dorothy realized her peril as the fence crashed. she saw the mad bronchos boil out of the opening like water bursting through a dam, but she could not escape.
she found her limbs powerless, and would have sunk to the ground when she attempted to move, had not lance leaped forward and swept her into the crook of his left arm. his yell—and the throwing of his wide-brimmed hat into the faces of the charging beasts—did not turn them, but the cowpuncher never for an instant lost his presence of mind.
with dorothy he leaped to the far side of the buckboard, after having flung his hat. one heave of his shoulder sent the lightly built wagon over upon its side. against this frail barrier the maddened horses came—but not so recklessly as they had charged the fence.
they were spreading out, too, and thus thinned, the mob was not likely to do much damage. only one horse came over the overturned buckboard. he smashed several spokes of two wheels, and knocked the back seat awry.
the peril to the girl was over in half a minute, but the trouble for the ranch hands lasted all night and the next day. they were until the next evening collecting all the ponies again.
lance petterby helped them, for he considered that his mother’s pet hen was one cause of the stampede. “though, if thet thar miser’ble little houn’ dawg had kep’ his nose out o’ thet thar basket, thar wouldn’t have been no combobberation,” drawled lance. “that’s as sure as kin be.”
they made much of lance at the ranch-house the evening of the stampede, for the adventure lost nothing in dorothy’s telling. tavia undertook to “play tricks with her eyes,” as dorothy accused, and was taken firmly to task for it by her chum.
“now, tavia, you are not going to act like a grown-up society girl with lance petterby. i won’t have it,” dorothy said. “he’s a fine fellow, and you shan’t try to make him look silly. he helped us, that time we were left behind, to follow aunt winnie and the boys, and now he’s actually saved my life.”
“it wouldn’t be my luck, of course, to be snatched from beneath the hoofs of a whole pack of wild horses,” pouted tavia.
“if you think it was fun, miss——”
“well! it was dreadfully romantic,” declared tavia, using her well-worn expression. “you don’t half appreciate your adventure.”
“adventure! and have your heart almost jump out of your mouth?”
“but that’s only for the moment,” sighed tavia. “you’re all right now.”
“i thank heaven i escaped death,” dorothy said, reverently. “and you let lance alone.”
but lance petterby had already had his attention strongly drawn to tavia travers, and even had she so wished, she could not have easily avoided him while he remained at the ranch.
lance stayed for only two nights. then he had to return to duty, but his mother remained. ophelia was not easily caught after her last escapade. she had joined mrs. ledger’s half-wild flock of fowl, and thus far nobody had been able to catch the little hen from rand’s falls, massachusetts.
when hank and his wife had a chicken for dinner, mrs. ledger took the shotgun and got near enough to the flock to blow the head off of the chicken she selected.
so, as mrs. petterby could not think of being parted from ophelia for any length of time, she agreed to remain at the hardin ranch. the lively old lady was some company for aunt winnie, so175 dorothy and tavia decided to roam a little after lance went away.
there was no hope of the girls getting ned and nat for companions these days. they were both in the saddle from morning till night. they had helped run down the wild ponies that had stampeded.
hank declared the boys were wearing out all the cow ponies, they rode so hard. but there were a couple of more or less quiet mounts for the girls’ use, and flores was always about to help dorothy and tavia catch and saddle them. flores could handle horses like any man, could throw the lariat, and otherwise displayed achievements natural to a girl in the west, but strange to those from the east.
“there!” complained tavia, as she and her chum rode away from the corral. “you never finished telling me about that girl and the handsome stage driver, doro. aren’t they planning to run away and get married?”
“i don’t think so,” said dorothy, with a little smile.
“but you don’t know for sure?” said the eager tavia.
“i’m pretty sure,” admitted her chum gravely. “not unless each is going to elope with another party.”
“why, have they quarreled?”
“i don’t think so.”
“doro doodlebugs! you tell me at once. you’re every bit as mysterious as a baker’s mincepie.”
“but what do you want me to tell you?” asked dorothy.
“aren’t flores and josé sweethearts?”
“certainly not!”
“why not?”
“because they happen to be brother and sister!” cried dorothy, with a burst of laughter. for once one of tavia’s romances was punctured!
the girls had started for the hills, but they followed a trail which led them farther north than the path they had followed under hank ledger’s guidance.
“perhaps we shall find the source of lost river,” dorothy said.
they had taken nobody into their confidence upon setting out, nor did anybody at the ranch-house see them go save flores morale. in ten minutes after the girls started they were completely out of sight of the home buildings, the country was so rolling.
the ponies were good travelers. long before noon dorothy and tavia were deep in the wooded hills.
“i’d love to go to the top of that mountain,tavia,” said dorothy, pointing to a green hill that rose right before them.
“let’s!” cried tavia. “from that height we ought to be able to see far—miles and miles!”
“do you suppose we can get there and back by suppertime?”
