Single file the four mounted girls rode down the trail which led across the dry creek bottom for a time and then ascended the rather steep opposite bank. The fifth horse “Old Stoic” followed faithfully. When they were again on the level trail, Virg in the lead, smiled over her shoulder. Betsy just back of her was evidently deep in thought.
“What are you puzzling about now, little mystery solver?” she sang out gaily.
Betsy looked up brightly. “I’m trying to solve three things at once.”
Babs and Megsy rode up, and, as the sand was hard enough to permit, they continued in a group which was better for conversation.
“What are they? And how are you succeeding?” Each maid asked a question.
Betsy laughed. “I’m wondering what Puffed Snakes are. I’ve heard of rattlers and copper heads and—and water snakes, but never Puffed ones.”
“Guess!” Virg turned to say.
“I don’t have to guess because I know.” Margaret smiled at Betsy. “Use that good brain of yours. It’s ever so easy. It isn’t the kind of snake. It’s something that happens to it.”
“Hm. Let me see. It’s the name of a water hole with a dreadful odor.” Betsy seemed to be thinking hard. Suddenly she laughed. “Oh, of course, that’s easy! A snake fell into the water hole, couldn’t get out and puffed.”
“Righto!” Virg had whirled her pony and to the great admiration of the other girls, was riding backwards.
“What was your second puzzle?” Babs asked.
“Why this picturesque place ahead of us in the mountains, should be called Hog Canon?”
“Oh, that is too easy,” Megsy declared.
“Probably because some former dry rancher tried to raise hogs,” Babs suggested.
“You are nearly right, but not entirely so. It was Nature itself that raised the little wild hogs that ‘abounded,’ as the story books say, in these mountains, but they are gone now or nearly so.”
“Goodness, you don’t mean the kind that I’ve seen in pictures with tusks that look so dangerous.”
“No, not wild boars. These were very small creatures, I’ve heard father say, but they were all gone when brother and I came to the desert to live. Now what is your third puzzle.”
“Why you named your pack horse Old Stoic.”
“All you have to do is to look at him and that mystery is solved. He hasn’t a spark of fire in his eye, he has never been known, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, to do anything but plod. I guess the colt in him vanished years ago.”
The girls all turned to look at the pack horse that was following them but it deigned not to return their notice. It did indeed seem to be stolid and stunned. Suddenly Virginia began to laugh. She was riding ahead by that time and the others pressed forward to hear the cause of her mirth.
“What’s the joke, Virg,” Betsy said, “Let us all in on it. Is it something about Old Stoic?”
Virginia nodded. “Yes, it is,” she said merrily. “I believe after all I have wronged the old horse. I recall now that brother modified his statement that nothing could stir an interest in Stoic. There was one thing he said that could.”
“What was it?” Betsy was always curious about everything. None of the girls had a brain more eagerly alert.
“A bear! Malcolm said that Old Stoic can smell a bear farther than any horse he ever rode and run faster to try to get away from it, but apart from that, he shows no sign of interest in life except in doing his duty as a pack animal and doing it well.”
Betsy looked anxiously toward the rugged Seven Peak Range which they were approaching. “I say, Virg,” she said, “there aren’t any bears in the mountains these days are there?”
Then the questioner sighed with relief when she heard the reply.
“No, dear, nary a one, or so few that one seldom if ever appears. I did hear Lucky say last winter that he saw bear tracks in the snow way up north in the higher, colder mountains, but I don’t believe they come down this way now-a-days. They did, though, when Lucky was a boy. His father was a trapper and exciting tales he can tell. We’ll get him to recount the most thrilling of them for us some night when we’re all sitting around the fire.”
The girls having ridden for several miles without stopping were glad, when Virg suggested that they stop awhile in the shade of a giant cactus. Dismounting, she ran back to Old Stoic who had stopped with the others and slipping her hand into one of the saddle bags she brought out four oranges. “I’m not robbing the Wallace family,” she smilingly told them, “for I put these in here just for our very own refreshment. I knew we’d all be hot and thirsty by the time we reached this half-way point.”
The girls were indeed glad to eat the sweet juicy fruit. Betsy, unused to the saddle was also pleased to have a chance to stretch her legs, and so, slipping from her mount, she threw herself down on the sand, warm even in the shade of the cactus, but she was on her feet again almost as quickly when she heard Babs laughingly caution her. “Look out for tarantulas and scorpions.”
“Too, you might be lying directly over the hole of a rattler,” Megsy added. But Virg protested. “Let the poor girl rest. There isn’t a poisonous creature in our immediate neighborhood, I’ll vouch for that.”
