Dorothy Dale in the West

by Margaret Penrose

  She seized the nearest heavy piece of rock. She dared not pitch it at the snake—the chance of missing the target was too great. But with the dornick in both hands she crept one—two—three steps toward the rock. The missile was poised over her head. It was all that Dorothy Dale could hold steadily.

  Down came the heavy piece of rock, just as the rattlesnake darted its head forward. Its diamond pointed head had been on a level with Tavia’s chin, for it was a huge fellow.

  Dorothy had stopped it in midflight. Scared she most certainly was—her very soul seemed filled with horror of the poisonous creature. But Dorothy Dale could not fail her chum in this time of awful peril.

  She struck the snake down. Its head and the upper part of its writhing body was smashed under the rock Dorothy held. She had put her whole force into the blow and she fell across the rock and the coiling and uncoiling snake just as the boys came whooping and yelling into view.

  As for Tavia, she went quietly off into a faint, and she did not revive until Ned and Nat carried her up the steep path and laid her down beside Lost River, from which water was taken to bathe her wrists and brow.

  CHAPTER XVII

  FLORES

  “I never want to hear even a baby’s rattle again,” sobbed Tavia, after she and Dorothy were alone in their room at the ranch house. “Anything from the rattle of a dry seed in a pod to a load of bricks being dumped on a cement walk, will remind me of that dreadful snake.

  “Why, I had a little stick in my hand, and I poked it into that crack in the rock to see if there was anything there, and up darted that rattler’s head!

  “Oh, dear, me, Doro! if you hadn’t come as you did, I would have been bitten all to pieces!”

  “Nonsense!” laughed Dorothy. “A snake isn’t a bulldog. It wouldn’t have chewed you up. But they are dangerous.”

  “Poisonous! And I didn’t have the strength to move, I was so frightened. You’ve always helped me out of messes, Doro Doodlebug! but this time you saved my life,” and Tavia seized her chum in her arms. “I hope I’ll be able to do something big for you some day to pay you up a little, wee mite!”

  “You poor child!” Dorothy said, tenderly. “Don’t talk such perfectly nonsensical stuff. I did no more for you than you would have done for me in like circumstances.”

  “I know all about that,” said Tavia, wiping her eyes. “But you’d never get into such a silly scrape, and so give me a chance. I do get into such perfect bunches of trouble, Doro. Life, for me, seems to be just one silly scrape after another!”

  By morning, however, Tavia had put the lesson of her adventure into the background. There was so much to do and see on the ranch that she could not really spend the time in thinking of a rattlesnake that was already dead!

  The four young folk rode hard with one of the Mexicans that day. Dorothy and Tavia were rather shy of the long, wicked looking horns and the tossing heads and flashing eyes of the cattle, so gave them a wide berth. Ned and Nat began practising throwing the rope, and displayed a deeper interest in the cattle business than the girls could possibly feel.

  Dorothy and Tavia thought the Mexican rather a villainous looking fellow, too—not at all like the handsome José Morale, who had driven them over from Dugonne, so after a while they rode back toward the home corral, leaving Ned and Nat to go on to the second herd without them.

  The girls had, by this time, no fear of the ponies they bestrode. Both were well broken steeds without any vicious characteristics. As they drew near the end of the first shed, Dorothy’s mount “side-stepped” unexpectedly and the girl was almost thrown.

  “Did you see it?” demanded Tavia, hastily.

  “I didn’t see anything, but the pony evidently did,” laughed Dorothy, fearlessly. “What was it, Tavia?”

  “That Mexican girl popped right out from behind that shed, and then popped back again. No wonder your pony jumped. She dresses like a Fourth of July celebration. I never did see such gay colors combined in a girl’s dress in all my life.”

  “Flores, you mean?”

  “Is that her name?” asked Tavia.

  “So Mrs. Ledger told me,” said Dorothy. “Flores helps the foreman’s wife. She is an orphan. Her parents died of smallpox in a squatter’s cabin a few miles out in the desert, last year.”

  “Goodness, Doro! how much you know about her already. Is she going to be your next protégée?” demanded Tavia.

  “Well,” confessed Dorothy, “I was interested in her at once. And do you know why?”

