The Phantom Town Mystery. Norton Carol
Farley, yer nurse woman, came down ter mail some letters a spell back.” Then, before Mary could reply, he continued in his shrill, wavering voice, “That thar pale fellar wi’ specs on is her son, ain’t he?”
“Yes, Mr. Harvey. Dick is Mrs. Farley’s son.” Mary took time, in a friendly way, to satisfy the old man’s curiosity. “Dick has been going to the Arizona State University this winter to be near his mother. She’s a widow and he’s her only son. Her husband was a doctor and they lived back in Boston before he died.”
“Dew tell!” the old man wagged his head sympathetically. “I seen the young fellar ridin’ around wi’ Jerry Newcomb.”
“Dick’s working on the Newcomb ranch this summer,” Mary said, as she started to ride on.
“Ho! Ho!” the old man cackled. “Tenderfoot if ever thar was un. What’s Jerry reckonin’ that young fellar kin do? Bustin’ broncs?”
Mary smiled in appreciation of the old man’s joke. “No, Jerry won’t expect Dick to do that right at first. He’s official fence-mender just at present.”
Dora defended the absent boy. “Mr. Harvey, you wait until Dick has been on the desert long enough to get a coat of tan; he may surprise you.”
“Wall, mabbe! mabbe!” the old storekeeper chuckled to himself as the girls, waving back at him, galloped away up the road in the little dead town.
On either side there were deserted adobe houses in varying degrees of ruin, some with broken windows and doors, others with sagging roofs and crumbling walls.
The only sign of life was in three small adobes where poor Mexican families lived. Broken windows in two of the houses were stuffed with rags; the door yards were littered with rubbish. Unkempt children played in front of the middle house. The third adobe was neat and well kept. In it lived the Lopez family. Carmelita, the wife and mother, had long been cook for Mary Moore’s father.
A bright, black-eyed Mexican boy of about ten ran out to the road as the girls approached. “Come on, Emanuel,” Mary sang down to him. “You may put up our horses and earn a dime.”
The small boy’s white teeth flashed in a delighted grin. His brown feet raced so fast, that, by the time the girls were dismounting before the big square two-storied adobe near the mountains, Emanuel was there to lead their horses around back.
Mary glanced affectionately at the old place with its flower-edged walk, its broad porch and adobe pillars. Here her mother had come as a bride; here Mary had been born. Eight happy years they had spent together before her mother died. After Mary had been taken East to school, her father had returned, and here he had spent the winters, going back to Sunnybank each summer to be with his little girl.
Hurrying up the steps, Mary skipped into a pleasant living-room, where, near a wide window that was letting in a flood of light from the setting sun, sat her fine-looking father, pale after his long illness, but growing stronger every day.
“Oh, Daddy dear!” Mary’s voice was vibrant with love. “You’ve waited up for me, haven’t you?” She dropped to her knees beside the invalid chair and pressed her flushed face to his gray, drawn cheek.
Then, glancing up at the nurse who had appeared from her father’s bedroom, she asked eagerly, “May I tell Dad an adventure we’ve had?”
Mrs. Farley, middle-aged, kind-faced, shook her head, smiling down at the girl. “Not tonight, please. Won’t tomorrow do?”
Mary sprang up, saying brightly, “I reckon it will have to.” Then, stooping, she kissed her father as she whispered tenderly, “Rest well, darling. We’re hoping you know all about – ” then, little girl fashion, she clapped her hand on her mouth, mumbling, “Oh, I most disobeyed and told our adventure. See you tomorrow, Daddy.”
CHAPTER III
THE MISSING FRIENDS
Upstairs, in Mary’s room which was furnished as it had been when she had been there as a child, curly maple set with blue hangings, the two girls changed from riding habits to house dresses. Mary wore a softly clinging blue while Dora donned her favorite and most becoming cherry color.
“One might think that we are expecting company tonight.” Mary was peering into the oval glass as she spoke, arranging her fascinating golden curls above small shell-like ears.
“Which, of course, we are not.” Dora had brushed her black bob, boy-fashion, slick to her head. “There being no near neighbors to drop in.” Then suddenly she exclaimed, “Oh, for goodness sakes alive, I completely forgot that letter. It’s for both of us from Polly and Patsy. I’ve been wondering why they didn’t write and tell us where they had decided to spend their summer vacation.”
Dora sprang up to search for the letter in a pocket of her riding habit. Mary sat near a window in a curly maple rocker as she said dreamily: “If we hadn’t come West, we would have been with them – that is, if they went to Camp Winnichook up in the Adirondacks the way we had planned all winter.”
Dora, holding the letter unopened, sat near her friend and smiled at her reminiscently as she said, “We plan and plan and plan for the future, don’t we, and then we do something exactly different, and most unexpected, but I wouldn’t give up being out here on the desert and living in a ghost town for all the fun Patsy and Polly may be having – ”
Mary laughingly interrupted. “Do read the letter and let’s see if they really did go there. Perhaps – ”
“Yes, they did.” Dora had unfolded a large, boyish-looking sheet of paper. “Camp Winnichook,” she announced, then she read the rather indolent scrawl. “Dear Cowgirls,” – it began —
“Patsy has just come in from a swim. She’s drying her bathing suit by lying on the sand in front of the cabin in the sun. Her red hair, which she calls ‘a wind blown mop,’ looks, at present, like a mop that has just finished doing the kitchen floor. Last winter, you recall, she had a few red freckles on her saucy pug nose, but now she wears them all over her face and arms and even on her back. She’s a sight to behold!”
There were spatters on the paper that might have been water. The type of penmanship changed. A jerky, uneven handwriting seemed to ejaculate indignantly, “Don’t you kids believe a word of it. I’m a dazzling beauty – as ever! It’s Polly whose looks are ruined – if she ever had any. She won’t play tennis and she won’t swim and she will eat chocolate drops – you know the finish, and she wasn’t any too slim last year when she had to do gym.”
The first penmanship took up the tale. “I had to forcibly push Patsy away. She’s gone in to dress now, so I’ll hurry and get this letter into an envelope and sealed before she gets back because I want to tell on her.
“You know Pat has always said she was a boy hater, and the more the boys from Wales Military Academy rushed her, the more she would shrug her shoulders and ‘pouff!’ about them, but she’s met her Waterloo. There’s a flying field near our camp and a boy named Harry Hulbert is there studying to be a pilot. Pat and I strolled over to the field one day and ever since she caught sight of that tall, slim chap all done up in his flying togs, she’s been wild to meet him. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s even hoping that his machine will crash some day right in front of our cabin so that she can bind up his wounds and – ”
Once again the jerky, uneven writing seemed to exclaim, “Silly gilly! That’s what Polly is! It isn’t the flier, it’s the flying that I’m crazy about. I do wish I knew that Harry Hulbert, but not for any sentimental reasons, believe me. Pouff – for all of ’em! But fly I’m going to!! In truth, if you girls stay West until the end of vacation, you may see an airplane landing in your ghost town – me piloting!!!???”
Then came a wide space and when the writing began again, it was dated three days later and was Polly’s lazy scrawl. “It’s to laugh!” she began. “But, to explain. If you wish hard enough for anything, it’s bound to happen. Not that Harry Hulbert’s plane crashed