A sprawling white house in a grove of cottonwoods, and an artificial lake with a host of white, red-roofed outbuildings was spread out below like a toy farm. A conspicuous new structure, with “G Clef Rancho” painted on the roof, was obviously the hangar.
A herd of several hundred red, white-headed cattle stampeded as the airplane roared down owr their pasture, bu| the people hurrying from every building on the place let them go their way.
“Oh, the foolish people!” Doris exclaimed. “Someone will be hurt! Why don’t they keep off the landing field!”
Pete leveled off about twenty feet above the ground and roared over the assembled ranchers, but instead of scattering to the edges of the field the men and women and children stationed themselves all over the place, cheering with delight.
Again and again Pete Speary had to repeat his maneuver until he was practically dragging his wheels over the sombreros the men wore, before someone had the good sense to order the people back.
At last the wheels of the ship touched ground. The great metal bird coasted to a lialt opposite the private hangar, and with a final roar the motors were stilled.
“And now our real adventure begins,” Doris cried. “All out for Raven Rock!”
CHAPTER IX
At Crazy Bear Ranch
“Where is Madame Bedelle?” Pete inquired of the first person to reach the air tourists as they stepped out of the plane.
“Ah, Senor! How sad Senora Bedelle not see you arrive!” exclaimed the swarthy majordomo, removing his amazingly huge sombrero with a flourish. “She not expect you before mana—tomorrow—she is far on upper range inspecting new bunk house. Tonight she arrive back.”
With white teeth flashing against his dark skin the ranch foreman bowed again and stood very erect, awaiting orders.
“We had better find a place for us to stay,” Mrs. Mallow said.
“Is there any ranch around here that accommodates travelers?” Doris asked. “Or is there a hotel at the town, wherever that is?”
“Ah, Senora, no good hotel for high born people at Raven Rock,” mourned the foreman, his face as expressive of sorrow as if he were reporting that Raven Rock had just been wiped out by a tornado. “But at Crazy Bear, ah! Nice place, good food! Big rancho!”
“Good food?” Marshmallow pricked up his ears. “But did he say at the crazy house?”
“No, no, Senorl Crazy Bear Rancho. Dat her name. Plenty people from East—Kansas City, Little Rock, Dallas—comes to stay in Spring when she is not such hot weazzer,” the sombreroed one explained.
“We might look into it,” Mrs. Mallow said. “And where is this ranch?”
“Oh, ver-ry close by, Senora! ’Bout fifteen mile west. Next door dey live.”
“Whew! Fifteen miles to the next-door neighbor,” Kitty exclaimed. “Imagine running next door to borrow a cup of sugar!”
“How in the world will we get there?” Mrs. Mallow asked.
“Oh, easy!” laughed the foreman. “I ask Ben, he drive you.”
“Is Ben the local taxi man?” Dave asked. “Tax-ee? No sabby tax-ee,” shrugged the ranchero. “Ben, he boss Senora Bedelle’s trac-tor-rs. He tiene—he got car. Very good car. He take you to Crazy Bear in fi’ minute.”
“Say, that’s going some!” Marshmallow gasped. “Fifteen miles in five minutes in a car? Whew!”
“I call Ben,” bowed the foreman, sweeping the ground with his sombrero.
Pete, who had been inspecting his motors, rejoined the group.
“I’ve secured quarters here,” he explained. “If Miss Bedelle were here I’m sure she’d put you up, too.”
“We are under sufficient obligations to Miss Bedelle,” Mrs. Mallow smiled. “Thank you for being so considerate, but I think we shall find accommodations. When shall we see you again?”
“Oh, I’m going to stick around a long time,” the aviator grinned. “I’ve a contract to teach Miss Bedelle to fly, and that will take a month and a couple of planes, if she is as temperamental as opera singers are supposed to be.”
The tall, swarthy ranch-man appeared, shouldering his way through the crowd of open-mouthed natives, with a muscular, grease-stained, stocky figure in tow.
“If you will give me ze privilege,” the foreman bowed, “I weesh introduce Ben Corlies, very nice gentleman, who drive all machinery here.”
“Pleased to meet you,” growled Ben. “But if Miss Bedelle thinks I’m going to take care of that there cloud-scatterin’ contraption for her she is dead wrong.”
“Of course—I—we don’t know anything about that at all,” Mrs. Mallow said, taken aback at the unexpected remark. “This gentleman here said you would drive us over to the next ranch where we might find accommodations.”
“Why, you bet your boots!” exclaimed Ben.
“Nothin’ would please me better, if only to show you that there ain’t no sense to flyin’ when you pan travel safe on the ground.”
“We should be very grateful,” Mrs. Mallow said. “And whatever the usual charge is—”
“Charge nothin’,” Ben snorted. “Us folks out here don’t go pin a price on every little lift we give strangers. Do you want to start right now? I’ll be with you in a minute.”
He turned and loped around the corner.
“See, Senora?” the swarthy ranchero smiled. “Ben he fix everyt’ing queekl Nice mans, Ben Corlies.”
“Thank you for bringing him to our aid,” Doris said. “Here he comes back already—Marshmallow, there’s a car that ought to make you green with envy.”
Ben Corlies was driving up in a touring car, if not as old as Marshmallow’s revered antique, then ten times as experienced. The paint had long since been destroyed by desert heat and alkaline sands. The tires were of solid rubber, the top was dismantled and the windshield cracked. Relic as it was, the car had once been of very expensive make, and the motor, although loud, seemed hitting on all twelve cylinders.
“Pile in, folks. Room for everybody,” Ben sang out. “I’ve carried twelve folks in here two hundred miles in one afternoon.”
Pete helped stow the baggage in, and with some squeezing the five ex-aeronauts found places in the car also, with Wags electing Doris’s lap.
“You folks expect to be out here long?” Ben asked as he shot forward, scattering natives right and left as Pete had been unable to do with his plane.
“Oh, for quite a while,” Doris answered.
“Well, Raven Rock is sure looking up,” Ben commented. “Town ain’t got but fifty people in it if it is the county seat—’though the township countin’ all the ranches must have nigh five hundred countin’ Mexicans and Indians. Usually it’s too hot here exceptin’ for us natives, in the summer. But lately quite a few strangers is been scoutin’ round. You int’rested in oil?”
“Crude, or cod liver?” Marshmallow responded. “Not that it makes any difference,” Doris added hastily. “We are out here for a vacation.”
“I can think of lots better places to go,” Ben snorted. “Ain’t nothin’ to do here but kill rattlers an’ watch mirages.”
“Is that your job on the ranch?” Doris asked. “Me? Ha!” Ben laughed. “No, I run all Miss Bedelle’s machinery. Her electric light plant, and her tractors, and her cars when she needs a shaw-fer. That big chap you was talkin’ to is the cow