CHAPTER I
A SURPRISE IS COMING

“He, he, he!” giggled Tavia.

“What is the matter now, child?” demanded Dorothy Dale, haughtily. “There are no ‘hes’ in this lane. The road is empty before us——”

“And the world would be, too, if it wasn’t for the possible ‘hes’ that are to come into our lives,” quoth Tavia, with shocking frankness.

“You talk like a cave girl,” declared her chum. “Is there nothing on your mind but boys?”

“Yes’m! More boys!” chuckled Tavia. “It is June. The bridal-wreath is in bloom. If ‘In spring the young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,’ can’t our girls’ fancies turn in June to thoughts of white lace veils, shoes that pinch your feet horribly—and can’t we dream of hobbling up to the altar to the sound of Mendelssohn’s march?”

“Hobble to the haltar, you mean,” sniffed Dorothy, with her best suffragette air.

“How smart!” crowed her chum. “But you mustn’t blame me for giggling this morning—you mustn’t!”

“Why not? What particular excuse have you?”

“That shad we had for breakfast. Shad is as full of bones as Cologne’s shoes are of feet. I always manage to swallow some of them—the bones, I mean, not dear Florida Water—Rosemary’s tootsies—and those said bones are tickling me right now.”

“How absurd,” said Dorothy Dale, as Tavia went off in another “spasm.” “Do you realize that you are growing up, Tavia—or, pretty near?”

“‘Pretty near,’ or ‘near pretty’?” asked Tavia, making a little face at her.

“Baiting your hook for a compliment, I see,” laughed Dorothy. “Well, you get none, Miss. I want you to behave. Think!”

Tavia immediately struck an attitude that seemed possible for only a jointed doll to get into. “Business of thinking,” she said.

“Suppose anybody should see you?” pursued Dorothy, admonishingly.

“Then you do expect the boys to motor in by this road?” cried Tavia. “Sly Puss!”

“No, Ma’am. I am not thinking of Ned and Nat—or even of Bob Niles.”

Tavia made another little face at mention of Bob’s name. “Poor Bob!” she sighed. “No fun for him this summer. His father says he must go to work and begin to learn the business—whatever that may mean. Bob wrote me a dreadfully mournful letter. It almost tempted me to go to the same town and get a job in his father’s office, and so alleviate the poor boy’s misery.”

“You wouldn’t!” gasped Dorothy.

“Got to go to work somewhere,” decided Tavia. “And I hate housework and cleaning up after a lot of children.”

“But just think! how proud your father will be to have you at the head of the household. And remember, too, how much your brothers and sisters need you.”

“Goodness, Doro! You talk like the back end of the spelling-book—where all the hard words are. And the hardest word in the whole vocabulary is ‘duty.’ Don’t remind me of it while I am here with you at North Birchlands.”

“And think!” cried Dorothy, giving a little skip as they walked on. “Think! we are not a week away from dear old Glenwood School yet, and to-day Aunt Winnie’s surprise is coming. Gracious, Tavia! I can scarcely wait for ten o’clock.”

“I know—I know,” said Tavia. “If your Aunt Winnie wasn’t the very dearest little gray-haired, pink-cheeked woman who ever lived, I’d have shaken the secret out of her long ago. I just would! And we can’t even guess what the surprise is going to be like.”

“Goodness! No!” gasped Dorothy. “I’ve given up guessing. I know it is something perfectly scrumptious, but nothing like anything we ever had before.”

“I hope, whatever it is, that I’ll be in it,” groaned Tavia.

“I am sure you will be, or Aunt Winnie wouldn’t have invited you here to her home at just this time,” declared Dorothy.

They were walking down the shady road toward the railroad station “killing time,” before the family conference which had been called for ten o’clock.

Nat and Ned White, Dorothy’s cousins, had gone off in their auto, the Fire Bird, on an errand, and the girls had an idea they might come home by this route, and so pick them up.

“Hush!” cried Tavia, suddenly. “Methinks I hear footsteps approaching on horseback.”

“That’s no horse you hear,” Dorothy said. “It is somebody walking on the bridge over the brook.”

