are you yourself?” Marshmallow stammered. “Isn’t that Miss Bedelle there?”
“Yes, it is, and what of it?” the man replied. “Ben Corlies is up the road—I mean, down the canyon—looking for a girl who has been caught by the oil gang,” Marshmallow explained. “He told us to wait here for you, for Miss Bedelle, I mean, to tell her where he had gone. He said that Ch-Charlie had got away with his car.”
Miss Bedelle herself came forward at this juncture.
“I can’t make head nor tail out of what you are trying to say,” she said. “You may put down your hands. I think you are honest. Now, explain to me again.”
Marshmallow smiled in relief as he lowered his arms.
“My name is Marshall Mallow,” he said. “That is Miss Norris, over there. She and I and Doris Force and Dave Chamberlin, and my mother, came here in your airplane last week to stop some crooks who had stolen the deeds to all this land. This afternoon we spotted them drilling in a hollow a few miles from where we are now. Doris was creeping down close to them when her horse broke loose and we rode to get help, and now Dave and Ben are trying to rescue Doris.”
“Where did you say they was drillin’?” demanded Miss Bedelle’s companion, still keeping his revolver pointed at Marshmallow.
“If you go along this road a little way, you come to a gully that gets deeper and deeper, and then ends up on the side of a big, round hollow,” Kitty explained.
“I know where that is,” the man said.
“Danny, we started out to get Charles, but this looks like more important work,” Miss Bedelle said to the man. “Can’t you help rescue the girl?”
“If that oil feller is mixed up in it, I’ll pitch in just to get even with him,” Danny said, lowering his revolver. “He stampeded that herd of fillies it took us two weeks to round up and separate with his old blasting, he did. And when I told him what I thought of him, he threw a handful of dust in my hoss’s eyes, he did. I aim to get even with that hombre!”
“Please, Mister,” Marshmallow begged. “Don’t tell us about it. Help us find Doris.”
“We must hurry,” urged Kitty, “for Doris may have been captured.”
“A man my age ain’t got no right ridin’ around lookin’ for foolish young girls who ought to stay where they belong and not get mixed up with crooks who ruin good horse-flesh,” Danny retorted. “I aim to get even with that Moon feller, that’s all.”
“This will be a good way to get square with him,” Kitty suggested.
“Well, I’m the man who knows how to pay off a score if I do say it myself,” Danny bragged.
With that, he turned on his high-heeled boots and strode back to the car.
“Don’t you want to hobble your ponies and ride with us?” Miss Bedelle asked.
“Isn’t your car just a two-seater?” Marshmallow inquired.
“Oh, but it will squeeze in more than two,” the opera singer replied.
Investigation proved, however, that although Kitty could easily be accommodated, there was no chance for Marshmallow to win a seat.
“You go, Kitty, and I’ll ride along with your pony,” he suggested.
Kitty was loyal to Marshmallow, however, and said she would ride with him, although every muscle in her body ached because of the unusual exertion.
“I’ll see you later,” Miss Bedelle called, as she put the powerful car into gear and spurted away.
The two riders felt a new lonesomeness as the machine vanished around the next curve.
“For the first time in my life,” Marshmallow moaned, “I regret being a heavyweight. We could all be riding in that car if I were only half my size.
“Half your size, Marshall Mallow!” Kitty cried. “I wouldn’t look at anyone so little.”
“Well, that more than makes up for having to stick to horseback,” Marshmallow laughed. “Gee, Kitty, this would be perfect if it wasn’t for the mess we are in. It’s a grand evening, and you and I could ride all by ourselves.”
“That’s what we are doing as far as I can see,” Kitty retorted, but whether practically or mischievously Marshmallow could not determine.
To herself Kitty said: “I’m so sore and stiff I’ll never be able to sit down or walk or lie flat for the rest of my life. I’m going to be bowlegged forever from riding this horse!”
The two jogged along in silence for a while. “Look, there’s a red light,” Kitty cried suddenly. “It looks as if Miss Bedelle’s car has stopped.” The two applied spurs to their ponies and galloped forward.
CHAPTER XXIII
Doris’s Visitor
“Blasting powder!”
Doris cried the words aloud, and ground the flame of her little torch beneath her boots.
Again in utter darkness, the girl sank to the ground struggling to steady her trembling limbs. Hours seemed to drag by. Actually, scarcely five minutes passed, but to Doris, cut off from the world and unable to see her hand before her face, it seemed as if half the night had gone.
“It must be like this to be blind,” she thought. “Oh, how glad I am I have my eyesight. I never realized before what it meant to have all one’s faculties.”
To comfort herself, Doris began to sing.
Never before, perhaps, had the strains of “Annie Laurie” fallen upon such surroundings—a pitch-black cavern that was also a veritable arsenal of possible destruction, strange setting for the beautiful notes that poured from Doris’s young throat.
From the old Scottish song she turned to “Home, Sweet Home,” and then choked, surprised to find her cheeks wet with tears. “Big booby!” she reproached herself. “Why choose sad songs?”
She plunged into the quick-step of an up-to-date dance tune, but she had sung only a few bars, when a reverberating noise cut her off short.
Suddenly a gleam of light cut through the darkness, and Doris saw that the stone was being moved. She jumped to her feet and retreated as far into the cave as she could.
Was it Dave? Or one of the crooks?
The light—was it morning already? To Doris’s eyes, the twilight struggling into the cave was as bright to her unaccustomed eyes as the noon sun.
Fascinated, the girl watched the opening. A dangling, booted foot appeared all of a sudden, and then a man leaped lightly to the cave floor.
It was Henry Moon!
“Hello there, girlie!” he laughed. “I know you are in here. You needn’t hide.”
A searchlight whipped through the cave like a gleaming
