Help!”
“Marshmallow! Oh, Marshmallow, where are you? Are you hurt?”
Kitty scrambled down from her mount and ran back through the waist-high rabbit-brush and creosote bushes.
“Here, give me a hand,” Marshmallow’s voice sounded. “I’m not hurt—much, but—ouch!”
Kitty parted the tangled shrubbery, and saw her stout companion sprawled on his back, his round blue eyes staring up at her in misery.
“I got jolted off,” he said. “Knocked the breath out of me. But I’m on some kind of cactus and when I move a thousand new stickers get into my back.”
Kitty saw nothing amusing in her companion’s misery. She braced her toes against his, grasped Marshmallow’s wrists and tugged with all her might, but his weight was too much for her.
“Wait, I have it!” she exclaimed.
“Did you mean w-e-i-g-h-t or w-a-i-t?” Marshmallow called after her. There was no situation in the world serious enough to prevent Marshmallow from finding some humor in it sooner or later.
Kitty returned, leading the ponies. She uncoiled from Marshmallow’s mount the lasso which, as a matter of routine equipment, was tied to every saddle.
“Here, you hold onto the end, and I’ll pull the pony ahead,” Kitty directed. “That will jerk you up in one move.”
“Make it a gentle jerk,” Marshmallow warned.
“Come on, Kitty,” the stout youth urged, as soon as he was up. “We’re losing time. We must get help to Dave and Doris!”
Remounting, the pair sped on.
They reached the end of the gully and found themselves within a few rods of the back road whose forks led to the Crazy Bear and G Clef ranches.
“Now, which way is shortest?” Kitty asked.
“Right ahead, the way we are going,” Marshmallow answered. “Come along, Kitty! Step on it!”
The road, rough as it was in an automobile, presented easier going than did the open ground. Side by side now, the girl and the youth swept forward in a cloud of yellow dust.
“Hi—yip-yippee!”
The yell came from behind them.
“Stop! Stop!”
Bewildered and not a little frightened, the couple drew rein. To their ears came the thunder of hoofs.
“Doris and Dave?” Kitty exclaimed hopefully.
“That wasn’t Dave’s voice,” Marshmallow said. “Now it’s up to you, Kitty. Drive to the ranch! Kill your horse if you have to, and I’ll stand here and stall off whoever is after us.”
Before Kitty could make up her mind or complete her sentence the pursuit was upon them. It was but a single rider who galloped down.
“Why, if it ain’t the young folks from Saylor’s!”
The cowboy pulled the bandana dust-kerchief from his nose and mouth and stood revealed as Ben Corlies. And Ben Corlies’ car was in the hollow, next to Moon’s!
“What do you want?” Marshmallow asked curtly.
“Well, now, I didn’t mean to interrupt a twosome,” Ben grinned apologetically. “You-all raised such a dust I thought it was an auto.”
“Then you weren’t looking for us?” Marshmallow queried, doing his best to be haughty. “If not, we’ll just continue on our way.”
“Hey, now!” Ben was serious. “This ain’t no way for old friends to act. I ain’t spyin’ on you young folks. Land sakes, don’t freeze me like this. I didn’t know it was you.”
“Well, what did you stop us for?” Kitty asked wrathfully. “Come along, Marshall!”
“I was lookin’ for that good-for-wolf-bait Charlie Bedelle,” Ben said morosely. “I found him downtown last night, all right, and I drug him home and cooped him up. But he stole my car! Stole it and got away again, and Miss Bedelle gettin’ me to promise I’d keep an eye on him. How them two can be related beats me. A angel and a coyote, sister and brother!
“But you just excuse me and I’m beggin’ your pardon. I’ll keep on trailin’ the boy.”
“Wait a minute, Ben!” Marshmallow shouted.
“Ben, listen! We thought you had doublecrossed us. We saw your car. It’s parked next to Moon’s down in a hollow over there where there is some drilling going on. We thought of course you were with him. We didn’t know the car had been stolen. But listen, Doris is—”
“Back with those crooks, is he?” Ben hissed. “I’ll rope and tie that little—”
“Ben, listen. Doris and Dave are back there. We’re riding for help from the ranch!”
“I can clean up the whole bunch on foot and blindfolded!” Ben stormed. “Where are they?”
“Let me tell you,” Kitty begged. “Just wait a moment, Ben. There is a gully a couple of miles up the road that gets wider and deeper—”
“There’s a million like that,” Ben interrupted. “Sh—sh!” Kitty insisted. “The gully goes on for a long way and then ends in a sort of big bowl, and down in there the men are drilling. Doris’s horse bolted while she was creeping up toward the men. Dave said we must ride for help while he stood by Doris.”
“Better not go home. You’ll give Mrs. Mallow a nervous shock,” Ben said. “The Bedelle ranch is closer, and the fork to it is just a couple of hundred yards ahead. You go there and rouse the boys. I’ll go back—but how’ll I find the gully?” A new sound was noticed by all three at once, and drew their attention skyward.
Winging its way overhead, scarcely two hundred feet above the road, was Miss Bedelle’s airplane.
Ben waved his hat violently, and a flutter of white from the pilot’s cockpit showed that he had been seen by his employer. By violent gestures Ben tried to indicate he was in trouble.
“Neither of you looks a bit like her brother, so she’ll know it isn’t Charlie with me,” Ben said. “So when Miss Bedelle gets to the ranch and finds he is gone, she’ll jump in her car and come out here, see? So I tell you what. You, young lady, wait here or down at the fork, and when Miss Bedelle shows up—no, she may not come after all. You ride to the ranch and Mallow, here, can guide me to the gully.”
Before the plan could be put into execution the drumming of hoofs on the road sounded again, coming closer and closer.
“Here they come, now!” Kitty sighed in relief.
It was only a lone rider that galloped into sight, however, and that was Dave.
He reined his horse to its haunches.
“Ben’s
