At this juncture conversation lagged, for the passengers had all they could do to hang on as the car roared over what might be a road but resembled more the dried bed of a stream.
It was fantastic country. Hills with sides as sheer as castle walls, built in layers of red, black, white and yellow rock rose in the landscape. Wind and sandstorms had carved them into shapes suggestive of animals, giants and mythological figures.
On the level grew flat-leaved prickly pear cactus and saw-leaved soap-weed or yucca, mesquite and unrecognized shrubs, and a coarse, rank grass. Herds of white-faced cattle dotted the landscape, and huge-eared jackrabbits sat up without fear to watch the car go by.
“The real Wild West, all right,” Marshmallow said, risking a bitten tongue. “N-never saw anything so gay. Those mountains look like Neapolitan ice cream!”
“I—I almost wish I was back in the airplane,”
Mrs. Mallow confided to Kitty. “I never saw such a road, and such speed!”
Ben, however, steered with one hand, using the other to point out features in the landscape.
“We call that little mesa over there George Washington Hill,” he said. “If you look on the north side, there, you’ll see a sort of outline of his face. And that there is Dead Man Canyon, on account of the skeleton, a giant big one, they found—”
And so on.
At last, topping a rise, the travelers saw another grove of cottonwoods ahead, a sign of water and human habitation.
A few minutes later a curl’of smoke could be distinguished mounting into the darkening sky, and then lights flashed in the shadows.
“That’s Crazy Bear Ranch now,” Ben said, clearing his throat and raising his voice in a bloodcurdling yell that made everyone wince.
“We signal to each other like that, so if anyone is busy he can stop workin’ and come down to the road to talk a bit,” he explained.
Sure enough, when the ranch was reached half a dozen men were sitting on the fence.
“Hi, Ben!” they chorused.
“Hi, Bill! Hi, Pedro! An’ Lew an’ Ike and the rest of you,” Ben replied. “Bill, I brung you some boarders.”
“Well, now, that was right thoughtful of you, Ben,” drawled one of the men, rising and approaching the car. “Git off an’ light, folks.”
“Cowboy clothes!” Doris whispered. “Look!”
Bill—and all the others, for that matter—wore floppy leather chaps, spurred boots, and neck-kerchiefs.
“I am Mrs. Mallow,” that lady introduced herself. “These are my young friends, Miss Doris Force and Miss Norris.”
“I’m shore proud to meet you, ladies,” grinned Bill. “My name is Bill Saylor.”
“And this is my son Marshall, and our friend Mr. David Chamberlin.”
“Boys, howdy!” Saylor smiled, reaching out a horny hand. “Now, just you come with me to the house an’ meet the missus. The boys here will tote in your luggage.”
Adieus were said to Ben, who seemed insulted when payment for the drive was mentioned, and then all followed Bill Saylor to the house.
It was too dark to distinguish much except a very long one-story building with more doors than windows. Framed in the light that streamed from one of the former was a woman.
“Got company, Ma!” Bill called out.
“You’re sure welcome,” said Mrs. Saylor, who proved to be a slender woman of rather less than middle age. “And I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
Marshmallow emitted a faint moan.
“I’ll take you right to your rooms. I expect you are staying over night? Then we can talk afterwards, but right now you’ll want to wash.”
Mrs. Saylor led the way through a gleaming kitchen through a back door and into a grassy courtyard. Then the visitors realized the house was built in the form of a hollow square surrounding a grass plot about sixty feet square in which a pool reflected the first star of the evening overhead, and in which a tall poplar rustled in the breeze.
“I’ll put you two girls in here,” Mrs. Saylor said, opening a door and switching on a shaded light which revealed a whitewashed bedroom. On its walls hung gay Indian blankets, half a dozen of which also covered the broad, low, Spanish-style twin beds of some yellow wood.
“It is lovely,” said Doris, complimenting the agreeable hostess.
“And Mrs. Mallow, you’ll sleep next door,” the ranch-woman continued with a pleasant smile, ushering her into a similarly furnished room.
“You boys will bunk in here together,” Mrs. Saylor said, leading Dave and Marshmallow into a room the counterpart of the girls’, except that a buffalo hide Indian shield, with bow and fringed quiver of arrows, decorated one wall.
“There’s no running water, but plenty in the buckets,” Mrs. Saylor said. “We make our own electricity, but we can’t have running water, as we have to get it from wells, and they’re fifteen hundred feet deep. Now I’ll make you some supper.
“I didn’t expect anybody, so you’ll just have to take pot luck,” she added. “Come into the kitchen when you are ready, and I’ll see if I can’t scare up some fried chicken and tomato soup, with some squash and yams and corn-pudding. I think I had some left over, and pie and coffee.”
After Mrs. Saylor had gone back to the kitchen, Doris and Kitty examined their room more closely.
“Isn’t this attractive?” Kitty asked. “The whole country, too.”
“Lovely,” replied Doris. “So lovely I wish I didn’t have to think about any unpleasant things while we’re here. But I’m afraid I’ll have to get right down to business.”
“Well,” came the suggestion from the irrepressible Kitty, “there’s such a thing as combining business with pleasure.”
CHAPTER X
Nothing But Trouble
“Say, this is the real thing all right,” Marshmallow exclaimed.
“What do you mean?” Dave asked.
“Oh, the primitive frontier life but with most modern conveniences,” Marshmallow answered. “Cowboys and Indians, rattlesnakes and cactus, electric lights and swell food! Do you think we could get ourselves some of those leather sailor pants?”
It was the next day after the arrival of Doris and her friends. The two boys were in the courtyard of the Crazy Bear ranch-house, waiting for their three charming companions to appear for breakfast.
Overhead the bluest sky in the world was arched. The whitewashed adobe walls of the house framed green grass, fragrant in the early morning air.
“I’d feel funny dressed up in chaps,” Dave admitted. “What I’d rather locate is an auto.”
“Say, that’s an idea!” Marshmallow exclaimed. “Let’s ask Bill Saylor if there is one we can hire around here.”
“Let’s go find him, but don’t let on to the others,” Dave suggested.
While the young men were plotting their little surprise, Doris and Kitty were discussing what attire they would don for the first day on the ranch.
“I guess it will have to be our riding habits,” Doris said. “We will want to explore a lot, and I have to get into town to see about the deed.”
“Horseback