CHAPTER VII--A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR
"You needn't be 'fraid of not findin' room at Lon Crujes' hotel,"drawled the station agent. "He don't often have more'n two visitors at atime there, and them's mostly travelin' salesmen. Only when somebody'sshippin' cattle. And there ain't no cattlemen here now."
"Well, that is some relief, at least," Helen said promptly. "Come on,Tommy! Lead the procession. Take Miss Cullam's bag, too. The rest of uswill carry our own."
"How can we get the trunks up to the hotel?" asked Ruth, beginning torealize that Tom, to whom she had left all the arrangements, was in a"pickle."
"Let's see what the hotel looks like first," returned Helen's twin,setting off along the dusty street.
A dog barked at the procession; but otherwise the inhabitants of Yuccashowed a disposition to remain incurious. It was not necessary to askthe way to Lon Crujes' hotel; it was the only building in town largeenough to be dignified by the name of "Yucca House."
A Mexican woman in a one-piece garment gathered about her waist by aman's belt from which an empty gun-sheath dangled, met the party on theporch of the house. She seemed surprised to see them.
"You ain't them folks that telegraphed Lon you was comin', are you?" sheasked. "Don't that beat all!"
"I telegraphed ahead for rooms--yes," Tom said.
"Well, the rooms is here all right--by goodness, yes!" she said, stillstaring. Such an array of feminine finery as the girls displayed hadprobably never dawned upon Mrs. Crujes' vision before. "Nobody ain't runoff with the rooms. We ain't never crowded none in this hotel, 'cept inbeef shippin' time."
"Well, how about meals?" Tom asked quietly.
"If Lon gets home with a side of beef he went for, we'll be all right,"the woman said. "You kin all come in, I reckon. But say! who was themgals here yesterday, then, if 'twasn't you."
"What girls?" asked Ruth, who remained with Tom to inquire.
"Have they gone away again?" demanded Tom.
"By goodness, yes! Two gals. One was tenderfoot all right; but 'totherknowed her way 'round, I sh'd say."
"Ann?" queried Ruth of Tom.
"Must have been. But the other--Say, Mrs. Crujes, tell us about them,will you, please?" he asked the Mexican woman.
"Why, this tenderfoot gal dropped off the trans-continental. Jest thetrain we expected you folks on. I s'pose you was the folks we expected?"
"That's right. We're the ones," said Tom, hastily. "Go on."
"The other lady, _she_ come later. She's Western all right."
"Ann is from Montana," Ruth said, deeply interested.
"So she said. I reckoned she never met up with the Eastern gal before,did she?"
"But who is the girl you speak of--the one from the East?" gasped Ruth.
"Huh! Don't you know her neither?"
"I'm not sure I couldn't guess," Ruth declared. Tom kept his lipstightly closed.
"They made friends, then," explained the woman. "The gal you say youknow, and the tenderfoot. And they went off together this morning withFlapjack----"
"Not with our guide?" cried Ruth. "Oh, Tom! what can it mean?"
"Got me," grunted the young fellow.
"Why! it is the most mysterious affair," Ruth repeated. "I can'tunderstand it."
"Leave it to me," said Tom, quickly. "You go in with the other girls andprimp."
"Primp, indeed!"
"I suppose you'll have to here, just the same as anywhere else," the boysaid, with a quick grin. "I'll look around and see what's happened. Ofcourse, that Flapjack person can't have gone far."
"And Ann wouldn't have run away from us, I'm sure," Ruth sent back overher shoulder as she entered the hotel.
Before the Mexican woman could waddle after Ruth, Tom hailed her again."Say!" he asked, "where can I find this Peters chap?"
"The Senor Flapjack?"
"Yes. Fine name, that," he added in an undertone.
"He it is who is famous at making the American flapjack--_si si!_" saidthe woman. "But he is gone I tell you. I know not where. Maybe Lon, hecan tell you when he come back with the beef--by goodness, yes!"
"But he lives here in town, doesn't he? Hasn't he a family?"
"Oh, sure! He's got Min."
"Who's Min? A Chinaman?"
"Chink? Can you beat it?" ejaculated the woman, grinning broadly. "Min'shis daughter. See that house down there with the front painted yellow?"
"Yes," admitted Tom, rather abashed.
"That's where Flapjack, he live. Sure! And Min can tell you where he'sgone and how long he'll be away."
The hotel proprietor's wife disappeared, bustling away to attend to thewants of this party of guests that was apt to swamp her entire menage.Tom hesitated about searching out the guide's daughter alone. "Min"promised embarrassing possibilities to his mind.
"Jiminy! we're up against it, I believe," he thought. "They'll all blameme, I suppose. I ought not to have gone to sleep night before last andmissed sending those last telegrams from Janesburg.
"Father will say I wasn't 'tending to business properly. I wonder whatI'd better do."
Ruth suddenly reappeared. She had merely gone inside to get rid of herbag and assure Miss Cullam that there were some matters she and Tom hadto attend to. Now she approached her chum's brother with a question thatexcited and startled him.
"What under the sun could have made her act so, do you suppose, Tom?"
"Huh? Who?" he gasped.
"That girl. She's gone off with our guide and all."
"Who do you mean? Jane Ann Hicks?"
"Goodness! I don't understand Ann's part in it, either. But she's notthe leading spirit, it is evident."
"Who do you mean, then?" Tom demanded.
"Edith Phelps. Of course it is she. She arrived here on thetrans-continental train on time. Tommy, she was in correspondence withsomebody here in Yucca. Helen and I saw the envelope. And it puzzled us.Her being on the train puzzled me more. And now----"
"Oh, Jiminy!" ejaculated Tom Cameron. "The mystery deepens. Rivalpicture company, maybe, Ruth. How about it?"
"I don't think it's _that_," said Ruth Fielding, reflectively. "I amsure Edie Phelps has no connection with movie people--no, indeed!"