CHAPTER II
HUNTING THE SURPRISE
With Virginia at the wheel, the seven passenger car kept on the well-beaten road that extended from the Silver Creek Junction to the V. M. Ranch.
Uncle Tex sat beside the girl whom he so loved and the three on the rear seat often sent smiling glances, one to another, as they noticed his pride in his “gal’s” skillful driving.
“Seems powerful pleasin’ to have yo-all back, Miss Virginia dearie,” the old man said as the car began the ascent of the mesa road.
The girl at the wheel flashed him a bright smile. “Oh, but it’s good to be home. I can hardly wait to reach the top of the trail.” Then glancing back over her shoulder, she called “Betsy, in just another moment you are to behold the nicest spot on earth, or, at least, it is to me.” Then chancing to recall something, she inquired “Uncle Tex, I’m just ever so curious to know what the surprise is that you have for me. May I have three guesses?”
She and Malcolm as children had always had three guesses whenever the old man had brought them a treasure from out on the range. Then, when they had guessed, they searched through his many pockets to find it. The weather-tanned face wrinkled in an amused smile. “I reckon ’twould take more’n three guesses, Miss Virginia, this time, I reckon ’twould, an’ even then, ’twon’t be found in my pocket nowise.”
“Oho, that’s a hint. It’s something big!” Then over her shoulder. “Girls, help guess. Megsy, you and Babs have lived with me at V. M., so you might perhaps, think what Uncle Tex has planned for my surprise.”
“Maybe it’s a new hen-corral,” Margaret suggested. “I remember one twilight last year when I went out to get the eggs, and found a coyote in the hen house, Uncle Tex said the very first thing he was going to do after we left was to build stronger fences.”
The pleased grin on the old man’s face was evident even to the girls on the back seat. “Ah was messin’ round fixin’ that fence long fore yo-all’s train hit the big city, I reckon, but that guess missed the heifer, so coil yer rope and throw again.”
Betsy chuckled. She was delighted with the old man, not only because he was such an interesting character but also because he was lovable.
“Hm’ let me see!” Babs pretended to think hard. “I recall now that Virginia wished she had a pond near the wind mill so that she might keep ducks.”
“Oh, but Uncle Tex wrote me that he had made a duck pond for me just as soon as spring rains were over, so that can’t be it.”
The old man’s head was shaking. “Yo-all ain’t teched it yet,” he was saying, when Virg uttered a little cry of joy. “Look ahead, Betsy, quick, if you want to get the very first glimpse of V. M.”
The little maid on the back seat stood up and peered between the two in front as the car reached the edge of the plateau nearest the ranch.
There in the valley was the big rambling low-built adobe house, beyond it were the bunk houses, the hen yard, the wrangling corral, the pens for the cattle that needed temporary sheltering, the small adobe house nearer the dry creek bottom in which lived the Mahoys, and towering above them all was the huge red windmill, the great wings of which were slowly turning in the gentle breeze that was blowing from the west.
There in the valley was the big rambling low-built adobe house.
While the little stranger’s glance roamed from one of these buildings to another, Virginia’s violet eyes were eagerly searching the trails leading to the ranch, hoping that on one of them she might see her brother returning from the mysterious errand about which Uncle Tex had hinted and the nature of which as yet she did not know. There was no one in sight. Not wishing her companions to know how truly anxious she was, Virg stopped the car and turned with a bright smile to exclaim: “Girls, welcome to my home.”
Betsy was charmed with the inside of the ranch house as she had been with the out. The great living room, with its wide fireplace on which a mesquite root burned slowly, suggested cosy evenings spent around it.
The long library table scattered over with books and magazines, the student lamp with its wide warm-colored shade, many comfortable arm chairs, a piano and its companioning music box, bear skin rugs on floor and wall, and pictures framed by the windows, of desert, sand hill and distant mountains, furnished the most home-like room that little Betsy had ever seen.
“I’m going to just love it here,” she said, then to tease, she merrily added, “if you can provide me with a mystery.”
Virginia laughed. “Girls,” she turned to the other two, “since we three are hostesses, and it is our aim to please, let’s make up a mystery, but there, I musn’t tell Betsy what it is to be. In fact I haven’t thought it out yet. But come, let’s take our bags to our rooms for Uncle Tex is waiting to show us the surprise.”
The two large, sun-flooded bedrooms were next each other with a door opening between.
Margaret and Virginia were to share the room which Virg had occupied since her childhood, while Babs and Betsy were to have the other for their very own.
“I can hardly wait until our trunks come,” Babs prattled. “I am just wild to see myself in my new cow-girl costume.”
“You looked at yourself times enough in the school mirror,” Megsy said to tease.
“Perhaps, but the setting wasn’t right. It will look quite different out here where the mesquite bushes grow,” Babs retorted.
