the little cavalcade had to cross the tracks and the crossing was beside the telegraph office.
“i wonder if he has caught aunt winnie’s train yet?” said dorothy, aloud.
“we’ll see about that, miss,” said lance, the cowboy, and he pulled in and shouted for the operator:
“hey, bill!”
the window opened and the frowsy head of the telegraph man appeared.
“ketch number seventy yet?” asked the cowboy.
“just. at massapeke. your folks has got your message by this time, ladies.”
“oh, thank you!” cried dorothy.
“a thousand times,” added tavia.
“come on,” said lance. “goo’night, bill!”
“goo’night!” responded the operator, and slammed down the window.
they rattled over the crossing and then the ponies set into an easy trot, led by the cowboy’s gaby.
dorothy dale and tavia travers had both learned to ride when they were much younger. indeed, tavia had learned to ride bareback upon the horses left out to pasture around dalton, in the days when she was a regular tomboy.
the action of these cow ponies was easy, and the girls enjoyed the strange ride during the first few miles, at least. they had ridden with divided skirts at home; therefore their present position in the saddle was not as strange to them as it might have been.
but there were fifty miles to travel when they left mrs. little’s. “it looks like an awfully big contract,” admitted tavia.
“yuh ain’t got tuh look at it all tuh once, miss,” said lance, good-naturedly. “yuh take it mile by mile, an’ it ain’t so far.”
“that’s so,” declared tavia. “i never thought of that.” then to dorothy she whispered. “isn’t he just splendid? and how sweetly he drawls his words?”
“now, tavia!” gasped dorothy. “if you don’t behave yourself——”
“why, i am!” cried tavia. “i think you are too particular for anything, doro. didn’t that large little lady tell us he was perfectly all right?”
dorothy was being jounced around too much just then to make reply. but she saw that tavia74 had recovered completely from her “scare” and was looking for mischief.
out on the open prairie the stars gave light enough for the girls to see lance better. the track was broader, too, and the trio continued on, side by side, the cowboy riding between the two girls.
lance was not a bad looking young man at all. dorothy began to realize, too, that he was nowhere near as old as she had at first supposed. his out of door life had given him that air of maturity.
so, it troubled dorothy when she saw that tavia was determined to “buzz” the cowboy.
“are you a really, truly cowboy?” the irrepressible asked, demurely.
“well, yuh might call me that, ma’am, though i wasn’t borned to it like some of these old-timers yuh’ll meet out yere.”
“then you are not a native of the west?”
“now you’ve said something, ma’am. i come from back east; but t’was quite some time ago—believe me!”
“you must have been very young when you came out here—to seek your fortune, i suppose?” pursued tavia.
“tuh git cl’ar of my old man’s strap,” chuckled lance. “he and i didn’t hitch wuth a cent. but he was a good old feller at that.”
75 “and you never went back?” asked dorothy, becoming interested herself.
“never got the time for it. yuh see, miss, it does seem as though a man never gets caught up with his work. that’s so!”
“i should think you’d be homesick—want to see your folks,” the insistent tavia said.
“jerusha juniper! my fam’bly was right glad to git shet of me, i reckon; all but my mother. but i reckon she’s too old to travel out yere, an’, as i say, it’s hard for a man like me to git time and money both together for a vacation. i ’low i’d like to see the ol’ lady right well,” he concluded.
scarcely had he spoken when a rattle of ponies’ hoofs behind them startled their own spirited mounts. the ponies tried to “break” and run, too, as they heard the rat-tat-tat of the hoofs approaching.
“whoa, thar, gaby!” commanded lance. “ain’t yuh got a bit o’ sense?” then to dorothy and tavia he shouted: “pull hard on them bits, ladies. they got mouths like sheet-iron—an’ that ain’t no dream!”
the girls pulled their ponies in, as instructed. as they did so two other ponies appeared beside them in the trail. the girls from the east could identify the riders as a man and a girl.
“jerusha juniper!” yelled lance, stopping76 gaby from bolting with some difficulty and swinging her across the path of the eastern girls’ mounts, so as to halt them. “jerusha juniper! what yuh tryin’ tuh do? comin’ cavortin’ along the trail this a-way?”
“is that you, lance?” asked the man.
“it shore is—an’ two ladies,” said the cow-puncher, proudly.
“don’t tell ’em we come this way, lance,” called a shriller voice, which dorothy knew must belong to the girl, as the couple passed and urged their ponies to a gallop.
“jerusha juniper! is it you, colt—and you, molly crater? i’ll be blessed! tell on yuh? reckon not—ef colt’s fin’lly got up his spunk tuh take yuh right from under the ol’ man’s nose, molly.”
“oh! what is it?” cried tavia.
lance began to laugh—and he laughed loudly, sagging from side to side in his saddle.
“’scuse me, ma’am!” he finally got breath to say. “but ef that ain’t th’ beatenes’!”
“maybe it is,” said tavia, with sarcasm. “but until you are a little more explicit, mr. lance, i don’t see how we can join in your hilarity.”
“ain’t it so?” drawled lance, still bubbling over with laughter.
“do be still, tavia!” exclaimed dorothy, admonishingly. “give mr. lance a chance to tell us.”
“and that i shore will do,” chuckled the cowboy, as they jogged on again. “i plumb believe the whole county will laugh to-morrer—that is, if colt carries it through.”