There was a turn in the road just ahead and the girls could not see the bridge. But in a moment they could descry the figure of a man striding toward them.

“This must have been what you were he-heing for,” whispered Dorothy.

“How romantic!” was Tavia’s utterance.

“What is romantic about a man coming up from the station?”

“Don’t you see his long, silky black mustache? And his long hair and broad hat? Goodness! he’s a picture.”

“Yes. The stage picture of a villain—Simon Legree type,” scoffed Dorothy. “That red silk handkerchief sticking out of his pocket—and the big diamond in his shirt front—and another flashing on his finger——”

“My!” gasped Tavia, clasping her hands. “He might have stepped right out of Bret Harte. Ah-ha! ah-ha! Jack Dalton! unhand me!”

“Hush, Tavia!” begged her chum. “He will hear you.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Tavia, suddenly disturbed. “He’s looking at us—and he’s crossing over to this side of the road.”

“Well, don’t you look at him any more and—we’ll cross the road, too.”

“Do you suppose he eats little girls?” queried Tavia, with a most ridiculous air.

Dorothy felt as though she wanted to shake her chum. But then, she frequently felt that desire. The man was too near for her to speak again, but the girls crossed the road suddenly.

The man stopped, half turned as though to approach them, and leered at Dorothy and Tavia. He was not a large man, but he was remarkably dressed. His black suit was rather wrinkled, as though he had been traveling some time in it. The broad-brimmed hat gave him the air of a Westerner, or Southerner. And his flashy appearance made him very distasteful to Dorothy.

She made Tavia hurry on, and soon they reached the bridge themselves. Tavia was “raving” again:

“Those wonderful eyes! Did you see them? Deep brown pools of light—only one was green? Did you notice it, Doro?”

“No, I didn’t. I told you not to look at him again. You might have encouraged him to follow us.”

“I wonder how it would feel to be a gambler’s bride. I just feel that he’s from the West and is a gambler, or a cowpuncher—or a maverick—or——”

“You don’t even know what a maverick is,” scoffed Dorothy.

“Yes, I do! A maverick steals cattle,” declared Tavia, quite soberly.

“You ridiculous thing! It’s ‘rustlers’ that steal cattle—or used to. A ‘maverick’ is a stray calf without a brand.”

“Well! he looked as though he had strayed—— Oh, Doro!” gasped Tavia, suddenly. “He’s coming back.”

The girls had reached the bridge and had stopped upon it. The brown water was gurgling over the stones, the birds were twittering in the bushes, and the scent of the wild roses was wafted to them as they leaned upon the bridge-rail.

It was a lovely picture, and Dorothy and Tavia fitted right into it. But the picture did not suit Dorothy and Tavia at all when they saw the black-hatted man round the turn in the road.

They felt just as though the picture needed some action. An automobile with Ned and Nat in it, would have furnished just the life the girls thought would improve the scene.

“Come on!” whispered Dorothy. “Don’t let him speak.”

But it was too late to escape that. “Little ladies!” exclaimed the man. “You’re not going to run away from me, are you?”

Tavia would have run; only, as she confessed to Dorothy later, her skirt “was not built that way.” Now, however, Dorothy had to face the man.

“What do you want?” she asked, just as sternly as she could speak.

“Oh, now, little lady,” began the fellow, “you mustn’t be angry.”

Dorothy turned her back and seized Tavia’s arm. “Come on,” she said, with much more confidence in her voice than she actually felt.

“Ned and Nat will soon be along. Come!”

The girls began walking briskly. “Is—is he going to follow us?” whispered Tavia.

“Don’t you dare look back to see,” commanded Dorothy, fiercely.

Either the black-hatted man was not very bold and bad, after all, or Dorothy’s remark about expecting the boys fulfilled its duty. He did not follow them beyond the bridge.

“Oh, Doro! You can’t blame me this time,” urged Tavia, as they hurried on.

“I do not believe the fellow would have dared speak to us if you had not rolled your big eyes at him,” declared Dorothy, rather sharply.

“Oh, Doro! I didn’t!” Then she began giggling again. “It is your fatal beauty that gets us into such scrapes—you know it is.”

