The Phantom Town Mystery

  CHAPTER IV "DESPERATE DICK"

  Skipping to the vine-covered back porch, the two girls peered through thedeepening dusk at the approaching car. In it were two boys.

  "One of them resembles Jerry," Mary said, "but the other one is also acowboy, so it can't be Dick."

  "It is Dick!" Dora exclaimed gleefully. "Jerry must have loaned him somecowboy togs."

  "Oh, Happy Days!" Mary exulted. "Now we can ask Jerry about that Evil EyeTurquoise and all the rest of the story about poor Mr. Lucky Loon."

  "If there is any rest to it," Dora remarked. "Look!" she interruptedherself to point laughingly at the little car that was rattling towardthem. "Dick is waving his sombrero. He wants us to be sure and takenotice of it!"

  "Isn't he proud though?" Mary chuckled. "His face fairly shines."

  Then, as the small car drew up near the porch, the girls clapped theirhands gaily, and yet quietly, remembering that Mary's invalid fathermight be asleep.

  "Oh, Dick," Dora exclaimed, not trying to hide her admiration, "yourmother must see her to-be-physician son. You make a regular screen-starcowboy, doesn't he, Mary?"

  Before the other girl could reply, Dick, who had leaped to the ground,struck a ridiculous pose as he said in a deep, dramatic voice, "Dick, theDesperate Range Rider."

  Dora's infectious laugh rang out. "Your big, dark eyes look so solemnthrough those shell-rimmed glasses, Mr. Desperate Dick, that somehow youfail to strike terror into our hearts," she bantered.

  Then Mary smiled up at Jerry, who was standing near her. Half teasinglyshe asked, "To what do we owe the honor of this visit? When we partedthis afternoon, you called 'we'll see you tomorrow.'"

  Jerry glanced at the other boy, mischievous twinkles in his gray eyes."You might as well 'fess up, old man. Truth is, Dick couldn't wait untiltomorrow to let you girls admire him in his cowboy togs."

  "Villain!" Dick tried to glower at his betraying friend, but ended bybeaming upon him with a most friendly grin. "I suppose I _had_ to _rope_you and drag you over here quite against your will."

  Jerry's smile at the curly-headed little girl at his side revealed, morethan words, the real reason of his coming. What he said was, "Mom had aletter she wanted mailed and--er--as long as Dick wanted to show off, Ireckoned--"

  "Oh, Jerry," Mary caught his arm, "it really doesn't matter in the least_why_ you came. I was wild to see you--" then, when the tall cowboy beganto glow with pride, Mary quite spoiled her compliment by hurrying to add,"Oh, it wasn't _you_ that I wanted to see." Jerry pretended to be greatlycrestfallen, so she laughingly added, "Of course I'm _always_ glad to seeyou, Big Brother, but--"

  "Goodness!" Dora rushed to her friend's rescue. "You're getting alltangled up." Then to Jerry, "Mary and I are wild to know more about thatawfully desolate stone house you showed us this afternoon and about theEvil Eye Turquoise--"

  "Yes, and about poor Mr. Lucky Loon--" Mary put in.

  "Rather a contradictory description, isn't it?" Dick asked. "How can aman be poor and lucky all in one sentence?"

  "I'll tell you what." Jerry had a plan to suggest. "Let's go down to thestore and get old Silas Harvey to tell us all that he knows about LuckyLoon. I reckon he'd loosen up for you girls, but he never would for me.He knows more than any other living person about that rock house and themystery of Sven Pedersen's life--"

  "Oh, good!" Mary's animated face was lovely to look upon in thestarlight. Jerry's eyes would have told her so, had she read them aright,but her thoughts were not of herself.

  "Let's walk down," she suggested. "It's such a lovely night." Then sheadded, "Wait here while Dora and I go up to our room and put on oursweater coats."

  "You'll need them!" Dick commented. "Even in June these desert nights arenippy."

  The girls, hand in hand, fairly danced through the wide lower hall, butso softly that no sound could penetrate the closed door beyond whichMary's father slept.