“carries what through?” demanded tavia, sharply.
“did yuh see that feller an’ gal?” began lance, in his slow drawl. “that thar is jim colt and peleg crater’s darter, molly. peleg’s a pizen critter as ever was; but molly’s jest as sweet an’ purty as a may mawnin’—an’ that’s goin’ some.
“wal, this here jim colt has been sparkin’ on molly for a dawg’s age—yes, ma’am! that pizen critter, peleg, done drove him off his farm—peleg’s a nestor—time an’ time ag’in. ain’t a single livin’ thing the matter with the boy; but peleg don’t wanter lose his housekeeper. works that molly gal like a reg’lar slave.
“wal! the last time, i hear, peleg chased colt with a shotgun, and purt’ nigh blowed the boy as full of holes as a colander.”
“how awful!” gasped dorothy.
“what larks!” was tavia’s comment.
“guess the smell o’ powder sort o’ put spunk intuh colt. he’s got th’ gal tuh-night and they’re racin’ for a parson.”
“to get married?” cried dorothy.
“an elopement?” was tavia’s delighted cry.
“shorest thing you know,” agreed lance.
“my! i’d like to see them married,” cried tavia.
“and is her father following them, do you suppose, mr. lance?” asked dorothy dale, anxiously.
“ef he knows they’ve started you kin bet he’s after ’em—hot foot! unless colt throwed an’ tied him fust,” added lance.
“mercy! is that somebody coming behind us now?” asked tavia, delighted at this entirely new source of interest.
but this was a false alarm. the three did ride faster, however, although lance warned the girls that the distance to killock was too far for them to hurry the ponies much.
“these yere cayuses air all tuh th’ good,” declared the cowboy. “but there ain’t no use in runnin’ their leetle legs off right now. somebody else may wanter use ’em after we git through.”
“but that eloping couple were tearing away as fast as they could go,” complained tavia.
“i ’low a shotgun in the rear will make a man ride fast,” chuckled lance.
“aren’t they going to the same town we are?” asked tavia.
“killock? no, ma’am! there’s parson hedwith79 at branch coulie—jerusha juniper! i bet they ain’t even goin’ thar,” ejaculated lance, with revived interest. “hop erlong, gaby! push on, ladies. ef yuh wanter see thet thar marriage, mebbe we kin make it, after all. i bet they air bound for bill whistler’s.”
“who is he?” asked tavia. “somebody like the blacksmith at gretna green?”
“never hearn tell of him, ma’am; an’ a blacksmith ain’t qualified tuh marry in this state. but bill whistler is. he’s just been made a justice of the peace.”
“a ‘squire’!” cried tavia. “so’s my father.”
“wal, then, ma’am; you know he kin marry as slick as airy parson,” said lance. “it’s for his house colt and molly air aimin’, i ’low.”
“oh, mr. lance!” cried dorothy dale, enthusiastic herself now, “is mr. whistler’s house on this road?”
“it shore is.”
“can’t we stop and see them married?”
“that’s what i was thinkin’ on,” declared the cowboy. “i was ’lowin’ to give the ponies a rest there, anyway. and we’ll need it ourselves.”
“let’s hurry!” cried tavia. “maybe we can catch up with that girl.”
the trio hastened forward. the girls were somewhat tired of riding, for they had already been in the saddle two hours, but this new topic of interest made them forget their weariness for the time.
a light suddenly flashed up on the prairie ahead. “that’s in bill’s winder,” declared lance. “colt and the gal have got thar.”
“oh, do let’s hurry!” cried tavia.
in their enthusiasm the girls urged on their little steeds. the ponies quite took the bits away from dorothy and tavia during the last half mile of the run, and they tore up to the low, slab-built house at a rattling pace.
there was some disturbance in the house, and the door opened but a crack. the window had already been shuttered.
“who’s thar?” demanded a falsetto voice.
“it’s lance, tell ’em, bill,” called out the cowboy. “hold back the ceremony a minute. these yere young ladies from the east wants ter stand up with molly, and if colt wants a best man, why, i reckon i kin fill the bill. that’ll make a grand, proper weddin’.”
“come in,” said the falsetto voice. “and bar the door behind yuh. i un’erstan’ this yere is a hasty job. they say peleg’s on the trail behind ’em.”
lance was already helping dorothy and tavia to dismount. they were as excited as they could be.
“it’s just as though we were being chased by indians, and this was a blockhouse,” whispered tavia to her chum.
the cowboy hustled the three ponies around to the shed back of the house. then he ran back and followed the girls into the open door, shutting it quickly and dropping the bar into place.
“shoot, bill!” exclaimed the cowboy. “we’re all ready, i reckon.”
the girls were amazed at the appearance of the justice of the peace. he was a huge man with bushy red whiskers which looked as though they would fill a half-bushel measure. and the tiny, shrill, falsetto voice that came from his mouth when he opened it, almost set tavia into hysterics.
“stand up yere—git in line,” said the justice, fishing out a book from behind a littered couch. “i’ll marry yuh as tight and fast as airy parson in the county.”
at the very moment he was beginning there came from without the thunder of advancing hoofs. everybody heard it. molly crater grabbed the bridegroom (who was a good-looking young fellow) by the arm, and sang out:
“it’s pap and the sheriff!”
the next moment the horses arrived, and there came a thunderous knock on the door of the slab house.
