cross and make you as long a visit as you have made them, longer indeed, if they can be spared.”
“Oh, Virg, will you go, you and Betsy and Megsy? I’d so love to have you all with me when I open up that old house. You know Peyton has been living in one of the small adobes, not wishing to open up the big place until I came. Virg, you’ve been there time and again. I remember how Mrs. Dartley called you her ‘Angel of Mercy.’”
“As everyone else does on the desert or anywhere,” Margaret put in.
Virg laughed. “And all because I rode over to Three Cross one day and applied first aid measures when the Dartley baby was cutting teeth.”
“What did you do?” Betsy inquired.
“Rubbed the poor little gums with a sterilized thimble till the wee teeth poked through,” Virginia replied.
Barbara was eager to be away and so the very next morning, while it was still cool, they rode to the North, promising Malcolm to return in a fortnight.
Peyton, expecting them, had ridden a few miles southward to meet them and joyous was the reunion between the brother and sister, but it was at Virginia’s side that the lad was soon riding.
The old ranch house which they were approaching (and which Mr. Wente had purchased from the Dartleys), was one of the most picturesque on the desert. It was a large Spanish adobe built around an inner court over which were hanging balconies. The windows were barred; wide verandas surrounded it on all sides, and each room had a door opening thereon. A clump of cottonwood trees grew around a water-hole in the door-yard. The house was very old and in some places the adobe walls were crumbling.
Mr. Dartley had been too poor to repair it, and Peyton, since he had acquired it, had been too much occupied with the cattle he had purchased to attend to renovating the house.
“What a wonderful old place it is,” Virginia said as she smiled at the lad.
“It looks wonderful to me,” he replied, “because I keep hoping that someday it will be your home as well as mine.”
Before the girl could reply, Babs galloped up alongside. “Oh Virg,” she said with sparkling eyes. “I just know I’m going to love this old place. If only there were blossoming vines climbing over the veranda, wouldn’t it be beautiful?”
It was hard for the maiden addressed to think of vines just then, but she smilingly replied, “Yes, dear, I am sure they would. Your well is never dry and anything will grow on the desert if it is well watered.”
“Oh Virg, are you making a pun?” Betsy Clossen called as she and Margaret rode up within hearing.
Virginia laughed as she gaily replied, “Maybe I am. I don’t feel accountable just at this particular moment.”
Peyton glanced at the flushed pretty face of the speaker and wondered why Virginia seemed confused but he did not have another moment alone with her for they were entering the door-yard where a cowboy, apparently a Mexican of the better class, advanced to take their ponies.
“Who is your new acquisition, brother?” Barbara asked as she gazed with interest at the graceful Mexican lad, who, having made almost courtly salutations to the young ladies, had, without speaking, turned and led the horses toward the corral.
Peyton remonstrated. “Don’t you know enough about the ways of the desert, little sister, not to ask who anyone is? I really am as ignorant concerning the past of my faithful head rider Trujillo as you are. He blew in one day last March—literally blew in! We were having one of those terrible hurricanes which frequently visit us in the spring. For the first time since I had acquired ‘The Three Cross Ranch’ I was desperately dismal. The only capable cowboy I had, departed to become overseer elsewhere, and I was left with the shiftless Mexican peons who knowing my ignorance, took advantage of it. Then, as though that were not trouble enough, a blinding sandstorm came, and I feared my newly acquired herd would be driven by it over into Mexico. It was in the midst of all this that I heard a pounding on the front door. Opening it, I let in a whirl of wind and sand and also this Mexican lad, Trujillo.
“I was desperate for companionship just then, and, although he did not speak English, he could understand my Spanish and I told him my woes. When the tale was finished, the sandstorm had passed. Silently the stranger arose. I believed that he was leaving without a word of gratitude for the refreshment I had given him. I watched him mount his weary horse and ride down to the bunk house. He called to the peons and they gathered about him. I saw them bring him a fresh mount and then they all rode away with him toward the South. I thought dismally that perhaps he had come to take them away from me, but, toward evening I heard them all returning. They had rounded up my frightened, scattering herd, and, before dark, the cattle were safe in the five-acre enclosure. Then the stranger came to say adios, but I persuaded him to remain until morning and he is still here.”
