Ruth Fielding In the Saddle; College Girls in the Land of Gold

“For even if we are bound for the wilds of Arizona, there will be men to see us,” said the black-eyed girl frankly. “And it is the duty of all females to preen their feathers for the males.”

“Just so,” growled her twin. “I expect I shall have to stand with a gun in both hands to keep those wild cowpunchers and miners away from you two when we reach Yucca. I remember how it was at Silver Ranch – and you were only kids then.”

“‘Kids,’ forsooth!” cried his sister. “When will you ever learn to have respect for us, Tommy? Remember we are college girls.”

“Oh! you aren’t likely to let anybody forget that fact,” grumbled Tom, who felt a bit chagrined to think that his sister and her chum had arrived at college a year ahead of him. He would enter Harvard in the fall.

During this busy week, Ruth spent as much time as possible with Aunt Alvirah, for the little old woman showed that she longed for “her pretty’s” company. Uncle Jabez went about with a thundercloud upon his face and disapproval in his every act and word.

Before Saturday a telegram came from Ann Hicks. She had arrived at Silver Ranch, conferred with Uncle Bill, and it was agreed that she should meet Ruth and the other girls at Yucca on the date Ruth had named in her letter. The addition of Ann to the party from the East would make it nine strong, including Miss Cullam as chaperon and Tom Cameron as “courier.”

Tom was to make all the traveling arrangements, and he went on to New York a day before Ruth and Helen started from Cheslow. There he had a small experience which afterward proved to be important. At the time it puzzled him a good deal.

It had been agreed that the party bound for Arizona should meet at the Delorphion Hotel. Therefore, Tom took a taxicab at the Grand Central Terminal for that hostelry. Mr. Cameron had engaged rooms for the whole party by telephone, for he was well known at the Delorphion, and all Tom had to do was to hand the clerk at the desk his card and sign his name with a flourish on the register.

The instant he turned away from the desk to follow the bellhop Tom noted a young man, after a penetrating glance at him, slide along to the register, twirl it around again, and examine the line he, Tom, had written there. The young fellow was a stranger to Tom. He was dressed like a chauffeur. Tom was sure he had never seen the young man before.

“Now, wouldn’t that bother you?” he muttered, eyeing the fellow sharply as he crossed the marble-floored rotunda to the elevators. “Does he think he knows me? Or is he looking for somebody and is putting every new arrival through the third degree?”

He half expected the chauffeur person to follow him to the elevator, and he lingered behind the impatient bellhop for half a minute to give the stranger a chance to accost him if he wished to.

But immediately after the fellow had read Tom’s name on the book, he turned away and went out, without vouchsafing him another glance.

“Funny,” thought Tom Cameron. “Wonder what it means.”

However, as nothing more came of it – at least, not at once – he buried the mystery under the manifold duties of the day. He met a couple of school friends at noon and went to lunch with them; but he returned to the hotel for dinner.

It was then he spied the same chauffeur again. He was helping a young lady out of a private car before the hotel entrance and a porter was going in ahead with two big traveling bags.

Tom was sure it was the same man who had examined the hotel register after he had signed his name; and he was tempted to stop and speak to him. But the young lady whisked into the hotel without his seeing her face, while the chauffeur, after a curious, straight stare at Tom, jumped into the car and started away. Tom noticed that there was a monogram upon the motor-car door, but he did not notice the license number.

“Maybe the girl is one of those going with us,” Tom thought, as he went inside.

The porter with the bags and the young lady in question has disappeared. He went to the desk and asked the clerk if any of his party had arrived and was informed to the contrary.

“Well, it gets me,” ruminated Tom, as he went up to dress for dinner. “I don’t know whether I am the subject of a strange young lady’s attentions, or merely if the chauffeur was curious about me. Guess I won’t say anything to the girls about it. Helen would surely give me the laugh.”

CHAPTER V – THE GIRL IN LOWER FIVE

Tom and his father had visited his sister and Ruth at Ardmore; the young fellow was no stranger to the girls whom Ruth had invited to join the party bound for Freezeout Camp. Of course, Jennie Stone knew Helen’s black-eyed twin from old times when they were children.

“Dear me, how you’ve grown, Tommy!” observed the plump girl, looking Tom over with approval.

“For the first time since I’ve known you, Jennie, I cannot return the compliment,” Tom said seriously.

