“You have a charming voice,” Miss Bedelle remarked. “Pardon me for being so personal, but I am a singer and I notice such things.”
“I hope some day to be a singer,” Doris replied. “Hope!” Kitty exclaimed loyally. “She is a wonderful singer already, Miss Bedelle. She has sung in concerts, and takes lessons all the time.”
“Then you must sing for me,” Miss Bedelle insisted. “And I shall sing with you. How will that be for a pleasant evening, to make up for the awful one you had tonight?”
“It will make up for everything,” Doris breathed. “And for lots more that didn’t happen.”
“Then suppose we agree that you come to G Clef ranch tomorrow for dinner, all of you,” the singer suggested. “We shall sing and talk over many things. You are such brave and understanding people I wish to discuss something with you that lies very close to my heart. My brother, my poor brother,” she added in a low voice. “But here we are! I can’t stop for a minute. I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
As soon as the girls had dismounted in front of the ranch door she whirled her car about and drove off over the road by which she had come.
The door burst open, and Mrs. Mallow ran out.
“Doris? Kitty?” she cried. “Where are the others?”
“The boys are coming along behind,” Doris said. “We drove in with Miss Bedelle—and oh, Mrs. Mallow, I have so much to tell you!”
“I have something to tell you, too,” Mrs. Mallow said, as she ushered the girls through the door. “There is your uncle, Mr. Trent.”
“Uncle John!” Doris cried, as the elderly man, his appearance in no way suggesting the hermit of Cloudy Cove, rose to greet her.
Mrs. Saylor entered the room to announce dinner, but remained to listen breathlessly as Doris and Kitty told the story of the afternoon’s adventures.
Dave and Marshmallow arrived before the conclusion of the recital, and added their contributions to it.
Mrs. Mallow and Uncle John were speechless.
They could only look at each other and shake their heads as the story unfolded.
“So now Moon is roped and tied,” Marshmallow concluded gleefully.
“Moon said his two accomplices were waiting for him at the well, I remember,” Doris said. “Were they there when you came to the cave, Dave?”
“If they were they must have sneaked off when we arrived,” Dave said. “I think the town authorities ought to be warned at once.”
“I’ve done so little in this round-up I’ll drive down right now and spread the alarm,” Marshmallow announced.
“But the car is still in the village,” Dave reminded him.
“Take ours,” Mrs. Saylor suggested.
“I’ll go along,” Uncle John said.
The three men darted out of the room, but the girls were content to let them close the drama unassisted.
A soothing bath and change into more feminine garb than the dusty riding habits made as wonderful a difference in Kitty’s and Doris’s feelings as in their looks.
An hour later the car returned with Dave, Marshmallow, Uncle John and Mr. Saylor, who had accompanied them, to direct them to the right authorities in the little town.
“Success!” shouted Uncle John, as he jumped from the car with a nimbleness belying his years.
“Dave and Marshmallow stood guard at the hotel and Mr. Saylor and I routed out the sheriff and his men,” John Trent told the three listeners. “The man they call ‘Wolf,’ who has the scarred nose, and Tracey, the other one, were in the hotel room, but now they are in a less comfortable room in the town jail. I swore out a warrant charging trespass, assault and battery and everything else I could think of,” he chuckled.
“Tomorrow we’ll appear against Moon,” Dave added.
“If I have finished with supper by then,” Marshmallow laughed.
The next morning, after a telephone conversation with G Clef Ranch, Doris and her friends appeared at the court-house and testified against Moon and his two accomplices. The drillers they had employed, catching some rumors of their chief’s disgrace, had swiftly left town, but as there was no charge to be brought against them it made no difference.
“If you want to press all those complaints against these men you’ll have to stay in Raven Rock until the grand jury meets,” the judge told Doris and her uncle. “Suppose instead that I just sentence them each to a year in prison at hard labor, and when you get back to your own state you can press the charges of assault and robbery against them there.
“Then,” he concluded, “the governor of your state can have them extradited, which means brought there to stand trial, and I have no doubt that in the meantime their fingerprints will prove that many another state is looking for the three of them.”
It was with considerable satisfaction that Doris and her companions saw the three crooks, handcuffed.
“I’ll get even yet,” Moon hissed at her out of the corner of his mouth as he was led away.
“Now, then,” Doris said, “we’ll have to pay one more visit to the cave in the hollow.”
“Didn’t you see enough of that place?” Dave demanded.
Doris shook her head.
“The precious papers, the deeds and tax receipts for the property, are under a box in the cave where I hid them,” she said. “I’m ashamed to say I was so happy at being rescued I forgot to bring them away with me.”
It was a crowded day. The documents were found and Uncle John busied himself at the courthouse, having his deeds and those of the Misses Gates recorded. The officials admitted that the tax receipts were genuine, revealing that the tax collector who had held the position of trust for a generation had fled to Mexico a few months before with a fortune he had accumulated by diverting taxes to his own pocket.
Busy as the day had been, nobody was too weary not to look forward to the evening at Miss Bedelle’s ranch.
They found the singer’s home to be a magnificent reproduction of an old Spanish-American hacienda, its rooms furnished with priceless antiques and old Indian rugs. It was a museum, in which the exhibits were in daily and intimate use.
Dinner was in Spanish style. Enchilada and tacos, tortillas and chile con carne, dishes familiar and unfamiliar, desert fruits and cactus candy loaded the table spread in the grassy patio where a fountain made silvery music. As a drink there was served delicious iced cocoa in carved calabash gourds with silver mountings, cocoa as the ancient Aztec kings loved it, beaten to a sparkling froth by a “swizzle stick” whirled between the palms of the Mexican servants. Pete Speary, the aviator, was of course among those present.
“Now we will chat a while before we have some music,” Miss Bedelle said, leading the way into