  “Just because you are always interested in everybody and everything, Doro Doodlekins. I never did see such a girl,” repeated Tavia.

  “Oh! I had a real reason,” rejoined Dorothy, laughing. “You see, she is not as old as you and I, Tavia, yet I saw her talking very confidentially with that Mexican driver, José.”

  “Oh, him? Do you blame her?” chuckled Tavia. “What wonderfully white teeth he has—and just a love of a mustache!”

  Dorothy made a little face at her. “You are incorrigible, Tavia,” she groaned. “I am interested in Flores, not in that driver.”

  “Well, you spoke of him,” insisted Tavia. “I didn’t bring him—and his mustache—into the conversation.”

  “I wondered if Flores’ folks—if she had any—approved of her talking with the man,” continued Dorothy, ignoring her chum’s flippancy. “And what do you think?”

  “She is going to run away with him like Molly Crater did with her young man!” ejaculated the romantic Tavia.

  “Do be sensible!” exclaimed Dorothy, with disgust. “Molly Crater is nineteen—she was of age in this state. I wish you’d listen——”

  “Officer! she’s in again!” interrupted Tavia. “See! that Mex. girl is beckoning to you, Doro.”

  “No! she can’t mean me?”

  “I’m sure she isn’t after me,” said Tavia. “I’ve never said ten words to her, for she can’t speak English. I found that out.”

  Flores had appeared again at the far corner of the long shed they were passing. She did gesture for Dorothy to come to her.

  “I’m going!” declared Dorothy. “You take my pony on to the corral, Tavia.”

  She was out of the saddle as soon as she had spoken and tossed the bridle-reins to her friend. Flores popped out of sight again, but Dorothy followed her around the corner of the shed.

  At this corner Dorothy saw the Mexican girl dodging around the next corner, but quickly Flores led her to an empty shed and there turned, waiting for her. All the sheds appeared to be empty, for the horse wrangler had driven all the ponies out to pasture, and there was no cattle here save a few calves bawling their heads off in a pen.

  “You wish to talk to me?” asked Dorothy, puzzled, but smiling at the younger girl.

  “I no sp’ak mooch Inglese,” said Flores, softly. “You come?”

  She seized Dorothy’s hand and drew her gently away. “Come where?” asked the Eastern girl.

  “Wiz me,” and Flores pointed to herself. “I no sp’ak, but I leeston. You leeston, too.”

  “Listen?”

  Flores nodded her head vigorously. “They talk—you leeston.”

  She still dragged at Dorothy’s hand. The fact that the Mexican girl wished her to play eavesdropper did not at first enter Dorothy’s mind. She went with Flores wonderingly.

  Her guide led the way surely between the rows of sheds. Keeping well away from the bunkhouse and paddock, where there were likely to be loiterers, Flores skillfully chose a way in which Mrs. Ledger could not possibly see them from her doorway.

  When Colonel Hardin had really made cattle raising a business, there were often ten thousand steers at the home corral, besides hundreds of ponies. Corrals and sheds occupied several hundred acres.

  With a finger on her lip, Flores looked back to see that the American girl was following closely. Dorothy heard voices—men’s voices. At first she did not recognize them.

  The Mexican girl led her close behind a slab wall and silently
pointed to a crevice. At the moment there was not a sound beyond the wall, and Dorothy tiptoed to it and peered through the crack.

  There sat Hank Ledger, the foreman of the ranch, and Philo Marsh. Both were smoking and they were evidently having an earnest conference.

  Dorothy looked back at Flores questioningly, and the Mexican girl nodded with emphasis. She had brought Dorothy here that the latter might “leeston” to these two men. But Dorothy had no intention of doing such a thing.

  Of course, Flores knew no better. The puzzling fact that Flores wished Dorothy to listen to Hank and Marsh was a secondary consideration in the Glenwood girl’s mind in the first flush of her discovery. She turned swiftly again to shake her head angrily at the girl, when Philo Marsh spoke:

  “Why, you know very well what will happen here, Hank. This woman is just a plain fool. She’ll get to sticking her nose into everything, and you’ll soon be hunting another job. And it won’t be at a hundred a month, neither!

  “You might as well pad your pocket a little against your fall. It’s comin’ tuh yuh—and a good, hard bump it will be, too.”