It was little use scolding Tavia. Dorothy was well aware of that. She had “summered and wintered” her chum too long not to know how incorrigible she was.

For fear the man might still follow them, Dorothy insisted upon taking the first side road and so walking back to Aunt Winnie White’s home, the Cedars, by another way. When they arrived the boys were there before them.

“Hi, girls! where were you?” shouted Nat. “We looked for you along the station road.”

“Did you come right up from the station?” demanded Tavia, eagerly.

“Sure!”

“Did you see a black-mustached pirate down there by the bridge, with a yellow diamond in his bosom——”

“In the bridge’s bosom?” demanded Nat.

“Of the pirate’s shirt,” finished Tavia. “Such a mustache! He looked deliciously villainous.”

“Another conquest?” grunted Nat, who never liked to see any fellow “tagging about after Tavia,” as he expressed it, unless it was a gallant of his own choosing.

“He followed Dorothy—and spoke to her,” declared Tavia, with effrontery. “And she spoke to him.”

“Soft pedal! soft pedal, there, Tavia!” urged Ned, who had overheard. “We know Dorothy.”

“And we know you,” added his brother. “You’ll have to unwind a better string than that, Tavia. There’s a ‘knot’ in it—Dorothy did not.”

“Ask her!” snapped Tavia, quite offended, and marched away toward the house.

Dorothy at that moment appeared on the side porch. “Come in, boys, do,” she urged. “It’s ten o’clock and everybody else is in the library. Your mother is all ready to unveil the Great Surprise.”

CHAPTER II
“HOORAY FOR THE WILD WEST!”

The family gathered in the library. Major Dale, Dorothy’s father, sat forward in his armchair, leaning his crossed hands and chin upon his cane. Joe and Roger, Dorothy’s brothers, fidgetted side by side upon the leather couch.

Mrs. Winnie White, Major Dale’s sister, and her two big sons, Ned and Nat, occupied chairs at the table. Dorothy and Tavia, their arms about each others’ waists, were on a narrow settee in the fireplace, that was banked with green, odorous Balsam boughs.

“Now, children, I have a great announcement to make—two, in fact,” said Aunt Winnie, playing with her lorgnette and smiling about at the expectant faces. “The Major tells me to ‘go ahead,’ and I am going to do so.

“First of all, the Dale and White families have come in for a considerable increase in this world’s goods. In other words, the Major and I have been left in partnership, the great Hardin Ranch and game park, in Colorado.”

“Game! Shooting! Wow!” ejaculated Nat.

“Ranch! Cattle! Ah!” added his brother.

“Sounds like a new college yell,” muttered Tavia in Dorothy’s ear.

“I was well aware,” continued Aunt Winnie, “that old Colonel Hardin contemplated making the Major a beneficiary of his will. The Colonel was my brother’s companion in arms during the war——”

“And a right good fellow, too,” interposed Dorothy’s father, heartily.

“When Colonel Hardin came East several years ago, he spoke to me about this intended disposition of his estate. He knew he could not live for long. The doctors had already pronounced upon his case, and he had no family, you will remember,” Aunt Winnie said. “I had no idea he proposed making me a legatee, as well. But he has done so. The Hardin property is a great estate—one of the largest in Colorado.”

“Hooray for the Wild West!” murmured Tavia, waving a handkerchief, yet evidently suffering under some emotion beside extravagant joy!

“The Hardin property was first of all a quarter section of Government land—one hundred and sixty acres—that the Colonel took up and proved upon when he obtained his discharge from the army. Then he bought up neighboring sections and finally obtained control of a vast, wild park in the foothills adjoining his cattle range.

“Of late years cattle have gone out and farming has come in. All between the Hardin land and Desert City are farms. They need irrigation for their developement.

“Colonel Hardin told me he held the water supply for the whole region in his hands. It would cost a large sum, he said, to make the water available for Desert City and the dry farming lands.”

“How is that, mother?” asked Ned, interested.

“I do not just know?”

“Can’t they dig wells and get water?” demanded Roger Dale.

