“Do you think old Stoic saw a bear?” Margaret asked as the girls, puzzled indeed, by the faithful creature’s strange and unexpected behavior sat in their saddles, two of them gazing anxiously into the dark entrance of the canon, while the third, Virg, watched the flight of their pack animal.
“Oh I can’t believe it possible that there is a bear about,” she said. “We are very near the Wallaces’ cabin now, that is, it’s not more than half a mile away and bears do not venture near settlements if they know it.”
“Maybe this one is a big grizzly and maybe he’s eaten the Wallace family all up and perhaps be coming now to—”
Megsy laughed at the wide-eyed Betsy. “To eat us, I suppose you are going to say. But honestly, dear child, if he has eaten five Wallaces and their burros, I don’t believe he’ll have much of an appetite for delicacies like us.”
Betsy turned rebuking eyes. “I don’t see how you can joke at a time like this when maybe something terrible is about to happen.”
Virg was relieved to see that the pack horse had come to a stand-still in the shade of a giant cactus about an eighth of a mile away. “Girls,” she suggested, “would you like to wait here until I go and get Old Stoic or—”
“What!” Betsy fairly screamed. “We stay here when any minute a bear or something is going to come right out of the canon? Nixie for mine. Where you go, there I’ll go too.”
The other girls could not keep from laughing which further increased the indignation of their youngest. “Laugh if you want to,” she said, “but didn’t Virg tell us herself that Old Stoic never showed sign of fear except when a bear was near?”
Their hostess agreed. “I’ll confess I did. That is what brother told me, but of course there must be something else that can frighten our faithful pack animal.” Then with sudden animation and pointing toward the mountains a little way beyond them, Virginia cried: “Look! girls, look!”
Every one gazed, expecting to see something very unusual, Betsy alone was convinced that it would be a huge grizzly.
“Why, that’s nothing but smoke.” Babs spoke regretfully. She had almost hoped that it would be a bear for she knew, what Betsy did not, that they were harmless unless cornered or attacked.
“Why Virginia, surely Old Stoic isn’t afraid of smoke, is he?” Margaret turned inquiringly toward her adopted sister.
“No indeed! Brother always takes that pack horse with him when he goes to the mine and they have camp fires every night.”
“What do you suppose this smoke means? A camp?” Barbara began when Betsy interrupted eagerly. “Oh Virg, maybe that’s where the gypsy caravan is stuck. Do you suppose it might be?”
Virginia shaded her eyes and gazed long at the jutting point of rock which hid from their sight whatever was beyond it. “It’s a fire of course,” she told them. “Shall we ride over and see who is camping there?”
“Oh yes, let’s!” Betsy was her old brave self again. She had no fear of gypsies nor of cattle rustlers she was sure, though she had never seen any of them except on the screen.
A short gallop took them to a point where they could see the fire. Virg, in the lead, uttered a cry of surprise, then turned and beckoned. “It is the gypsy caravan, or at least it is a covered wagon, like a prairie schooner of the olden days, I should say, but there seems to be no one around. Shall we go closer?”
“Of course!” This emphatically from Betsy. “Haven’t I been wild—crazy to find this very caravan, and you don’t suppose I’d leave without seeing the gypsies. Anyway, aren’t they in trouble? Don’t you remember the handwriting said ‘Stuck for keeps. No ranches in sight’.” So Virg laughingly led the way toward the apparently deserted covered wagon.
“We’re wrong about one thing,” the young mistress of V. M. remarked. “This is not the caravan that was stuck, for the wheels are quite free, at present, anyway.”
“I wonder where the gypsies are.” Betsy was dismounting as she spoke. “I’m going up to their front door and knock,” she informed the others. This she did pounding loudly on the wooden sides of the wagon. A low growl from within was the only answer but it was sufficient, as Betsy said afterwards, to make her hair stand on end. With a shrill cry she took to her heels and where she would have gone, it is hard to know, had she not suddenly been confronted by a girl of about sixteen who had leaped from between the flaps of the tent-like covering. Her expression was at first puzzled, then merry and apologetic.