“I believe there is a mystery about your Trujillo,” Betsy Clossen said. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could find out what it is?”
The other girls laughed.
“Betsy is always on a still hunt for a mystery,” Babs told her brother, as they walked toward the house. “We call her Detective Betsy in school, but, as yet, she has never discovered one worth the effort to unravel. School girls are not mysterious.”
“Personally, I think one might find a mystery in this old house,” Margaret said. “If walls had tongues as well as ears what interesting stories it could tell.”
Peyton led the way within, and the young people, standing in the long living room which extended across the entire front of the house, uttered varying exclamations of delight.
“It’s just the sort of a room one sees on the screen when the home of a Spanish Don is being pictured, isn’t it?” Margaret said. “The original owners were Spanish, were they not?”
“Yes,” Peyton replied, “Don Carlos Spinoza was a wealthy Spaniard, who became a political outlaw during one of the frequent uprisings in Mexico City. He remained in hiding with his family in the mountains near here for some time and finally built this house. This interesting old furniture belonged to him. Later, when his friends were in power, he returned and rescued the family paintings and other treasures from their home in Mexico. However, after a year or two of isolation the Donna and their beautiful daughter became discontented and yearned once more for the gay life to which they had been accustomed. Don Carlos had many political enemies in Mexico, and so he had no desire to return. At last he sold this place for a small sum to Mr. Dartley and left for Spain.”
“Mrs. Dartley did not appreciate this mahogany furniture,” Virginia told them. “She often said she wished that she could make a bonfire of it all and buy some nice, new chairs that didn’t have carvings to catch the dust.”
“But she could not because the old furniture and family paintings were only left here temporarily, or so the story goes, but years have passed and no one has returned to claim them.”
Virginia smiled. “Poor Mrs. Dartley looked strangely out of place in the midst of all this grandeur. She was a dear and ever so kind hearted, but I often thought that the Dons and Donnas looking down from the walls must have wondered what had happened and how they chanced to be living with folk who dressed in gingham instead of silk. But they didn’t see her often, for this room was usually left in darkened solitude, for the Dartley family lived almost entirely in the kitchen.”
Suddenly Barbara inquired: “Betsy, why are you staring so hard at the painting of that grand old Donna? Does the picture fascinate you?”
Betsy laughed at them over her shoulder. “You know I have an active imagination,” she replied, “and so you will not be surprised to hear me say that I believe I have met this fine lady somewhere.”
“That would be impossible, my dear girl,” Margaret protested, “for that Donna could not possibly be living now.”
“I do believe that the lovely dark-eyed Senorita in this picture is her daughter,” Virginia said, “and here she is again older and with a little girl standing by her side and a beautiful dark-eyed baby boy on her lap. It really is too bad that the descendants of the Spinoza family cannot have these paintings in their gallery wherever they are. In Spain, I suppose, as they have never been heard from since they departed so long ago.”
“Girls,” Babs said, “it is growing dusky in here, which reminds me that the sun will soon set and that the beds are not made and that I, for one, am ravenously hungry.”
“Lead us to your culinary department, Peyton, and we will spread out our picnic lunch. Good, here comes the cowboy, Trujillo. Now Betsy, you begin solving the mystery, but don’t let the poor lad know that you are trying to unravel him,” Virginia cautioned, as they entered the more modern kitchen which, since it faced toward the west, was bright with the late afternoon sunshine. At one end was the great black range, which had been the pride of the good housekeeper, who so recently lived there.
Across the other end was the long dining table and near the windows were plain wooden rockers which Mrs. Dartley had made comfortable with soft cushioned seats, covered with bright colored materials, for this had been the home part of the house for her little family.