“I came so unexpected like,” Betsy deplored. “I didn’t have time to buy me a khaki outfit, so what shall I do. I don’t want to look like a tenderfoot.”
“As though you could help it, whatever you wore!” Babs began, on mischief-bent, but Virg solaced. “I’ll loan you one of mine that I have outgrown. You won’t have to buy one just for the month that you are with us.” But the little maid declared eagerly, “Oh yes, I will, Virg, if there is a place to buy it. I’d love to wear it at my aunt’s summer home in the east and make the boys envious.”
Uncle Tex was seen coming slowly up from the garage, and Virg knew that he was eager to show them what he had planned as a surprise.
Catching Betsy and Babs by the hand and nodding a merry invitation to Margaret, Virg led the way out of the wide front doors, but, before she had gone many steps from the veranda, a big shaggy creature hurled itself at her from the trail leading from the cabin of the Mahoys.
“Goodness!” Betsy cried in alarm, “Is it a desert wolf or a coyote?” She needed no answer, for the creature, wagging itself for joy sprang upon its beloved mistress and uttered queer little yelps of delight.
“Shags is plumb nigh as pleased to see yo-all, Miss Virginia dearie, seems like, as yo’ old Uncle Tex was, though I reckon, he cain’t be, quite.”
A glance in the direction from which the dog had come revealed the Mahoy family awaiting in front of their small adobe house to share in the welcome, so, excusing herself, Virg ran down the trail, Shags at her heels barking his glee. Mrs. Mahoy had a new baby in her arms and Virginia beckoned the other girls to come and see it.
“Ain’t she nice though?” It was Patsy, now aged ten, who looked about at the group of girls who were eagerly peering into a flannel bundle to find the wee bit baby. Virginia glowed. “Uncle Tex,” she cried turning toward the old man who had ambled after them. “I do believe this little baby is the surprise that you said we would find on V. M. Ranch.”
“Wall, I reckon ’twas one of ’em,” he confessed, “but thar’s another, Miss Virginia, dearie. Spose yo-all scatter now and see who’ll be furst to find it.”
Then away the girls ran. Margaret led them to the hen-house, so eager was she to be sure that the fences were coyote-proof. They were indeed, for the wire fence extended so far underground that none of the desert creatures would take the time to burrow beneath it so near a residence of the enemy man. Too there was a roof of wire netting over the small yard, which protected the feathered brood from any of the vulturous birds of prey.
“That certainly is improvement number one,” Virginia cried in delight. “Many a time I have been heart-broken entirely because some of my little new chicks have been carried away by pirate birds.” They were leaving, when Megsy caught Virg’s arm as she squealed gleefully, “I do believe that I’ve discovered the surprise. Hark! Don’t you hear a faint peeping somewhere?”
Virginia listened and then, noting that their escort’s grin was broadening, if that were possible, she exclaimed, “Oh Uncle Tex, are there really some baby chicks? Where are they? Please show them to us?”
The chicken yard gate was opened and the old man led them to the sunny side of the hen house where, from between the bars of a barrel coop, the yellow head of an anxious mother protruded as she clucked a warning to fifteen balls of fluff that ran to her, tumbling on the way and piping their fright.
“Oh, the dear little things! Please let them stay a moment, Biddy Mother,” Margaret implored. “I want to hold just one.”
The one that was lifted ever so tenderly, begged so pitifully to be set free, that Megsy put it down close to the coop and smiled to watch it scud for the shelter of its mother’s wings.
“Lucky little puff-ball!” Betsy said with a note of sadness in her usually merry voice. “What wouldn’t I give to have a mother to run to.” Uncle Tex, who had remained outside, happened to call just then. “Better be hurryin’, Miss Virginia dearie. Pears like its mos’ lunch time as yo-all names it.”
Virginia glanced at her wrist watch. “True enough,” she exclaimed “and now that I am home, Uncle Tex, you are to have a long vacation from the kitchen. We girls will do all the cooking and brewing and mopping and scrubbing and—” but the old man, shaking his head, interrupted—
“Wall, I reckon yo-all won’t have time to do much playin’ if yer scheming that-a-way.”
All unconsciously Virginia sighed. How she did wish that the faithful Chinaman, who had been cook in her home since she was a baby, had not, the year before, decided to revisit the land of his birth. He had slipped away without giving notice, (although he had told them months before that he was going, sometime), and he had never returned.
As they crossed the descending trail that led to the towering red windmill, Virg glanced at the old man, and silently renewed her resolve to relieve him of much of the kitchen work, which had been his self-assumed task. They had tried Mexican cooks, Malcolm had written her, but Uncle Tex had fretted through the brief stay of each one, and had at last declared that he didn’t want any more “cholos” messin’ round Miss Virginia’s kitchen, “spatterin’ it up,” and that he’d take “keer” of it fer her himself, but Virg knew how, during those long months of faithful service, his big heart had yearned for the freedom of the range. “I’ll show him how much I appreciate what he has done to make the home pleasant for my brother while I was gone,” the girl had just decided when a cry from Betsy and Babs, who had skipped on ahead attracted her attention. They were standing near the windmill beckoning excitedly. “I do believe they have found the surprise,” Virg confided to Margaret, then she glanced inquiringly at the old man, but his beaming expression revealed nothing.
