The Phantom Town Mystery

  CHAPTER XIX A GUN SHOT

  Early that afternoon Jerry and Dick drove the small car around to theside door of the ranch house and hallooed for the girls, who appeared,one on either side of a beaming Aunt Mollie.

  "We've had a wonderful time, you dear." Mary kissed the older woman'stanned cheek lovingly.

  "Spiffy-fine!" Dora's dark glowing eyes seconded the enthusiasm of theremark. "Please ask us again."

  "Any time, no one _could_ be more welcome, and make it soon." After thegirls had run down to the car, Mrs. Newcomb turned back into the kitchenwhere she was keeping Mr. Newcomb's mid-day meal warm as he had not yetreturned from riding the range.

  The boys leaped out and Jerry opened the front door with a flourish. Heglanced at Mary suspiciously. "You girls look as though you were plottingmischief."

  "Not that," Mary denied. "We've just been composing Verse Eight for ourCowboy Song. You know they have to be forty verses long. Ready, Dora?"

  Then together they laughingly sang--

  "Two jolly girls and cowboys twain Start out adventuring once again. Come, come, coma, Coma, coma, kee. Come, come, coma, Come with we."

  "Not so hot!" Dick commented. "Wait till I've had time to cook up one.Jerry, we'll do Verse Nine after awhile."

  "Drive fast enough to cool us, won't you, Jerry, for it surely _is_torrid today," Dora urged as she sprang nimbly into the rumble followedby Dick. "You two have your heads sheltered but we poor exposed pussonsare likely to have frizzled brains."

  Dick, sinking down as comfortably as possible in the rather crampedquarters, grinned at his companion affably. "Luckily for us Jerry didn'thear that or he would have sprung that old one, 'what makes you think youhave any?'"

  Dora turned toward him rather blankly. "Any what?" she questioned, thenadded quickly, "Oh, of course, brains. I was wondering what those cows,that are watching us so intently, think that we are."

  "Some four-headed, square-bodied fierce animal that rattles all its boneswhen it runs, I suspect, and if they could hear Jerry's horn, they'd taketo the high timber up around the Dooleys' clearing."

  Suddenly Dora became serious. "Dick," she said, "isn't that Etta astrange, interesting girl? Would you call her beautiful?"

  "I wouldn't call her at all," Dick said sententiously; "I'm quitesatisfied with my present companion."

  Ignoring his facetiousness, Dora continued, "Etta told us that her fatherlost a fortune four years ago. He evidently had inherited it. He couldn'thave made it himself, because, when it was lost, he was simply helpless.He didn't know how to work and earn more. That implies that he belongedto a rich family, doesn't it?"

  "Possibly. In fact probably," Dick agreed, looking with mock solemnitythrough his shell-rimmed glasses at the interested, olive-tinted face ofhis companion. "Is all this leading somewhere? Do you think that there_may_ be rich relatives who ought to be notified of the Dooleys' plight?"

  Dora laughed as she acknowledged that she hadn't thought that far."Aren't you afraid we'll get sort of mixed up if we try to solve twomysteries at once?" Dick continued. "You know we're already hot on thetrail of a clue that will unravel the Lucky Loon--Little Bodil mystery."

  Dora turned brightly toward him. "Dick Farley," she announced, as one whohad made an important discovery, "here _is_ something! Little Bodil isdescribed as having had deep blue eyes and cornsilk yellow hair."

  "Sure thing, what of it? Etta's hair is dark brown."

  "I'm talking about that Baby Bess, silly!" Dora told him. "Surely younoticed that she had--"

  "Hair and eyes? Sure thing!" Dick finished her sentence jokingly, "but,according to my rather limited observation of the infant terrible, itusually starts life with blue eyes and yellow hair. Now are you going totell me that this baby and Little Bodil have another similarity?"

  Dora had turned and was looking out over the desert valley, which, forthe past half hour, they had been crossing. Dick thought she was offendedby his good-natured raillery, but, if she had been, she thought better ofit and replied, "I had not noticed any other similarity."

  "Well, neither had I," Dick, wishing to mollify her, confessed, "exceptthat both of their names start with B."

  The small car had turned on the cross road which led toward Gleeson. Asthey neared the high cliff-like gate which was the entrance to thebox-shaped sandy front yard of Mr. Pedergen's rock house and tomb, Dickleaned forward and called, "Hi there, Jerry! Dora suggests that we stopand visit Lucky Loon's estate. We aren't in any particular hurry, arewe?"

