CHAPTER XXV A CRY FOR HELP
The three boys glanced toward the stairway as the girls descended. Dickadvanced to meet them, then introduced the tall, lithe young stranger asthe "hero of the hour."
Harry Hulbert's rather greenish-blue eyes had a humorous twinkle whichsoftened their keenness. He looked down at the girls with sincerepleasure in his rather thin face.
"This is great!" he exclaimed. "I've heard so much about you from yourfriends Patsy and Polly that I feel well acquainted with both Miss Mooreand Miss Bellman."
"Oh, don't 'Miss' us, _please_!" Dora begged. "It makes me feel old asthe hills."
"Then I won't until I'm far away," he replied gallantly. "I'm reallyawfully glad to be able to say Mary and Dora."
Harry's glance at the fairer, younger girl was undeniably admiring andDora thought, "I wonder if _he knows_ that Pat has given him to Mary.Poor Jerry, he looks sort of miserable." Aloud Dora exclaimed, "Dick, dolead us to the dining-room. I'm famished."
The cafe was in a low, adjoining building. There had been no pretense atbeautifying the place. It was plain and bare but clean and sun-flooded.
It was late and whoever may have breakfasted there had long since gone sothe young people had the place to themselves. They chose a table for sixthough there were but five of them. Harry was at one end with Mary at hisright. He had led her to that place without question. Dick escorted Dorato the opposite end and sat beside her. Jerry took the seat across fromMary, at Harry's left.
"He's a trump!" Dora thought as she noted how unselfishly Jerry playedthe gracious host.
Mrs. Goode took their order, and Washita silently, and, with what to Maryseemed like stealthy movements, served it.
While they were eating, the curious girls begged to hear all that hadhappened, but Dick said, "Why drag it out? Harry saw and we allconquered. Not a gun was fired, not a drop of blood was spilled. The bagsof ore were discovered and are now locked up in the cellar of the jail."
"Oh, Jerry," Mary exclaimed instinctively turning to her olderacquaintance, "how can you be sure that the bandits were _all_ captured?Couldn't one or two of them have been away scouting or something?"
"That we can't tell for sure, of course, but I reckon we got them all."Then turning to Dick, he added, "We'd better be getting back to _Bar N_soon as we can."
Mary, flushed and shining-eyed, leaned toward the young aviator. "You'regoing to fly over to Gleeson, aren't you, so that we may get reallyacquainted?"
"I'd like to, awfully well, but Jerry tells me that there isn't a safelanding anywhere for miles around."
"Aha," Dora thought, "Jerry scores there." But she was wrong, for thecowboy was saying generously, "I'm sure Deputy Sheriff Goode will loanyou a car. He has two little ones besides the town ambulance. I'd ask youto ride with us but my rattletrap will only hold four."
Jerry's suggestion was carried out. Deputy Sheriff Goode had a small carhe was glad to loan to Harry. The proprietor of the pool hall agreed towatch the "Seagull" and warn all curious boys to stay away from it.
"I won't be able to stay long," Harry told them. "I'll have to fly backto headquarters in Tucson this afternoon to report." Then, glancing atMary, invitation in his eyes, he asked, "Must I ride all alone in thisborrowed flivver?"
"Of course not! I'll ride with you if the others are willing. I mean,"Mary actually blushed in her confusion, "if you would like to have me."
For answer Harry took her arm and led her across to the small car whichstood waiting in front of the hotel. "We'll follow where you lead,Jerry," he called to the cowboy.
"Righto!"
Since Dora was already in the rumble, Dick climbed in beside her andJerry started his small car and turned toward the valley road. Dora saidnot one word but the glance her dark eyes gave her companion spokevolumes. His equally silent reply was understanding and eloquent.
Harry had a moment's difficulty in starting his borrowed car and they didnot overtake the others until they were out of the town and about to dipdown into the desert valley. Then, when Jerry's car was not far ahead,the young aviator slowed down and smiled at Mary in the friendliest way.
"So this is actually _you_," he said. His tone inferred that it was hardto believe. "Pat had a picture of you in a fluffy white dress. Thatphotographer was an artist all right. He caught the sunlight on your hairso that, to _me_, you looked, honestly, just like an angel from heavencome down. I thought the girl who had posed for _that_ picture must bethe earth's sweetest."