A moment later the something was revealed.
“Oh Uncle Tex, how pretty! Did you make that all alone and for me?” Virginia’s delight was indeed real and she was convinced, as were the other girls, that at last they had found the surprise about which Uncle Tex had written. Beyond the windmill and in the warm shelter of its wide walls stood a little garden house over which a blossoming vine was growing. Within was a table and four comfortable chairs that had been entirely made of yucca stalks and had been skillfully fashioned with infinite patience by the leathery, wrinkled hands of the old cattleman.
The garden house itself was made of yucca, the stalks being so long and strong that Virginia knew, to procure them, the old man had to visit a distant part of the desert where they grew.
Just below the door of this summer house was the pond of which Uncle Tex had written, and on it several ducks were lazily swimming.
“There’s water enough for a garden, Miss Virginia dearie, but Ah reckon’d as yo-all’d want to set out the sort of flowers yo’d like best.” Then, as Virginia had not spoken, he asked, almost wistfully. “Yo-all likes it, don’t yo’, Miss Virginia dearie?”
There were tears in the violet eyes that turned toward him. “Like it! Oh, Uncle Tex!” Her arms were about him and her soft young cheek was pressed close to his leathery one. “I was just hoping mother might know. She used so often to wish since there are no shade trees near that we might have a cool, sheltered out-of-doors place where we could take our books and sewing.”
Then, fearing that the tender-hearted old man would regret not having thought to make such a summer house in the long ago, she exclaimed merrily, “This very day at four, we will serve afternoon tea, and you, Uncle Tex, shall be the guest of honor.” Then, giving the again smiling old man a sudden bear hug, she whispered in his ear, “You dear, I’m going to think up the nicest kind of a surprise and spring it on you—some day.”
“When’s your birthday, Uncle Tex?” It was Margaret who asked. The old man looked truly startled. “Me? Why, Ah’s plumb forgot. Sorto seems like it comes in the summer, though.” He had removed his sombrero and was scratching one ear meditatively. He seemed actually to be trying to recall a forgotten date.
“I’ll tell you what,” Babs sang out, “let’s pick out a day before Betsy goes home and give Uncle Tex a surprise party.”
“It won’t be much of a surprise, since you are telling him about it,” Margaret began, but Barbara declared that it would be, since he wouldn’t know, until he received the invitation, which day had been chosen.
They were walking toward the house as they chatted. Virginia and the old man lingered back of the others. Margaret had made this possible, for she felt sure that her adopted sister was anxious about Malcolm’s prolonged absence, and, for that matter, she was herself, and surely she had a right to be, since she was his ward.
Virg had often glanced at the trails that led one of them toward the sand hills, another toward Seven Peak Range, and a third toward Puffed Snake Water Hole, but on none of them did horsemen appear.
“Uncle Tex,” she said softly as she slipped a detaining arm in that of her companion, “can’t you tell me why Malcolm is away at this time? It must be something of a very serious nature to keep him from home when he knew that I would be arriving this week.”
There was a shade of anxiety on the face of the old man. “’Tis, Miss Virginia dearie. Leastwise, Ah reckon ’tis. It all happened hurried like. Lucky came ridin’ in ’long ’bout sundown two nights ago. ‘Ah’ve hit the trail sure sartin,’ was all Ah heard him say. Then Malcolm buckled on his gun belt. ‘Keep it dark which way we ride,’ he says to me, then they was gone. Ah was plumb puzzled and Ah sure am still, but on certain thought Malcolm’d be comin’ back by now or sendin’ word, knowin’ as yo-all was ’spected.”
“Well, I’ll not worry,” the girl said wisely. “Malcolm never runs into trouble needlessly.” Then, as they had overtaken the others, Virginia called as gaily as she could, that her guests need not know of her anxiety. “Who wants to be helper in the kitchen this noon? I’m going thither to be chief cook.”
“Oh, can’t we all help?” Margaret hurried to inquire. Then she nudged Virg and nodded toward the old man who (trying to keep behind them) was making frantic motions towards a kitchen window. When Virginia turned, he attempted to assume such an innocent expression that the girls were even more puzzled.
Virg pretending not to have seen his gestures, caught his hardened hand as she leaped up on the veranda, calling, “Uncle Tex, you come too, and be my advisor. It’s so long since I have cooked, maybe I have forgotten how.”
Virginia felt sure that another of the old man’s surprises awaited her in the kitchen, nor was she wrong.