“Gee!” sighed the erstwhile fat girl, ecstatically, “am I not glad!”

That next day all arrived. Ruth and Helen were the last, they reaching the hotel just before bedtime. But Tom was forever wandering through the foyer and parlors to spy a certain hat and figure that he was sure he should know again. He was tempted to tell Helen and her chums about the chauffeur and the strange young lady while they were all enjoying a late supper.

“However, a man alone, with such a number of girls, has to be mighty careful,” so Tom told himself, “that they don’t get something on him. They’d rig me to death, and I guess Tommy had better keep his tongue between his teeth.”

The train on which the party had obtained reservations left the Pennsylvania Station at ten o’clock in the forenoon. Half an hour before that time Tom came down to the hotel entrance ahead of the girls and instructed the starter to bespeak two taxicabs.

As Tom stepped out of the wide open door he saw the motor-car with the monogram on the door, the same chauffeur driving, and the girl with the “stunning” hat in the tonneau. The car was just moving away from the door and it was but a fleeting glimpse Tom obtained of it and its occupants. They did not even glance at him.

“Guess I was fooling myself after all,” he muttered. “At any rate, I fancy they aren’t so greatly interested. They’re not following us, that’s sure.”

The girls came hurrying down, with Miss Cullam in tow, all carrying their hand baggage. Trunks had gone on ahead, although Ruth had warned them all that, once off the train at Yucca, only the most necessary articles of apparel could be packed into the mountain range.

“Remember, we are dependent upon burros for the transportation of our luggage; and there are only just about so many of the cunning little things in all Arizona. We can’t transport too large a wardrobe.”

“Are the burros as cunning as they say they are?” asked Trix Davenport.

“All of that,” said Tom. “And great singers.”

“Sing? Now you are spoofing!” declared the coxswain of Ardmore’s freshman eight.

“All right. You wait and see. You know what they call ’em out there? Mountain canaries. Wait till you hear a love-lorn burro singing to his mate. Oh, my!”

“The idea!” ejaculated Miss Cullam. “What does the boy mean by ‘love-lorn’?”

It was a hilarious party that alighted from the taxicabs in the station and made its way to the proper part of the trainshed. The sleeping car was a luxurious one, and when the train pulled out and dived into the tunnel under the Hudson (“just like a woodchuck into its hole,” Trix said) they were comfortably established in their seats.

Tom had secured three full sections for the girls. Miss Cullam had Lower Two while Tom himself had Upper Five. There was some slight discussion over this latter section, for the berth under Tom had been reserved for a lady.

“Well, that’s all right,” said Tom philosophically. “If she can stand it, I can. Let the conductor fight it out with her.”

“Perhaps she will want you to sleep out on the observation platform, Tommy,” said Jennie Stone, wickedly. “To be gallant you’d do it, of course?”

“Of course,” said Tom, stoutly. “Far be it from me to add to the burden on the mind of any female person. It strikes me that they are mostly in trouble about something all the time.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Helen. “Villain! Is that the way I’ve brought you up?”

Tom grinned at his sister wickedly. “Somehow your hand must have slipped when you were molding me, Sis. What d’you think?”

When the time came to retire, however, there was no objection made by the lady who had reserved Lower Five. Of course, in these sleeping cars the upper and lower berths were so arranged that they were entirely separate. But in the morning Tom chanced to be coming from his berth just as the lady started down the corridor for the dressing room.

“My!” thought Tom. “That’s some pretty girl. Who – ”

Then he caught a glimpse of her face, just as she turned it hastily from him. He had seen it once before – just as a certain motor-car was drawing away from the front of the Delorphion Hotel.

“No use talking,” he thought. “I’ve got to take somebody into my confidence about this girl. To keep such a mystery to myself is likely to affect my brain. Humph! I’ll tell Ruth. She can keep a secret – if she wants to,” and he went off whistling to the men’s lavatory at the other end of the car.

Later he found Ruth on the observation platform. They were alone there for some time and Tom took her into his confidence.

“Don’t tell Helen, now,” he urged. “She’ll only rig me. And I’m bound to have a bad enough time with all you girls, as it is.”

“Poor boy,” Ruth said, commiseratingly. “You are in for a bad time, aren’t you? What about this strange and mysterious female in Lower Five?”