The solemn grandeur of the other rooms had depressed the rancher’s wife and she once confided to Virginia that the life-sized portraits hanging around the walls gave her the shivers. “Those painted folks all have beady black eyes and they watch every move I make,” she had said. “It doesn’t matter which part of the room I walk to, their eyes turn and keep a spyin’ at me. It’s too spooky a place to live in. I don’t step a foot in that room, month in and month out, if I can help myself.”
It was partly because of this uncanny closed room that Mrs. Dartley had been so eager to have her husband sell the Three Cross Ranch that she might return to the Middle-West and to the farmer folk whose pleasant houses were all furnished in the simple way that she liked.
During the evening meal, Peyton asked many questions of the girls concerning their year at school. Margaret, Virginia and Babs chattered of one thing and another. Suddenly Virg, wondered why the usually loquacious Betsy Clossen was keeping so still. She looked across the table and saw that the would-be young detective seemed to be deep in thought. Now and then she would glance at the Mexican cowboy who sat opposite. Since he did not understand the English language, the girls did not attempt to converse with him, although Peyton frequently addressed Trujillo in Spanish.
Virg smiled to herself, for she guessed, and rightly, that Betsy was trying to imagine a mystery about the really good-looking, dark young stranger—that she might solve it.
The boys went down to the corral after supper and the girls being left alone decided to see what the long darkened front room looked like at night.
Virg, in the lead, was carrying a burning candle.
“Leave the kitchen door standing open until we have lighted one of these hanging lamps,” she said.
Babs did this and they had advanced to the middle of the room when a breeze from somewhere swept through, blew out the tiny flame on the candle and closed the kitchen door with a bang. Babs uttered a shrill scream.
“Be still girls,” Virg said in her calm voice. “There is nothing to be afraid of even if we are in the dark. Now all of you stand here where you are. I know this house better than any of the rest of you and so I will grope my way back and reopen the kitchen door.”
Betsy Clossen’s detective instinct was on the alert. She seized Virg by the arm as she whispered, “There’s something queer about this. The light in the kitchen must also have been put out, otherwise we would see it shining under the door, wouldn’t we?”
“I should think so,” Virg said slowly as she paused, then she added, “even so, I will investigate. The boys are near. If we are frightened, we will call them.”
She groped her way toward the wall, where she believed she would find the kitchen door. “Good!” she told the waiting group. “Here it is.” But, when she turned the knob, the door would not open. She pushed and pulled, but all to no effect.
“Please call Peyton,” Megsy implored. “I have the chilly shivers going up and down my spine. I just know this house is haunted and that the haunt is angry because we came, and wishes to scare us away.”
“Girls,” Betsy Clossen said in a low voice, “I believe that I understand it all. It’s that mysterious Trujillo. He has some object in living here, I’ll wager, and he fears that this object, whatever it is, will be defeated if so many girls are around to watch him, and so he is trying to scare us away. Well, I for one shall stay.”
Virginia’s laugh from out of the dark sounded merry and natural. Then, just at that moment, having found the right knob, she opened the kitchen door and a flood of light from the big lamp fell upon the huddled group.
Margaret and Babs darted for the home-like kitchen as though it were a harbor of safety but Betsy Clossen remained in the darkness. “Virg,” she called, “let the other girls stay there and you bring one of the small lamps that won’t blow out easily and let’s look around and see where the wind came in that blew out the candle and slammed the door.”
“Don’t think that we feel offended, Betsy,” Margaret called as she sank down in a big comfortable kitchen rocker. “I have no yearning to unravel mysteries. You and Virg may have all of the honor and all of the shivers.”
“Ditto!” Babs said as she sat in another of the rockers and drew it closer to the stove. Virginia having found a lantern, lighted it and again entered the long silent front room. Having closed the kitchen door, she turned to speak to Betsy, but, to her surprise, the other girl was nowhere to be seen.