Wild roses could not have been pinker than Mary's cheeks. She protested,"You mustn't flatter me that way. I _might_ believe it."
"I rather hoped you _would_ believe it," the boy said earnestly, thenabruptly he changed the subject. "This is a great country, isn't it? Andto think that _you_ were born here. It's all so rough and rugged, it'shard to picture a frail flower--"
Mary laughingly interrupted. "You should see the exquisite blossoms thatgrow on a thorny cactus plant," she told him. Then, seeing that Jerry hadstopped his car and was waiting for them to come alongside, sheexclaimed, "I wonder what Big Brother wants. We're close to the sideroad, aren't we, where you turned last night when you went over to 'TheDragoons?'"
"I believe we are," Harry replied absently, then asked, "Why do you callJerry Newcomb 'Big Brother?'"
"Oh, because we were playmates years ago when we were small and I'vealways called his mother 'Aunt Mollie.' He takes good care of me justlike a real brother," she ended rather lamely.
Harry was bringing his small car to a standstill near the other. Heleaned close to Mary and said in a low voice, "I'm glad it's _only_brother."
Although the occupants of the other car could not hear the words, theyhad seen the almost affectionate way in which the words had been spoken.
Dora thought, "Aviators are evidently lightning workers."
Jerry's expression did not reveal his thoughts. He spoke to both Dick andHarry. "I did something last night, I reckon, I _never_ did before. Ilaid my six shooter down on a rock and in all the excitement I plumbforgot it. Would you mind if we went up this road a piece--"
"Oh, Jerry," Dora cried, "can't we go with you all the way and see whereyou found the bandits?" Then, as the cowboy hesitated, Dick said, "Ithink it would be perfectly _safe_ to go, don't you?"
"I reckon so." Jerry was about to start his car when Mary called, "JerryNewcomb, I never once thought to ask you or Dick if there were any _old_men among those bandits, I mean, any who _might_ have been the ones whoheld up the stage and kidnapped Little Bodil."
Jerry replied, "I reckon not. They were too young." Then he turned hiscar into the side road.
Harry, following, exclaimed, "What's all this about a kidnapping? Itsounds interesting."
Mary was glad to have something to talk about which could not possiblysuggest a compliment to her. She found it embarrassing to be so muchadmired by a boy who was almost a stranger to her. She told the storybriefly, but from the beginning, and Harry was an appreciative listener."That's a bang-up good mystery yarn!" he said. "I'd like mighty well tobe along when Jerry and Dick climb up into that rock house. Gruesome,isn't it, knowing that the old duffer buried himself alive? Clever,that's what he was, to make up a yarn about an Evil Eye Turquoise thatwould keep thieves all these years away from his gold."
The side road into the mountains was in worse condition than the one theyhad left, and so, for some moments, Harry was silent that he might giveall his attention to guiding the car over an especially dangerous spot.Then he turned and smiled at Mary. "And so _you_ had hoped that one ofthose bandits who were captured last night _might_ have been Bodil'skidnapper. That would hardly be possible. Such things don't happen inreal life and, also, as you say, the little girl may have been draggedaway to the lair of a mountain lion."
Mary's attention had been attracted by the car ahead. "Jerry's stoppingagain," she said.
Harry put on the brakes. The cowboy had leaped out and was coming ba
cktoward them. "I don't believe we'd better try to go any further alongthis road," he told them. "Harry, if you will stay with the girls, Dickand I will--"
"Hark, Big Brother, _what_ was that?" Mary held up a finger and listenedintently. On their left was a deep brush-tangled arroyo. They all hearddistinctly a low moan that seemed to form the word "Help."
The boys looked at each other puzzled and wondering. Jerry's hand slippedinstinctively to his holster and, finding it empty, he held out his handfor Dick's gun. Then he went cautiously to the rock-piled edge of thearroyo. Dora asked, "Does Jerry think it's one of the bandits, do yousuppose, who tried to get away and was hurt somehow?"
"Probably," Dick replied. He leaped out to the road and Harry joined him.They watched Jerry's every move, ready to go to him if he beckoned.Suddenly Mary screamed and Harry leaped back to her. They had heard thereport of a gun although Jerry had not fired.