At the same time Gale launched herself forward and with one sweep of her arm knocked the lamp to the floor. With a ringing crash, the room was plunged into darkness. She heard Pedro shout to his partner as she saw Val’s figure outlined against the window when her friend climbed over the sill. It all happened in a split second and Gale sprang to the front door which the outlaw had deserted when he sprang after Valerie. But ere she reached the door Pedro was behind her and a heavy hand on her shoulder pulled her stumbling back into the room. She eluded him and sprang away. She had the advantage of the bandits, for she knew the Wilson living room and she knew what to avoid but the men didn’t. They thrashed about, stumbling over the furniture and muttering angrily. Sliding along the wall she reached the dining room door and slipped through while the men still sought her in the darkness.
She stepped into the silence of the other room and bumped into someone. She drew back with a stifled exclamation. Had the men stationed another of their friends in here?
“Gale?” a voice demanded.
“Tom! Quick, they’ll get away!” she said.
“How many are there?” he asked.
“Two. Oh, do be careful!”
“Phyllis and Val are outside, go out to them,” he said and pushed her to one side. He and Phyllis and Wong had met Valerie when she dropped from the window.
In quick strides he entered the living room and in another minute had flung himself on one of the men. Together they struggled in the darkness. Loo Wong had come up silently behind Gale and now he followed Tom into the confusion.
“They’ll kill each other,” Phyllis declared nervously as she and Val joined Gale.
“Tom has a hefty punch and I hope he uses it,” Valerie said determinedly. “I—oh!”
A revolver shot had crashed through the sound of struggle and there was an accompanying groan.
“Tom?” Gale called uncertainly.
When there was no answer she crept forward and into the living room. Suddenly all had become quiet and she scarcely dared to press the switch to light the overhead lights for fear of what she might see. The light disclosed Tom swaying over the prostrate form of the chief bandit, while Loo Wong sat calmly on Pedro’s chest, brandishing his meat cleaver.
“You’re hurt, Tom!” Gale said running forward.
“Just a scratch in the arm,” he answered. “I reckon we got these fellows this time.”
“Alle same velly blad business,” was Loo Wong’s opinion.
“Let me fix your arm, Tom,” Gale said.
“It’ll be all right,” he assured her.
But Gale insisted and after cutting away the bloody sleeve cleansed and wrapped the wound in clean bandages. As he had said it was not severe, but it was better that they should take no chances.
After Gale’s first-aid treatment was over, Tom and Loo Wong locked the two desperadoes with their partner in the bunkhouse and there they stayed until the Sheriff returned.
The others returned to the ranch house to set the living room to rights. It was a wreck, table overturned, lamp broken, magazines torn, and chairs upside down.
“It looks as though a cyclone had hit the place,” Phyllis declared.
“I’ll send your Mother a lamp when I get home,” Gale promised Tom. “It was my idea to put the place in darkness.”
“You don’t have to bother,” he said laughingly. “You’ll probably get a reward for capturing those fellows. We’ll let the Sheriff buy the lamp.”
“You and Loo Wong deserve the reward,” Val put in. “We didn’t do a thing.”
“You captured them that time in the cabin,” Tom said. “That’s what the reward is for. I don’t want any money. You can have every bit—to find some new adventures with,” he added laughingly.
By the time the others arrived home some semblance of order had been restored but much of the furniture still showed signs of rough usage.
“It was all a wild goose chase,” Janet greeted them, sinking into the first convenient chair. “I wish I had stayed home with you. Is there any fudge left?”
“Plenty,” Valerie said. “Didn’t you have any excitement?” she asked sweetly.
“Nary a crumb,” Carol declared. “For once Janet’s sixth sense was totally wrong.”
“You mean it led in the wrong direction,” Phyllis said. “You didn’t need to chase off after the excitement. It came to the ranch.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Madge.
“What happened to Tom?” Virginia continued as her brother and the Sheriff and Mr. Wilson left the ranch house and walked toward the bunkhouse.
