CHAPTER XV—THE STRANDED FAMILY.
Back of the big, rambling V. M. ranch house there was a comfortable small adobe which had been occupied at one time by the foreman and family, but now that Malcolm was his own foreman, the house was vacant, and it was into this that Virginia bade Cy carry the little woman.
Then Virginia held out her hand as she said sincerely: “Thank you Cy, for having helped us again. Isn’t it strange that twice, when we have needed someone, you have just happened to pass by.”
The cow-boy flushed as he replied, shuffling from one foot to the other. “Yo’ all have done mo’ for me than ah can be doin’ fo’ you-all. Ah’m glad ah meet up wi’-you-all.” Then he turned and bolted. No other word would adequately describe his manner of disappearance.
“That boy is a diamond in the rough, isn’t he?” Margaret said as she stood in the open-door and watched the tall lank cow-boy swing into his saddle and ride away toward the Slater Ranch.
Virginia, having for years helped care for an invalid mother, soon had the little woman roused from her stupor and taking warm broth for nourishment. Margaret, in the meantime, fed the three solemn eyed children who ate ravenously, like little wild creatures that were nearly starved.
At last when the mother had fallen into a more natural sleep and the three children had been tucked into one large bed, the two girls seated themselves near the kitchen stove in which Virg had made a fire and Megsy said: “Now may I hear what happened to bring this little brood to the desert?”
“It is not a long story,” Virginia began, “nor an unusual one. The father of the small family is a prospector who, until recently, was working in a copper mine near Bisbee. They had a good home and plenty to eat, little Pat said, until the strike came and then their money had to be taken from the savings bank where the mother had been so glad each month to place it and had been used for absolute necessities until, at last, it was nearly gone.
“Then, one day, the father, who had tried in vain to get work of any kind, came home much excited because he had heard that the mountains of the Seven Peak Range were supposed to be rich and as yet they had been unmined. He wanted to start out that very day. His wife, Mrs. Mahoy, begged him not to go, but Margaret, when a miner thinks that he has heard of a possible location that might be rich, his gambling spirit seems to be stronger than all else, and so just one month ago today Mr. Mahoy left Bisbee and came, as his wife supposed, to Seven Peak Range.
“She had not heard from him since, and so she started out in search of him, spending the few remaining dollars for food. Carrying the baby and leading the two older children, the brave little woman walked for days across the desert.
“Pat said that she ate almost nothing herself, so eager was she to make the food last for her little ones, but for two days even they had not eaten. Last night they reached the old adobe hut and there the mother, faint from hunger and the long walk, crept in and fell unconscious.
“You know the rest; how the brave little fellow tried to think of some way that he might call help and how, just by chance, we saw and responded.” Margaret, by the window, looked out across the desert. Night had settled down and the stars were shining brilliantly.
“One week from tonight it will be Christmas eve,” she said softly, “How I wish we might find the poor father and restore him to his family. What happiness it would bring, for no other Christmas gift would be more welcome to the little mother and her three babies.”
“Such things only happen in story books, not in real life, Megsy dear,” Virginia said, quietly.
“And yet truth is stranger than fiction.” Margaret replied as she prepared the bed that she and Virginia were to occupy in the little house that they might be near the sick mother.
And Margaret was right. Truth is stranger than fiction.