The Phantom Town Mystery

Dora contritely caught Mary’s hands and drew them down.

“Belovedest,” she exclaimed, “I’m just as thrilled as you are at the prospect of going buggy riding with two nice cowboys whether we find poor Little lost Bodil (who is probably a fat old woman now) or solve any other mystery that may be lying around loose.”

Mary was still pouting. “It doesn’t sound a bit like you to pretend – ”

Dora rushed in with, “That’s all it is, believe me! There, now I’m dressed, all but topping off. What do you think we’d better wear?”

“Let’s put on our kimonas until we find out where we’re going, then we’ll know better what to wear. Jerry may have an errand over in Douglas and, if so, we’d want to dress up.”

Mary’s Japanese kimona was one of her treasures. It was heavy blue silk with flowers of gold trailing all over it. Dora’s laughing, olive-tinted face reflected a glow from her cherry-colored silk kimona with its border of white chrysanthemums.

Carmelita, who was in the act of reheating the breakfast for the girls, who she felt sure would soon be coming, stared at them open-eyed and mouthed when she saw them tripping through the kitchen.

In very uncertain Spanish they called “Good morning” to her, then burst upon the boys’ astonished vision.

Dick, snatching off his sombrero, held it to his heart while he made a deep bow. Jerry, bounding forward, caught Mary’s two small hands in his. Then he held her from him as he looked at her with the same reverent admiration that he would have given a rarely lovely picture.

“I don’t know a word of Japanese,” Dick despaired, “so how can I make my meaning clear?” His big, dark eyes smiled at Dora, who gaily retorted, “We didn’t know that our prize costumes would strike you boys dumb. If we had, we wouldn’t have worn them, would we, Mary?”

“I’ll say not,” that little maid replied. “We’re wild to know why you’ve come when you should be roping steers or mending fences, if that is what cowboys do in the middle of the morning.”

“Oh, we’re going to explain our presence all right. We made it up while we came along – ” Dick began, when Jerry interrupted with, “You girls have heard range-ridin’ songs, I reckon, haven’t you?”

“Oh, no,” they said together.

“That is, not real ones,” Dora explained. “We’ve heard them in the talkies.”

“Well, this is a real one all right. Just fresh from the – er – ” Dick glanced sideways at Jerry who began in a low sing-song voice:

“Two cowboys in the middle of the night,”

Dick joined in:

“Did their work and they did it right.
Come, come, coma,
Coma, coma, kee.
Coma, coma, coma,
Kee, kee, kee.”

“That,” said Dick with a flourish of the hand which still held his sombrero, “is why we have time to play today.”

The girls had been appreciative listeners. “Oh, isn’t there any more to it?” Dora cried “I thought cowboy songs went on and on; forty verses or more.”

“So they do!” Jerry agreed. “But I reckon this one is too new to be that long, but there is another verse,” he acknowledged.

Then in a rollicking way they sang:

“Two cowboys who were jolly and gay
Wished to go adventuring the next day.
Come, come, coma,
Coma, coma, kee.
Coma, coma, coma,
Kee, kee, kee.”

Then, acting out the words by a little strutting, they sang lustily:

“Two cowboys who were brave and bold
Took two girls in a rattletrap old.
Come, come, coma,
Coma, coma, kee.
And that’s all of it
If you’ll come with me.”

Dick bowed to Dora and Jerry beamed upon Mary.

“Oh, Happy Days! We’re keen to go,” Dora told them, “but where?”

The answer was another sing-song:

“The two cowboys were on mystery bent.
They went somewhere, but you’ll know where they went
If you’ll come, come, coma,
Come in our old ’bus,
Come, come, coma,
Come with us.”

Carmelita, who had appeared in the kitchen door, started chattering in Spanish and Jerry laughingly translated, rather freely, and not quite as the truly deferential cook had intended. “Carmelita asks me to tell you girls that she has reheated your breakfast for the last time and that if you don’t come in now and eat it, she’s going to give it to the cat.”

“Oho!” Mary pointed an accusing finger at him. “I know you are making it up. Carmelita wouldn’t have said that, because there is no cat.” Then graciously, she added, “Won’t you singing cowboys come in and have a cup of coffee, if there is any?”

Jerry asked Carmelita if there was enough of a snack for two starved cowboys who had breakfasted at daybreak and that good-natured Mexican woman declared that there was batter enough to make stacks more cakes if Jerry wanted to fry them. She had butter to churn down in the cooling cellar.

Mary insisted that she be the one to fry the cakes, but Jerry and Dick insisted equally, that she should not, dressed up like a Japanese princess.

“Grease spatters wouldn’t look well tangled up in that gold vine,” Jerry told her.

With skill and despatch, Jerry flipped cakes and Dick served them. Then, while the girls went upstairs to don their hiking suits with the short divided skirts, the boys ate small mountains of the cakes.

“Verse five!” Dick mumbled with his mouth full.

“Two cowboys with a big appetite
They could eat flapjacks all day and all night.
Come, come, coma,
Coma, coma, kee.
Those cowboys, Jerry,
Are You and me.”

Back of them a laughing voice chanted, “Verse six.”