  They did not need to light the kerosene lamp. The two long door-likewindows in Mary's room were letting in a flood of soft, silverystarlight. Dora found her flash and her jaunty green sweater coat. "Itlooks better with this cherry-colored dress than my pink one," shechattered, "and your yellow coat looks too sweet for anything with thatblue dress. Happy Days, but doesn't Jerry think you're too pretty to bereal? His eyes almost eat you up--"

  "Silly!" Mary retorted. "It's utterly impossible for Jerry and me to fallin love with each other. Goodness, didn't we play together when we werebabies?" Her tone seemed to imply that no more could possibly be saidupon the subject.

  "No one is so blind as he who will not see," Dora sing-songed her tritequotation, then, fearing that Mary would not like so much teasing, sheslipped a loving arm about her and gave her a little contrite hug. "I'llpromise to join the blind hereafter, if you think I'm seeing too much,Mary dear," she promised.

  "I think you're _imagining_ too much," was the laughing rejoinder. "Now,let's tiptoe downstairs, and oh, I must tap at the sitting-room door andtell nice Mrs. Farley where we are going."

  Just before Mary tapped, however, the door opened softly and Dickappeared, his mother closely following, her rather tired brown eyesadoring him. "Haven't I the nicest cowboy son?" she asked the girls,glancing from one to the other impartially.

  It was Dora who replied, "We think so, Mrs. Farley."

  "However," the mother leaned forward to kiss the boy's pale cheek, "I'llnot be entirely satisfied until you're as brown as Jerry."

  "Has Dick told you that we girls are going?--" Mary began.

  Mrs. Farley nodded pleasantly. "Down to the post office? Yes, I hopeyou'll find that ancient storekeeper in a garrulous mood. Good night!"

  Jerry was seated on the top step of the back porch waiting for them. Theycaught a dreamy far-away expression in his gray eyes. He was lookingacross the shimmering distance to the Chiricahua Mountains, and thinkingof the time when he would build, on his own five hundred acres, a homefor someone. He glanced up almost guiltily when Mary's finger tips gavehim a light caress on his sun-tanned cheek.

  "Brother Jerry," she teased, "are you star-dreaming?"

  He sprang to his feet. "I reckon I _was_ dreaming, sure enough, LittleSister," he confessed.

  Mary slipped her slim, white hand under his khaki-covered arm, and,smiling up at him with frank friendship, she said, "The road down thehill is so rough and hobbly, I'm going to hang on to you, may I?"

  Dora did not hear the cowboy's low spoken reply, for Dick was speaking toher, but to herself she thought, "Some day a miracle will be performedand she who is now blind will see, and great will be the revelation."Then, self-rebuking and aloud, "Oh, Dick, forgive me, what were yousaying? I reckon, as Jerry says, that I was thinking of something else."

  "Not very complimentary to your present companion." Dick pretended to bequite downcast about it. "I merely asked if I might aid you over theruts--"

  Dora laughed gleefully. "Dick," she said in a low voice, "I'm going totell you what I was thinking. I was wondering why Mary doesn't noticethat Jerry likes her extra-special." Dick's eyes were wide in thestarlight. "Does he? I hadn't noticed it."

  Dora laughed and changed the subject. "Oh, Dick, isn't this theshudderin'est, spookiest place there ever was?"

  They had passed the three small adobe huts that were occupied by Mexicanfamilies and were among the old crumbling houses, which, in the dimlight, looked more haunted than they had in the day.

  "I suppose that each one holds memories of sudden riches won, and many ofthem have secrets of tragedies,--_murders_ even, maybe." Dora shudderedand drew closer to Dick.

  "You _are_ imaginative tonight," he said, smiling at her startled,olive-tinted face. "It's quite a leap, though, from romance to gunfightsand--"

  Mary turned to call back to them, "Jerry and I have it all planned, justwhat we are to do. I'm to ask some innocent question and, Dora, you're tohelp me out, but we mustn't appear _too_ interested or too prying, Jerrysays, or for
some reason, quite unknown, old Mr. Harvey will put on theclam act. Shh! Here we are! Good, there's a light. Now Jerry is to speakhis piece first and I am to chime in. Then, Dora, you take your cue fromme."

  Dick whispered close to his companion's ear, "I evidently haven't aspeaking part in the tragedy or comedy about to be enacted."

  Dora giggled. "You can be scenery," she teased, recalling to Dick theforgotten fact that he was wearing a cowboy outfit for the first time andfeeling rather awkward in it.

  Jerry opened the door, a jangling bell rang; then he stepped aside andlet Mary enter first.