“why not?” returned the cheerfully reckless tavia. “hurrah for the mountain-top!
“‘hark! i hear a voice
’way up in the mountain-top, tip-top,
resounding down below—
re-sound-ing down be-low!’
and i almost choked getting the last low note,” croaked tavia, coughing spasmodically.
they began mounting a shoulder of the hill almost at once. an hour later they were on the level of the plateau where the beautiful lost river rolled. the sound of its terrific fall was only a murmur in the girl’s ears, for they were some distance above the spot to which they had explored on that other day.
the reef of rock which was to be blown out to let the waters of the stream into the forge was upon the other side of the river. dorothy and tavia pursued the eastern bank, and in a northerly direction.
this led them around to the far side of the178 mountain, to the top of which they had determined to ascend. their sturdy little ponies carried them on at a good pace, for the way was easy.
they finally reached a sharp, short rise, over which the river tumbled in a beautiful cascade. above these rapids the stream was spread out in sort of a lake, bordered by rocky shores. the character of the country suddenly became more rugged. a rude prospect opened beside them as the girls turned their ponies’ heads up the steeper hillside.
on their left the ground fell away into another gulch, quite as deep and rugged as that gorge on the other side of the river, in which tavia had had her awful experience with the rattlesnake.
suddenly dorothy pulled in her pony and pointed down the steep incline.
“what is that, tavia?” she asked, startled.
“what—for goodness’ sake, don’t say you see one of nat’s bears, dorothy dale!”
“hush! not so loud.”
“is it a bear?”
“it’s a man. i can see him plainly now. he’s coming this way—up the gorge.”
“well, that’s a mercy! for if there should be a bear, maybe the man has a gun.”
“crowd in here beside me, tavia,” commanded dorothy. “i don’t want him to see you.”
“why not?” asked tavia, in surprise. “do you think a sight of me would scare him?”
a clump of low bushes hid the ponies, and probably the girls themselves could not have been observed from the bottom of the gulch. they peered through a fringe of greenery into the hollow and observed the stranger advancing up the rock-strewn bottom.
“what under the sun, doro, is he doing?” gasped tavia, after a moment.
“that’s what i want to know,” returned her chum, seriously.
the man turned then and shouted down the gorge. a faint echo of his voice reached the girls, but what he said they could not distinguish.
“he’s dragging something. is it a rope?” murmured dorothy.
“maybe they are measuring the gorge——”
“that is about what they are doing, tavia travers!” exclaimed dorothy. “it is a surveyor’s chain. there is the man with the trident.”
a second stranger had appeared. he set up his instrument quickly and the chain-bearer followed his chief’s gestures in placing a stake.
“do let’s go on, dorothy!” tavia exclaimed, with immediate loss of interest in this seemingly prosaic matter. “we’ll never get to the top.”
“but what are those men doing here?”
“can’t you see? surveying, of course.”
“what for?”
“oh, for a railroad, perhaps. for something or other. what does it matter?”
“this is within the boundaries of the hardin ranch,” dorothy said, reflectively. “i don’t understand surveyors being here. i am sure aunt winnie knows nothing about it.”
“tell her when we get back. come on, doro,” said the impatient tavia.
they urged the ponies on again and tavia put the surveyors out of her mind—quite. not so dorothy dale. she could not solve the puzzle of their presence on the hardin estate, and she was troubled.
it was almost two o’clock when the girls reached a little lawn hidden on the mountainside. it was quite surrounded by the forest, both above and below, and they had had hard work pushing through the brush to it. there seemed to be no practicable path for the ponies, leading upward.
“let’s leave them and go on afoot,” cried the eager tavia. “we must reach the top.”
“suppose the ponies run away?”
“they won’t. can’t we hobble them?”
“mercy! i wouldn’t go so near their heels for a fortune.”
“tie them to trees, then,” said the resourceful—and obstinate—tavia.
it was hard work, for although the top of the mountain was quite covered with trees and brush, the ground was rocky.
panting, but triumphant, the two girls reached the summit. the opening in the forest here was very tiny—scarcely larger than a good-sized dining-room table. the trees hedged them in and at once tavia voiced her disappointment.
“it’s a shame!” she exclaimed. “why, doro, we can’t even see the ranch-house from here.”
“isn’t that too bad?” agreed her chum. “never mind. we got here.”
“i wanted to see all over the range.”
“we can see up into the mountains—how near the peaks seem now,” said dorothy. “and, oh, tavia! the sun is setting.”
“well! goodness! you’d give one a conniption——”
“but we must hurry right down the hill. suppose we should be caught up here all night?”
“up in the ‘mountain-top, tip-top!’ not so much fun,” admitted her chum. “but it must be early yet. you see, the sun goes down behind those peaks so soon. there will be a long twilight.”
“i don’t want to be in these hills in the twilight,” said dorothy. “we must go back.”