Believing that her friend had hidden, just to mystify her, Virginia went about the room holding her lantern high and peering behind the big, heavily-carved mahogany furniture. At first she was in no way alarmed, but, when each nook and corner had been searched, she stood still, troubled indeed. She had not wanted to call the name of her friend for she knew that the two more timid girls in the kitchen would hear and become alarmed, but, at last, there being no other alternative she said, “Betsy, where are you?” Then she stood listening, but the moaning of the wind down the chimney was the only sound that she could hear.
What could have become of Betsy? Perhaps she had stepped out of the front door and was hiding on the porch, but, when Virg turned to look, she saw that the heavy wooden doors were barred on the inside.
The usually calm Virginia was becoming troubled and she was indeed glad to hear Peyton entering the kitchen. She would have to tell them all now, and have them join in the search for Betsy who had so mysteriously disappeared.
“Virg, what is the matter? You look as though you had seen a ghost,” Megsy exclaimed, as she sprang up from her comfortable rocker when she saw Virginia returning from the dark, silent front room.
Peyton had just entered the kitchen. Having blown the light out in his lantern, he was hanging it on its peg, but upon hearing Margaret’s startled exclamation, he whirled and looked at Virg. He noted that she was very pale and seemed greatly agitated.
This was indeed unusual, for as long as he had known this calm girl, she had been mistress of every situation that had arisen. He took a quick step toward her, fearing that she would faint.
Babs, too, had risen. Virg spoke almost incoherently: “Betsy, she’s lost—disappeared,” she told them.
Peyton protested in amazement. “But Virg, how could Betsy be lost. She has been right here in the house all of the time, hasn’t she?”
Then Virg told the lad just what had happened.
“I do not wonder that Trujillo has aroused Betsy’s curiosity,” Peyton remarked. “For that matter, if it were not the custom of the desert to ask no questions, I believe that I, myself, would be tempted to ask him who he really is and from whence he came. He is greatly the superior of the Mexican peons that I have working here and they obey his slightest word as though they too recognized his superiority. He seems content to be my foreman, for he has said nothing about leaving. In fact he seldom speaks. He replies graciously in perfect Spanish when I address him, but says almost nothing of his own accord. But Virg, what has all this to do with Betsy? How can she have disappeared?”
“It certainly is mysterious,” that maiden replied. “Not ten minutes ago we were all in the front room. Betsy said that she wanted to see what it would look like when those queer hanging lamps were lighted.”
“I said we ought not to go,” Babs interrupted, tremulously, “and now, if anything has happened to Betsy we’ll—”
“Why, sister, nothing could happen to her right here in our own house,” Peyton declared in a tone of conviction. Then to Virg, he added: “Please tell me the rest of your story.”
“As Babs says, she and Megsy were in favor of remaining in the well-lighted and far more comfortable kitchen, but Betsy begged and so we all went with her, carrying only a lighted candle. We had not gone far into the room when the door closed with a bang and the flame on the candle went out, although I did not feel a stir of wind. Of course we returned to the kitchen, all but Betsy. She suggested that the other girls stay by the stove and that I return to her with a lighted lantern. I was not away from her five minutes, but when I went back Betsy was not standing where I had left her, and where she had promised to remain. I supposed that she was hiding somewhere, and so I held the lantern high and looked behind all of those massive pieces of carved furniture, but I could not find her. Then I called her name, softly, but there was no reply. By that time I was truly frightened and when I heard you returning, I came at once to ask you to join me in searching for her.”
Peyton looked more puzzled than troubled. “Virg,” he said, “if this were a tale in a story-book, we might think that Betsy had fallen through a trap-door, but surely there is nothing of that sort in this old ranch house, even though it was built—” he paused and snapped his fingers. “Hum!” he exclaimed, “the plot thickens. Come to think of it, this house was built by an old Spanish Don who was a political outlaw from Mexico. For months he hid in the mountains with his wife, children and servants. Then, when he believed that he had evaded his pursuers, his peons built this adobe house and so it is very possible that he might have built some sort of trap-door through which they could all quickly disappear and evade capture. Come,” he added, as he swung open the door into the dark, silent front room, “we’ll make a thorough search but I still feel convinced that your Detective Betsy is hiding to tease.”