come in here,” he said. “The ugly old derricks, the grease-fouled air and the get-rich-quick, fly-by-night sort of civilization that springs up.
“But I hear in town that an Eastern syndicate is trying to buy up all the available land here. So far no one living in these parts has sold. They don’t trust the company’s representative at all.”
Plum kept his eyes straight ahead as he talked, so as not to miss his direction.
Doris, sweeping the country, as far as her eyes could reach, suddenly drew rein.
“There’s a man on horseback up there!” she exclaimed, pointing to one of the flat-topped mesas.
“Where?” Plum asked, halting his horse.
“He—why, he’s gone!” Doris cried, shading her eyes.
CHAPTER XIII
A New Friend
“Are you sure it was a man and not a stray steer?” Plum asked.
“No, it was a man,” Doris said with conviction.
“Probably a cowboy rounding up strays,” Plum commented. “But it’s funny he should duck out of sight as if he didn’t want to be seen.”
The horses were spurred forward again.
“Tell us some more about the Easterners,” Doris suggested, riding up beside Plum. “I should think the people around here would be glad to have oil struck on their land. They would all be rich.”
“Most folks around here are far from poor,” Plum laughed. “The country may not look like much to you but it is some of the best stock-range in the West, and where it is irrigated it is very fertile.
“No, the old-timers around here are content. It is the people who haven’t their roots in the ground, the idlers and the politicians, who are helping the syndicate to locate here for their own selfish ends.”
Doris wondered if she should confide in Plum, but decided to be discreet.
“We rode over some of this country yesterday in a car,” she said. “We saw a lot of cattle with Miss Bedelle’s brand on and thought the property was hers.”
“It isn’t,” Plum said. “No one rightly knows who owns it, for there are no records to show at the court-house. By rights the property should have been sold for unpaid taxes long ago.”
Doris wondered if, after all, she was on the right track, for she distinctly remembered that canceled tax bills had been among the papers stolen from her Uncle Wardell.
Probably this was not the land belonging to Uncle John and the Misses Gates at all.
“Is there much unclaimed land like this around?” she asked.
“N-no,” frowned Plum. “There is one halfsection over at the other end of the county, and two or three scattered quarter sections.”
Doris was more puzzled than ever.
“We had an unpleasant meeting with a man in town,” she said, changing the subject. “Everyone has been so kind and considerate, but this chap ran into our car while we were parked in front of a store, and instead of apologizing he was very abusive.”
She described the man who had figured in the unpleasant encounter.
Plum whistled.
“That’s the oil man,” he said. “And incidentally, my employer for the moment. Henry Moon is his name. He’s usually pretty smooth and slick.”
So, all unknowing, they had already had a brush with the enemy, Doris thought to herself.
“Well,” she mused, “we know who Henry Moon is but he doesn’t know who we are. That’s an advantage for our side.”
At noon the job was half completed, and Plum pitched camp for the party on the shady side of a big butte. From the patient pack-mule he unloaded a bountiful lunch prepared by Mrs. Saylor, and while they ate the members of the party chatted.
“These hills are all ‘miocene’ formation,” Plum explained. “They are full of fossils of camels and giant ground sloths, horses with toes and other weird creatures. I’ve guided geological expeditions many times.”
“Camels! In America?” Kitty marveled.
“Yes, and elephants, too,” Plum said. “In early formations, laid bare where the waters have cut deep in the gullies, one sometimes finds remains of dinosaurs, real dragons.”
“I’m glad I’m in the present,” Marshmallow said, lovingly contemplating a chicken sandwich. “Suppose a scaly dinosaur poked his head over the top of the hill and took a bite out of this.”
“He’d find you a more luscious morsel than the sandwich,” scoffed Doris. “Look, there goes Miss Bedelle’s airplane!”
All looked aloft at the great metal bird which, flashing in the sun like molten silver, came roaring into view.
“Geewhillikers,” mourned Dave. “My hands itch to grab a joy-stick again!”
All waited for some signal from the plane, to signify that Pete had seen his erstwhile companions below, but none came.
“Well, that’s—hey!”
“Why Marshmallow, what’s the matter?” Kitty exclaimed.
“Matter! Matter enough,” howled the youth. “Our lunch is gone!”
Sure enough, the hamper had vanished from under their very noses.
Plum got to his feet.
“Such things don’t happen,” he said.
“Well, cut yourself a piece of cake, then,” Marshmallow retorted. “Help yourself to a banana.”
“Probably you conjured up the ghost of a dinosaur with your talk, and he ate the lunch,” Dave said solemnly.
“This is no joke,” Doris said, looking about her wildly.
“Yes, it is,” Dave laughed, reaching behind a big boulder and producing the missing hamper.
“You were all so busy looking at the plane I couldn’t resist throwing a scare into Marshmallow. A meal without dessert to him would be like pie without a crust or filling.”
“I’ll get even with you,” Marshmallow growled, looking into the hamper to see that nothing was unduly missing.
He was not one to bear a grudge, however, and Marshmallow’s indignation was drowned in the contents of a vacuum bottle of cold lemonade.
It was a tired but, at least for Doris, a wiser party that trooped into the ranch yard that evening. Dusty, saddle-sore and hungry, they taxed the water capacity of the Crazy Bear’s reservoir by demands for baths.
“I’d be happy if