  The rattling of the car was stilled as Jerry drew to one side of the roadand stopped. He got out and glanced up at the sun. It still was high in agleaming blue sky. "It's hours yet before milking time," he replied. Thento Mary, "What is _your_ wish, Little Sister?"

  Dora thought, "_Never_ a brother in all this world puts so muchtenderness into _that_ name. Leastwise _mine_ don't!"

  Mary had evidently replied that she would like to revisit the rock house,for Jerry was assisting her from the car. Dick had learned from pastexperience that Dora scorned assistance. Two girls could _not_ be moreunlike.

  Before they entered the rock gate, Dick implored with pretendedearnestness, "For Pete's sake, don't any of you imagine you hear a gunshot, will you?"

  "Not unless we really _do_ hear one," Mary said.

  Dora, to be impish, declared, "I'm prophesying that we _will_ hear a gunfired before we leave this enclosure."

  The sand was deep and the walking was hard. Jerry, with a hand underMary's right elbow, helped her along, but Dora ploughed alone, with Dick,making no better headway, at her side.

  "When we first visited this place," Dora began, "I felt that there wassort of a deathlike atmosphere about it. It's so terribly still and withbleached skeletons lying around. Now that I _know_ it is Lucky Loon'stomb," she glanced up at the rock house and shuddered, "it seems moreuncanny than ever."

  Dick, having left the others, wandered along the base of the cliff onwhich stood the rock house. The front of it had broken away leaving awide gap at the top.

  "Here's where Lucky Loon went up, I suppose." Dick pointed to irregularsteps that seemed to have been hewn out of the leaning rock. "We _could_go up these stairs to the top of this rock, but nothing short of amountain goat could leap that chasm."

  "I reckon you're right," Jerry agreed.

  Dick was regarding the gap speculatively. "If a fellow could throw a ropefrom the top of this leaning rock over to the house and make it securesomehow--"

  Dora teasingly interrupted, "I didn't know, Doctor Dick, that _you_ couldwalk a tight rope."

  "Oh sure, I can do anything I set out to!" was the joking reply."However, I meant to walk across it with my hands."

  "It can't be done." The cowboy shook his head.

  "Anyhow," Dick declared, "you all wait here while I see how far up theseold stairs I can climb. From the top I can better estimate how big a goatwill be required to carry me over."

  "Dick," Mary laughed, "I never knew you to be so nonsensical."

  Dora tried to detain him, saying, "If you succeed in climbing up to thetop of this leaning rock, you _might_ be directly opposite the open doorof the rock house."

  "Well, what of it!" Dick was puzzled, for Dora's expression was seriousand almost fearful.

  "That Evil Eye Turquoise _might_ look right out at you!"

  "Surely _you_ don't believe _that_ yarn!" Dick smiled down at her fromthe first step, for he had started to climb. He reached up to catch at ahigher step with one hand when he uttered a terrorized scream and fairlydropped back to the ground, his arm held out. Clinging to his coatsleeve, perilously close to his wrist, was a huge lizard, a Gila Monster,thick-bodied, hideously mottled, dull-yellow, orange-red, dead-black. Ithad a blunt head and short legs that were clawing the air. The girlsechoed Dick's scream. Jerry, leaping forward, gave a warning cry. "_Don'tdrop your arm!_" Then the quick command, "_Girls, get back of
me!_"Whipping out his gun, he fired. The ugly reptile dropped to the sand, itsmuscles convulsing.

  Dora ran to Dick and pulled back his sleeve. "Thank heavens," she cried,"he didn't touch your wrist."

  "I reckon you've had a narrow escape all right, old man," Jerry declared,his tone one of great relief. Then, self-rebukingly, "I ought to havewarned you. _Never_ put your feet or your hands _anywhere_ that you can'tsee."

  "Do you suppose there's any poison in my coat sleeve?" Dick askedanxiously.

  "No, I reckon not," the cowboy said. "A Gila Monster packs his poison inhis lower jaw and he has to turn over on his back before he can get itinto a wound he makes." Then, glancing at Mary and seeing that she stilllooked white and was trembling, he exclaimed, "Come, let's go. I reckonit's too hot in here at this hour."

  Dora, hardly knowing that she did so, clung to Dick's arm as they wadedthrough the sand to the gate.

  "Oh, how I do hope we'll never, _never_ have to come to this awful placeagain," Mary said. "To think that Dick might have lost his life here."

  "Well, I didn't!" Dick replied. Then, with an effort at levity, he added,"Dora, _you won_! We _did_ hear a gun shot."