  “I dunno that,” growled Hank.

  “Then you’re the only one around here who don’t know it. It’s comin’ tuh yuh,” he repeated.

  “I kalkerlate this Mrs. White is a mighty able lady,” said Hank, slowly.

  “Pah!” sneered Philo Marsh. “She’s nawthin’ of the kind. And her brother-in-law is all crippled up and can’t git out yere. Anyway, no two ways about it, we’re goin’ to beat ’em. You better come in with us, pronto. You don’t have to do nawthin’ but keep your mouth shut. We want the water, and we’re goin’ to have it—that’s all.”

  Before Philo Marsh had spoken a dozen words Dorothy had a change of heart! The scoundrel’s coarse remark about Aunt Winnie was sufficient to hold the girl at her post and fix her attention, and her anger and interest both grew exceedingly as the talk between the two men continued.

  Just what Philo Marsh meant—why he should speak as he did—what advantage he proposed to take of her father and Aunt Winnie—Dorothy did not know. But she proposed to stay right there until she heard all that they said upon the subject, hoping that such eavesdropping would repay her—and believing that it was excusable in such a cause.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  OPHELIA COMES VISITING

  “Will you please tell me, Doro Doodlekins, just why everything in my trunk is mismates? I believe I have half a pair of everything I own in the world with me, and the other half is at home!”

  Dorothy giggled, deep in the mysteries of her own toilette.

  “If I wore spectacles,” pursued the complaining Tavia. “I’d have only half a pair with me. And half a pair of scissors would be my fate if I owned scissors. If I wore false teeth, I’d be able to find only the upper set.”

  “You packed the trunk yourself,” mumbled Dorothy, with pins in her mouth.

  “I never!” denied Tavia. “I was so excited over the prospect of coming West that I just threw the first things that came handy into my trunk. When it was overflowing I jumped on the lid to make it lock, and—there you are! At least, it looks as though I did just that when it comes to finding things.”

  “Poor Tavia Trouble-ty-bubble!” cooed Dorothy.

  “Yes,” admitted her chum. “Look!” with desperation.

  She held up two stockings—they never could have made a pair of “hose,” for one was white while the other was flesh color.

  “See what I am reduced to,” continued the irrepressible. “If I wear them with pumps folks will think I’m mismated, too! Whatever shall I do, Doro?”

  There was company expected at the Hardin ranch-house and the girls were “dolling up,” as Nat called it, in honor of old Mrs. Petterby and Lance.

  “Wear black ones,” answered the practical Dorothy.

  “Oh, but black isn’t fashionable—and certainly not with white pumps,” said Tavia, sadly.

  “I cannot advise you, then,” said Dorothy. “And, anyway, Tavia, you always talk so fast that nobody ever looks at your feet.”

  “But—when I’m silent?” demanded Tavia.

  “When is that?” demanded her friend, laughing.

  “The unkindest cut of all! But I tell you what I’ll do,” added Tavia, slowly. “I will bind an emergency bandage around one ankle, and put the flesh colored stocking on that foot. Then it will look the same color as the white one. ‘Ah-ha!’ says the villain. ‘I am avenged! Down to your doom, Jack Dalton!’”

  And she sat right down on the floor and proceeded to do this, to Dorothy’s vast amusement.

  The girls were scarcely dressed when a buckboard, drawn by a pair of half broken ponies, came into view over the break of the knoll, coming from the Dugonne trail.

  “Here comes Lance!” exclaimed Tavia.

  “And dear old Mrs. Petterby,” agreed Dorothy.

  “Hi!” ejaculated Nat, whom the girls had joined on the big front porch. “What has the old lady in her lap, I want to know?”

  “Oh!” gasped Dorothy. “How the ponies gallop. And look at the carriage hop and bounce. She was nearly thrown out that time. I wish Mr. Lance wasn’t so reckless.”

  “But she’s hanging to that thing in her lap——”

  “It’s Ophelia, of course,” said Tavia. “She’s brought her on a visit, too.”

  “Why not?” demanded Dorothy, as the others laughed. “It’s the one thing that connects her with Rand’s Falls, Massachusetts. I expect without Ophelia Mrs. Petterby would be very homesick out here in Colorado.”