“Did he fall off his horse?” added Janet.
“He was shot,” Phyllis said innocently, gleefully noting the sensation her words created.
“What’s this?” Carol asked, rousing herself from a comfortable position. “Did I hear aright? Shot? How? By whom? And why?”
“Haven’t you noticed the living room is slightly awry?” Gale demanded.
“We thought maybe you were having football practice or something with the lamp,” Carol commented. “What happened?”
“Well, you see it was this way,” Valerie began mischievously, to keep them in suspense. “I was making fudge in the kitchen and you know how fussy Loo Wong is about his kitchen.”
“Don’t we!” Virginia agreed. “Did he catch you?”
“Yes, he did,” Gale laughed.
“And asked me to teach him to make fudge,” Valerie added.
“But what has that to do with mussing the living room?” Janet demanded. “I don’t see the point.”
“Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, it was after that that the bank robbers called on us,” Valerie said nonchalantly.
“The bank robbers called on you,” Carol said slowly. “Are you joking?”
“No,” Gale assured her. “You’ll find three of them carefully subdued and locked in the bunkhouse.”
“One of them shot Tom,” Virginia said rather than asked.
“Exactly,” Phyllis agreed. “That was during the fight.”
“Fight? Don’t be so aggravating!” stormed Janet. “Give us the details!”
“All right,” Valerie said laughingly, “we’ll tell you, and maybe next time you will stay with us for your excitement.”
Phyllis told of her and Tom’s arrival at the ranch house and Gale and Valerie took turns describing what had happened at the ranch house. The other girls were half glad and half sorry that they had been absent. They were glad they had not had to face the two bandits, but at the same time sorry because they had missed the excitement.
“Gosh,” mourned Janet, “nothing happens when we are around.”
“Never mind,” consoled Valerie, “Tom says we will get a reward and you can help us spend it.”
“Hurrah! How much do you get?” demanded Carol brightly.
“I don’t know,” Gale answered. “Anyway, we shall probably have to wait until the prisoners are safely in jail. That means we won’t be able to go home day after tomorrow.”
“Oh well, if we stay another day or two it doesn’t make any difference,” Madge said, dismissing that subject abruptly. “What do you propose to do with your reward?”
“We hadn’t thought about it,” Valerie said. “We shall all have to put our heads together and think of something—not anything crazy!” she said with a glance at Janet and Carol.
“Do you insinuate that anything crazy might come from our heads?” the latter two demanded crisply.
“I have known such times,” Val laughed.
“My friend, you wound me deeply,” Janet said with mock tears. “My thoughts are always for the betterment of humanity.”
Carol coughed loudly over a smothered giggle. “Quite so,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t settle the question of what to do with the reward.”
“Perhaps we better wait and see if there really is a reward,” Gale suggested dryly.
“Meanwhile, let’s eat,” Carol proposed and the r
est were unanimous in agreement.
They all trooped to the kitchen, but there found Loo Wong already in the throes of making a late lunch and there was nothing they could do to help him so they went back to the living room to wait and to talk.
CHAPTER XX
Reward
The sun was warm and dazzling. Gale felt uncomfortably hot as she rode along. The creak of saddle leather and the clop clop of her horse’s hoofs were all the sounds that disturbed the stillness. Somehow she had lost the others when she stopped some distance back and now she rode alone.
It was the day the Adventure Girls had planned to leave for home, but they hadn’t carried out their plans. Yesterday the notorious bandits had, under heavy guard, left for a federal prison. The Sheriff had bestowed the reward, one thousand dollars, upon the Adventure Girls. Now the question was, what were they to do with it? They had all agreed upon using it for some worthy cause rather than keeping it for themselves, but they couldn’t find a worthy cause.
Dismounting from her horse, Gale let him drink from a tiny brooklet. A low, cheerily whistled tune caught her attention and she looked about for the whistler. Several yards from her, industriously whittling a wooden twig, sat a small boy, with ragged clothes and tangled curly hair. His eyes, when he looked up at Gale, were as blue as the skies overhead.