Holding out her hand to Betsy, she exclaimed, “Oh, do forgive us for having given you such a dreadful scare when you came to call.” Then her sweeping glance, which held an inquiry, included them all. “You have come to call, haven’t you?”
Virginia had dismounted and the other two girls did likewise. “We did not really start out with that intention, we’ll have to confess,” she said, with her friendliest smile, “because you see we did not know of your existence.” Then, fearing that this was not quite truthful, she concluded. “That is, we did, and we didn’t.”
Noting the puzzled expression in the fine face of the girl she was addressing, Virginia told the whole story of the tale that the station master’s boy had told of the large caravan of thieving gypsies, and of their subsequent loss of cattle, their search for the caravan, the finding of the wagon trail and then the newspaper with its message.
“Oh, Brother Gordon must have written that. We were stuck for a day and a night but some prospectors, I think they were called, came along and dug us out. We’re on our way back to Douglas now, but we’ve stopped here to get water and fill our canteens. Oh good, here comes brother. He’s been up the canon where the prospectors told us we would find a rancher who had water in a cistern.”
A tall lad, too pale to be a real Westerner, appeared on a loping run from the canon beyond. “No luck, sister,” he had started to say when he saw the three strangers and their horses.
“We have guests,” the girl called happily. Then to the others: “You can’t guess how glad I am to see someone of my own age and I’m just wild to know who you are and where you came from. Can’t you stay and have supper with us? We have it very early and it’s now after three.”
The lad came up and snatching off his hat, he stood waiting for his sister’s invitation to be acknowledged, but not accepted, as Virg told them that their home was some distance and that her brother would be troubled if he returned from Silver Creek and found her not there. “But now since we have met so informally, let’s introduce ourselves,” she concluded. This was done and the four visitors found that instead of gypsies, the two were the son and daughter of a copper magnate whose name was very familiar to Virginia, since he it was who owned many of the mines and smelting founderies in Douglas and Bisbee.
“We are truly tenderfoots,” the girl, whose name was Annette Traylor, told them, “for our home is in New York City and we have never before been on the desert where our dad came from college to prospect so many years ago. He’s always telling us tales of his adventures and so this year, when brother broke down in his freshman year at Yale, dad said the best thing for us to do would be to visit his old haunts on the desert. He was coming West to inspect some mines and as he was to be busy for about two weeks, he put us in the care of an old man whom he had known years ago and told him to show us the sights.”
“Then you’re not alone?” Virginia looked about for a guide but saw no one.
Annette smiled. “Yes, we are, quite alone and unprotected. You see it happened in this wise. We hadn’t been gone more than a day from Douglas when Old Piute, as Dad called the guide who was part Indian and the rest French, got sick, and so we sent him back. He didn’t want to go, but we could easily see that he was too ill to travel, so we gave him the money Dad had promised him if he returned us safely to Douglas in two weeks. Then we gave him one of the burros in our train and he sadly rode away. We could see him shaking his old grizzled head until he was out of sight. Brother declared that a youth who was wise enough to go to Yale ought to be wise enough to drive a team of wiry horses over the desert. You see where we made the mistake was in not minding Old Piute. He told us to keep to the roads where autos travel, but brother thought there would be no adventures along a beaten way and so he turned out into the open desert and the third day we stuck.”
The lad laughed in a hearty boyish manner. “Well, I’m glad we did since we met one of the most interesting characters I ever knew outside of the ‘Dick Dead-eye’ books and, too, we acquired a bear.”
“A what?” Betsy’s eyes were big and round.
The lad nodded. “Yes indeed, a real bear. The old miner had had him since his cub-hood days and he’s as tame a pet as one could wish to see.”
Virginia laughed. “Which brings us back to the first part of our visit to you.” Then she told about Old Stoic and how he had evidently smelled the bear and had taken to his heels. Gordon Traylor was delighted. “Great Stuff,” he said inelegantly. Then added, “Miss Virginia, loan me your horse and I’ll bring back the truant member of your band.”
Virg shaded her eyes and remarked. “Good. He is still patiently waiting in the shade of distant cactus, and while you are gone, we’ll get better acquainted with your sister.”