But Betsy would not lie down again. Pretending to want to make the acquaintance of the pack horse she walked back toward where he so patiently stood, half dozing. Patting him on the head she said, “Old Stoic, if there’s a rattler or a tarantula, a scorpion or anything else startling or unusual around, you let me know won’t you.” Then she cried triumphantly. “Look girls, he’s nodding his head. He is intelligent after all. He just assumes that dull uninterested expression for reasons of his own. Maybe he’s a detective. That’s just the way Dad does when he’s in a group where he expects to overhear something of great importance. He acts as though he were intently thinking of something far away.”
The listeners laughed. “Honestly Betsy, I doubt your theory in this case. I don’t believe Old Stoic thinks. He seems to just plod, but now if you’re all rested enough, we’ll up in the saddle and away.”
“Whizzle, but it’s hot, hotter, hottest!” Betsy exclaimed when they had ridden a mile farther on their way.
“Or, as the story books say, ‘The relentless tropical sun beat down upon the lone traveler and his beast of burden. Nowhere about him on the vast sandy waste could he see a sprig of vegetation that would suggest a life-saving oasis—’”
“Oh Babs, have a heart! I’d heaps rather have you spiel about ice cream sodas and cool things like that if it’s all the same to you.”
Virg smiled back over her shoulder. “Perhaps we ought to have waited for a cooler hour,” she said. “I forgot that you Eastern girls are not as used to our Arizona sun as I am, and, I’ll confess, it is rather warm, but there’s hope ahead, for in just a few moments we will have sighted the canon up which we will soon be riding.”
Betsy drew her sombrero farther down over her eyes, and then peered ahead through the air that was quivering with the heat.
The canon which they were nearing did not look inviting. There were no green growths that would have suggested a cool brook flowing down among them, only bare jagged rocks with here and there a scraggly mesquite bush growing in the cracks of rock where sand had gathered.
“Well, I don’t wonder the neighbors call the gentleman who chose that canon as his dwelling place ‘foolish,’” she remarked with a little disdainful grunt.
“Oh, but that isn’t his chief folly, or rather, not the one for which he is noted far and wide,” Virginia looked over her should to inform them.
“Why is he called Foolish Andy, Virg? I’ve often wondered,” Megsy inquired.
“It’s because he is an inventor. He is very well educated, and seems always to be inventing something which he is sure will bring his little family fame and fortune. Mrs. Wallace tells me that they were comfortably well off, once upon a time, but that all they could save had been squandered on one invention after another and they became poorer and poorer until now they can hardly keep alive, but nothing seems to quench Mr. Wallace’s faith in his inventive powers. I heard brother say that the instrument he is now trying to perfect, he believes will not only bring him the money he needs but be a great boon to mankind, or at least to that portion of it that chooses the desert places for a home.”
“What is the instrument, Virg?” Megsy inquired.
“It’s some very sensitive mechanism that is supposed to locate water and that is why Mr. Wallace choose the driest section of the desert in this neighborhood. He particularly likes Hog Canon, and his theory is that since it was, once upon a time, overrun with small hogs, there must then have been water. He believes, that the stream took to flowing underground as they so often do in Arizona and that his instrument will locate it. Then this land, which he has taken up, homesteaded I mean, will be invaluable. Brother says he is right about that, but the other ranchers have no faith whatever in his invention. At least it hasn’t succeeded. Mr. Slater is a very wealthy, progressive man and when the Wallaces first moved here, he took an interest in the instrument. When he was about to have a well dug for his new windmill, he sent for Mr. Wallace to help him locate a spot where he would be sure to find water. Fate was against the inventor, for the very spot where an excellent well has been dug, the instrument reported no water. That is why the poor man, who still clings to his faith in the invention is called ‘Foolish Andy’.”
“He ought to be put in an insane asylum,” was Betsy’s indignant verdict. “The very idea of his being permitted to bring such misfortune on the heads of his innocent wife and children. Why doesn’t she leave him?”
“For the simple or rather wonderful reason that she loves him and has faith in him,” Virginia replied, “but, unfortunately, if he ever does succeed, I fear it will be too late for his wife to share in whatever prosperity will follow. If they don’t find water very soon now, the little woman will have slipped away. Slim tells me that she seems to be holding to life by a thread. That will mean three more children left motherless in the world.”
Betsy flared. “I just hate that selfish man! I’m sorry we came! I know I won’t be able to speak civilly to him.” But Virg remarked, “You’ll be surprised to find how different he is from the man you have pictured. Now, here’s where we turn to enter the canon. Why, what is the matter with Old Stoic?” The girls whirled in their saddles to look at the pack horse. To their amazement they saw that it had stopped and was staring at the dark entrance of the canon ahead with a look of fear, ears thrown back and every muscle quivering.
“Oh, it must be a bear,” Betsy cried, when, with a shrill frightened whistle, Old Stoic turned tail toward the mountains, and, burdened though he was, raced across the trackless sand, but not toward home.