“’Lo,” he said with an engaging grin.
“Hello,” she replied smilingly, dropping down beside him.
“Fine horse, that,” he declared. “You’re from the K Bar O, aintcha?”
“That’s right,” she answered. “Who are you?”
“I’m Bobby,” he answered brightly.
She accepted this wondering who in the world Bobby might be. “You live around here?” she asked.
“On t’other side of the hill,” he replied. “You’re just visitin’, huh?”
“Yes, I live in the East.”
“Where?”
“In Marchton, that’s a little town near the Atlantic Ocean,” she replied.
“What’s an ocean?” he wanted to know.
“Why an ocean is a—um—a big body of water,” she said.
“Somethin’ like a lake, huh?”
“Something like it, only much bigger,” she assured him. “Don’t you learn about oceans in school?”
“I don’t go to school,” he replied.
“Why not?” Gale asked.
“Cause my Mother hasn’t any money for my clothes or books,” he answered brightly. “Anyway, I’m goin’ to be a cowboy when I get big and I don’t haveta know much for that.”
“Wouldn’t you like to go to school?” she persisted.
He bent over his knife and the wood he was whittling. “Aw, shucks,” he said. “Course I would. But I can’t. I talk to the riders a lot an’ Tom and Virginia too. They tell me stories and Virginia teaches me ’rithmetic sometimes.”
Gale wondered why Virginia had never mentioned the little boy to the Adventure Girls. Then she remembered when they had first arrived Virginia had casually talked about him, but the girls had gone off on their camping trip and he had not been mentioned again. Gale liked him, he seemed a bright little fellow, quick to learn and to imitate.
“I can ride an’ fish an’ shoot,” he bragged. “Course I don’t know much outa books, but I’ll get along.”
Gale marveled that a youngster, scarcely eight, could be so optimistic and have such a cheerful acceptance of his destiny. She felt a trifle guilty that she didn’t have such philosophy about the things she wanted but couldn’t have.
“Do you have a horse of your own?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted, “but Tom loans me one lots of times.”
“Want to take a ride on mine?” she asked.
His eyes sparkled joyfully at the suggestion and he murmured a bashful “Gee!”
“Go ahead,” she invited. “I’ll wait here for you.”
His legs didn’t reach to the stirrups, but horse and rider seemed welded together as Bobby urged the roan across the valley. At first Gale was afraid he might be unseated, but she soon discovered she need have no fear. Bobby was a born rider, and knew as much about sticking in the saddle as Gale herself.
“He sure can run,” Bobby panted as he jumped off beside Gale and handed her the reins.
“He sure can,” she replied with a smile. She held out her hand and Bobby placed his in it. “Goodbye, Bobby,” she said cheerfully. “Maybe I’ll see you again before I go home.”
“I live in the cabin over by the creek,” he said. “Ma an’ me’ll be glad to see ya,” he declared.
“Oh, and Bobby,” she said, pausing, one foot in the stirrup. “If a fairy gave you a wish what would you wish?”
“I’d wish to go to school,” he answered promptly. “Are you a fairy?” he added.
“Hardly,” Gale said, “but I might meet one and I’ll tell her about you.”
As she rode away she looked back at the sturdy little figure standing gazing after her. He was such an oldish little chap for his years. What a pity he had to waste his active little brain because his mother had no money to send him to the country school. What Gale admired was his fortitude and readiness to accept the little good things that did come his way.
She had an idea in her head and all the way back to the ranch house it persisted in teasing her. But what would the other girls think of her idea? That she meant to find out as soon as possible. She dismounted at the corral and Jim came forward to take her horse. On the porch of the ranch house were gathered the Adventure Girls with Virginia.
“Aha, run away from us, will you?” accused Janet.
“You lost me,” Gale replied.
“We have been discussing ways of spending your reward,” Carol informed her. “We have about decided to save it for another trip out here next summer.”