  Lance drove up with a flourish. Like most people out in the Colorado mountains, he seemed to be a very reckless driver. His mother was quite calm, however; she evidently had perfect confidence in her son’s ability to handle the ponies, and at the same time take care of her.

  The girls ran down the steps to help Mrs. Petterby out of the buckboard. “So delighted to see you, dear Mrs. Petterby,” cried Dorothy.

  “And Ophelia,” giggled Tavia, reaching out her hands for the basket, but making big eyes at the cowboy.

  “Howdy! howdy!” Lance was exclaiming, his face very red under Tavia’s wicked scrutiny. He would not let the girl take the basket, but removed it from his mother’s lap himself. “Don’t you mind, Miss,” he urged. “I’ll take this yere along to the bunkhouse, mother. Yuh don’t want thet thar little hen with you in Miz White’s nice house.”

  “Quite right, Lance,” agreed the old lady, hopping out. “But you see that nothing happens to her, son.”

  “I’ll take keer of her like she was eggs instead o’ a chicken,” he assured her, and then gave the impatient ponies their heads. They dashed away toward the sheds.

  Aunt Winnie appeared at the door to welcome the old lady from Massachusetts, and they bore her into the house and showed her the room she was to occupy. Lance would bunk with the Ledgers, but he was coming up to supper.

  As Dorothy came back through the wide central hall a little later, old John Dempsey appeared from the office. He had gotten everything cleaned up in there, and kept it tidy. Mrs. White was now using Colonel Hardin’s old desk as her own.

  “Miss Dorothy,” whispered the veteran, “what do you think? That snake in the grass was after me agin yesterday about that old letter.”

  Dorothy looked very grave at the mention of Philo Marsh. “What does he want now?” she asked.

  “He’s after that letter, I tell ye. He offered me sixty dollars for it. He’s the most persistent critter I ever see. I told him I couldn’t sell at no price.”

  “Wait, Mr. Dempsey,” said Dorothy. “I wrote father about that letter the day you found it. I expect to hear from him soon.”

  “But I wouldn’t sell—if ’tis mine to sell, belike,” said John Dempsey, earnestly.

  “It may be worth a lot of money.”

  “Sure, an’ I don’t need a lot of money,” declared the old soldier. “I’m contint right as I be—as long as your aunt will let me stay.”

>   “And you may rest assured that she will let you stay,” said Dorothy, cheerfully. “Why, Mr. Dempsey, she says you are a lot of help around the ranch-house.”

  “’Tis kind of her to say so,” said he, gratefully. “But I feel mighty beholden to ye all.”

  It was because of this brief conversation that Dorothy went down toward the bunk-house to meet Lance Petterby coming up to supper. Had Tavia done this, Dorothy would have been scandalized, but Dorothy considered that she had a good and sufficient reason for what she did.

  What old John Dempsey had said reminded Dorothy Dale of the conversation she had overheard between Philo Marsh and Hank Ledger, the foreman of the ranch. She had discussed this with nobody—not even with her chums. It was a secret between the Mexican girl, Flores, and herself.

  Dorothy did not understand what if all meant. Aunt Winnie had not refused to lease the water-right to the Desert people, and the girl could not see why Philo Marsh was so anxious to close up the matter and get Mrs. White’s signature to the papers he had prepared.

  Nor did his evident attempt to bribe Hank Ledger serve to illuminate Dorothy’s mind to any degree. This was a mystery. Philo Marsh—well named “a snake in the grass” by old John Dempsey—was up to some shrewd trick.

  Dorothy believed Flores knew what it was, but the Mexican girl could not explain. She understood spoken English well enough, but she could not speak more than a dozen words herself. Dorothy had, therefore, determined to talk with Lance Petterby. She remembered seeing Philo Marsh speak familiarly with Lance in Dugonne—just as Dorothy and her friends were leaving town on the old stagecoach. Dorothy believed he was kindly disposed toward her and her aunt. She thought she could trust him—to a degree. At any rate, she was sure he would tell her the truth about Marsh.

  Lance had unharnessed the ponies and turned them into one of the horse corrals with a bunch of the Hardin stock. Neither Hank nor the wrangler was at hand to tell him that the particular bunch in that corral had just been gathered in off the range and were wilder than his own broncs.