  The girls held tight as they had been commanded, their nerves taut and tense. Jerry’s prophecy that they might yet have another thrilling adventure and narrow escape filled them with a sort of startled expectancy. They could not see the forking valley roads until they had dropped down the last steep descent of the mountain and were almost upon them. Jerry unconsciously uttered an exclamation of relief. The road that went straight as a taut lariat across miles of flat, sandy waste was glistening in the late afternoon sun. The distant Chiricahua range, at the foot of which nestled the Newcomb ranch, was hung with a misty lilac haze. Peace seemed to pervade the scene and yet they could all four distinctly hear a dull ominous roar. Before starting to “beat the world’s record,” Jerry stopped the car and listened. His desert-trained ear could surely discern the direction of the roaring sound. They were still too close to the mountain to see the desert on their right or left. Turning to Dick, he asked, “Is there any water left in the canteen?” “Yes,” the other boy replied, sensing the seriousness of the request, “about a gallon, I should say. It’s right here at our feet.” “Good! Have the top loose so that you can drench our handkerchiefs at a split second’s notice. Have them ready, girls.” “Why, Jerry,” Mary’s expression was one of excited animation, “do you expect the sand storm to overtake us?” “No, I really don’t.” The cowboy was starting the engine again. “But it’s always wise to take precautions.” Then, addressing the small car, “Now, little old ‘tin Cayuse,’ show your stuff.” The start was so sudden and so violent that Dora was thrown forward. Dick drew her back and they smiled at each other glowingly. “Life is a jolly lark today, isn’t it, so full of a.’s and n. e.’s.” “I suppose you mean adventures and narrow escapes.” Dora straightened her small hat that had been twisted awry. Then, as they sped away from the shelter of the grim, gray towering mountain, they all four looked quickly to the right and left. The desert lay dreaming in the sun. To the far south of them the air was full of a sinister yellow wall of flying sand and dust. It was surely headed in the opposite direction. Jerry did not doubt it and since he did not, the girls and Dick had no sense of fear. The ominous roaring sound had lessened, although, of course, they could hear little when that small car was speeding, its own squeaks and rattles having been increased. Mary turned a face flushed with excitement and called back to Dora, “Ten miles! Only ten more to go.” It was a perfect road, recently completed. There was almost no sand on it and very few dips. Dick waved up toward a low circling vulture. “That fellow’s eyes are popping out in amazement, more than likely,” he shouted to Dora. She laughed back, holding tight to her hat. “He probably thinks this is some new kind of a stampede.” Again Mary’s pretty glowing face appeared in the opening back of the front seat. “Fifteen miles! Only five more to go.” Dick’s expression became anxious. He said, close to Dora’s ear, “If Jerry feels so sure that the sand storm is headed toward Mexico, I don’t think he ought to race this little machine. He may know a lot more than I do about busting bronchos, but—” An explosion interrupted Dick’s remark, then the car zigzagged wildly from side to side. Jerry turned off the spark and the gas. Dick, without thought, leaped out onto the running board and put his weight over the wheel with the blow-out in its tire. Almost miraculously the car stayed in the road. The girls had been wonderful. White and terrorized, yet neither had clutched at her companion, nor hindered his doing what was best for their safety. When the car stopped, the front right tire was almost off the road. The girls, quivering with excitement, got out and exclaimed simultaneously, “Another adventure and narrow escape!” Dick, knowing better than the girls how truly narrow their escape had been, stepped forward, his dark eyes serious, and extended a hand to the cowboy. “Jerry,” he said earnestly, “I won’t say again that I probably know more about managing cars than you do. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking and skill, we would surely have turned turtle in the sand and if the spark had been on, the car might have gone up in flames.” But Jerry would not accept the compliment. He shook his head as he removed his sombrero and wiped beads of moisture from his forehead. “Dick,” he said, “thanks just the same, but I reckon I was needlessly reckless. I wasn’t right sure about the sand storm, just at first, but later when I saw that it was heading south all right, I kept on speeding.” Turning to the smaller girl who stood very still; seemingly calm, though her lips quivered when she tried to smile, the cowboy said contritely, “Little Sister, if you won’t stop trusting me, I’ll swear to never again take any such needless risks.” Dora, watching the two, thought, “It matters such a terrible lot to Jerry what Mary thinks about him. Some day she’s going to wake up and realize that he loves her.” Dick was removing his coat, and Jerry, evidently satisfied with Mary’s low-spoken reply, turned to get tools out from under the front seat. Half an hour later the small car was again on its way. The sun was setting behind the mountains where so recently they had been. Mary looked back at them. Grim and dark and forbidding they were, deep in shadow, but the peaks were aglow with flame color. The floor of the desert valley about them was like a sea of shimmering golden water; the ripples and dunes of sand were like glistening waves. “Such a gloriousness!” Dora exclaimed, turning a radiant face toward her companion. “I can see the color of it in your eyes,” the boy told her, and a sudden admiration in his own dark eyes caused Dora to think that Dick was really seeing her for the first time. It was lilac dusk when the small car drove along the lane of cottonwood trees and stopped at one side of the Bar N ranch house. Mrs. Newcomb’s round pleasant face looked out of a kitchen window, then her apron-covered person appeared in the open side door. Her arms were held out to welcome Mary. “My dear, my dear,” she said tenderly, “how glad I am that you blew over to Bar N.” “We almost literally did blow over,” Mary laughingly replied. “That is, we were running away from a sand storm.” Then, suddenly serious, she asked, “Oh, Aunt Molly, may I use your telephone at once? Dad doesn’t know that I’m here and he will be expecting us back for supper.” “Of course, dear. You know where it is, in the living-room.” Then, when Mary had skipped away, Dora following her, Mrs. Newcomb asked, “Has there been a sand storm in the valley? I hadn’t heard about it.” Jerry was about to drive the small car around to the old barn and so Dick replied, “Yes, Mrs. Newcomb. That’s what Jerry called it. We first saw it on the other side of the range back of Gleeson. Later we saw it far away to the south. It didn’t cross this part of the valley at all, but Jerry thought we’d better not try the Gleeson road.” “He was wise. I hope the wires aren’t down.” The good woman’s anxiety was quickly ended by the reappearance of the girls. “All’s well!” Mary announced. Then to Dick, “Your mother answered the phone. She said that they had heard the roaring and had seen some dust in the air but that the storm had passed around our tableland.” “Well, you girls had quite an adventure and perhaps a narrow escape as well.” Little did Mrs. Newcomb realize that she was repeating the phrase they had so often used that day. “Now, Mary, you take your friend to the spare room and get ready for supper. Your Uncle Henry will be in from riding the range pronto, and starved as a lean wolf, no doubt. He’s been gone since sun-up and he won’t take along what he ought for his mid-lunch.” The girls were about to leave the kitchen when Jerry called to Dick and away he went into the gathering darkness. “The boys sleep in the bunk house out by the corral,” Mrs. Newcomb explained. “They’ll be back, I reckon, soon as you’re ready.” The spare room was large, square, with a small fireplace in it. The bed was an old-fashioned four-poster and looked luxuriously comfortable. A table, a dresser, two chairs of dark wood and a bright rag rug completed the furnishings. “How quiet it is,” Mary said. “There isn’t a neighbor nearer than those Dooleys and Jerry said they are way over in the canyon.” Dora, wondering if Mary could be contented if she became Jerry’s wife, some day in the future, asked, “Would you like to live on a ranch, do you think?” Innocently, Mary replied as she lighted the kerosene lamp on the bureau, “Why, yes, I’m sure I would, if Dad could be with me.” Dora sighed as she thought, “Poor Jerry. She’s still blind and I did think today that her eyes were opened.” |
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