“To meet some more bandits,” interposed Valerie dryly.
“That might not happen in another hundred years,” Virginia declared. “You would have to pick the summer that we were having trouble. Other years all is peaceful and serene.”
“Look,” Phyllis said laughingly, “if we hadn’t come out you might still be having trouble. We cleared everything up.”
“Of course,” Virginia laughed teasingly. “You’re good!”
“What do you think, Gale?” Madge asked.
“Hm?” Gale brought her gaze back from the tops of the far pine trees on the horizon. “About what?”
“You weren’t listening,” Janet accused.
Gale laughed. “No, I wasn’t,” she confessed. “What were you saying?”
“Don’t listen to them,” Val interrupted. “Each one has a worse idea how to spend the thousand dollars.”
“Haven’t you an idea that will put our minds at rest?” Phyllis demanded of Gale. “We really have to do something, you know. We start for home tomorrow and we haven’t much time.”
“Don’t you have a plan, Gale?” Janet demanded. “You must have, everybody else does. Come now, confess!”
“Yes,” Gale said, “I have a plan, and I’m wondering what you would think of it.”
“Well, we can’t think a thing unless you tell us what it is,” Carol said practically.
“Yes, Gale, tell us,” Phyllis agreed. “Yours will probably be the best. The rest of these weak minded people will soon suggest buying an airplane.”
“I resent that!” Janet said loudly. “What is the matter with an airplane?”
“Not a thing,” Phyllis consoled her. “I just—”
“Suppose we let Gale talk?” Madge cut in.
“This afternoon when I lost you girls I met a little boy. A cute little chap. About eight, I should say. He has the most trusting blue eyes and curliest hair—”
“Are you going to adopt him?” interposed Carol.
“Silly,” Gale said. “Let me finish. I talked to him quite a while. He is awf’ly cunning and smart—as smart as any of you,” she added wickedly.
“He must
be smart to compare with us,” Janet declared modestly.
“Hush!” Valerie commanded. “Go on, Gale.”
“He asked me where I lived and I told him a little town on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. He wanted to know what an ocean was.”
“I hope you could tell him,” Carol murmured mischievously.
“I wish you could have seen him, girls. He is positively thirsting for knowledge. But he can’t go to school because his mother has no money with which to send him. It is a shame because an education would certainly not be lost on him. It made my heart ache just to see him and to hear him tell about how fortunate he was that Tom and Virginia and the other cowboys told him stories and taught him a little of arithmetic and spelling. He is so cheerful with what he has, his riding and fishing and hunting. He could be such a fine man because he has an insatiable ambition.
“I thought we might give him the thousand dollars. It would see him through the little country school here and by the time he is older he might be able to earn more. It would be such a good use to which to put our money. We could always remember how happy we made one little boy. It is something he wants more than anything else in the world. Just to look at him made me want it, too.
“Of course all you girls have a share in the reward and it is up to you to do as you please, but I can tell you if you should agree with me Bobby would love it—and you,” she finished.
“Hurrah for Bobby!” Carol said loudly. “I want to meet him.”
“Didn’t I say Gale’s plan would be the best?” Phyllis demanded, hugging Gale affectionately. “You always seem to know just what we’d like,” she told her chum.
Virginia hugged Gale too. “You’re a darling, Gale, to think of Bobby. I know he’ll be tickled pink. Let’s go tell him now.”
With one accord the girls ran to the corral and saddled their horses. Virginia, who had been to see Bobby often before, led the way to the broken down little cabin.
Gale had the check for the thousand dollars and the girls all agreed that she should be the one to present their gift to the little boy.
Before the cabin, its door hanging ajar on one rusty hinge, the girls dismounted. Virginia sent a ringing halloo into the interior and Bobby soon appeared. He gravely informed his visitors that his mother wasn’t home. He greeted Gale with a wide grin and smiled shyly at the other girls, who were all delighted with the appearance of their little protégé.
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