“It strikes me,” said the Major, chuckling, “that in some of those desert lands, they say it is easier to pipe it in fifty miles than to dig for it. It’s just as far under the surface, or overhead, as it is latitudinally!”

“I suppose it must be something like that,” agreed Aunt Winnie. “I only know that Colonel Hardin said when the City and the farmers could raise the money necessary he stood ready to lease the water rights to them. Such lease would add vastly to the income from his property.

“Now, his lawyers have informed us that the will giving all this great estate to the Major and me, has been probated, and that somebody must come out there and look over the property and meet the people who want the water, and all that.”

“And somebody means us, mother?” cried Nat, joyfully.

“Us young folks—yes,” said Mrs. White, smiling. “That is my second announcement—and the larger part of the surprise, I warrant. We are going to celebrate Dorothy’s graduation by taking a trip West.

“The Major does not feel equal to the journey, because of his lameness; I am to take over the property jointly in our names. I shall need you four young people, of course, to advise me,” and she laughed.

“Say! Say! what four young people?” demanded Roger and Joe in chorus.

“Why,” said their Aunt, “you know somebody must remain to look after the Major. That duty, Joe, devolves upon you and Roger. Ned and Nat are going with me, and of course Dorothy can’t go without Tavia.”

“Hold me, somebody!” begged Tavia. “I am going to faint with joy,” and she fell weakly into Dorothy’s arms. “I was afraid I was going to be left out,” she muttered.

Nat ran with an ink bottle in lieu of smelling salts, but Tavia waved him away.

“Keep your distance, sir!” she cried. “This is a brand new frock—and they don’t grow on bushes; at least, they don’t in Dalton.”

“You bet they don’t,” commented Ned. “If the present-day girl’s frocks grew in the woods all the wild animals certainly would run wild. The bite of a chipmunk would give one hydrophobia.”

“Every knock’s a boost,” sniffed Tavia, who was very proud indeed of her narrow skirt. “I notice the boys are just as much interested in us as ever, no matter what we wear. Why! Dorothy and I had a perfectly scandalous adventure this morning——”

The maid appeared in the doorway at that moment and looked at Mrs. White. “What is it, Marie?” asked the lady.

“A—a gentleman, Madam,” said the maid. “At least, it’s a man, Mrs. White. And he wants to see you particular, so he says. He says he’s come all the way from Colorado about getting some water. I don’t understand what he means.”

“Crickey!” exclaimed the irreverent Nat. “What a long way to come for a drink.”

“It must be about this very thing we are speaking of,” said the Major, starting.

The two girls had risen and gone to a window. They could see out upon the porch.

“Goodness, Doro!” gasped Tavia, grabbing her chum tightly. “That’s the very man we met on the road this morning.”

We began to get acquainted with Dorothy Dale, and Tavia Travers, and their friends in the first volume of this series, entitled “Dorothy Dale: A Girl of To-day.” At that time Dorothy was more than three years younger than she is to-day. Nevertheless, when her father was taken ill, she undertook the regular publication of his weekly paper, The Dalton Bugle, which was the family’s main dependence at that time.

Later the family received an uplift in the world and went to live at the Cedars, Aunt Winnie’s beautiful home, while Dorothy and Tavia went to Glenwood School where, through “Dorothy Dale at Glenwood School,” “Dorothy Dale’s Great Secret,” “Dorothy Dale and Her Chums,” “Dorothy Dale’s Queer Holidays,” “Dorothy Dale’s Camping Days” and “Dorothy Dale’s School Rivals” our heroine and her friends enjoyed many pleasures, had adventures galore, worked hard at their studies, had many schoolgirl rivalries, troubles, secrets, and learned many things besides what was contained in their textbooks.

In the eighth volume of the series, entitled, “Dorothy Dale in the City,” Dorothy and Tavia spent the holidays with Aunt Winnie and her sons, in New York. Aunt Winnie had taken an apartment in the city, on Riverside Drive, and the girls had many gay times, likewise helping Mrs. White very materially in the untangling of a business matter that had troubled her.

“Dorothy Dale’s Promise,” the volume preceding our present story, deals with Dorothy’s last semester at Glenwood School, and her graduation. Tavia, who is a perfect flyaway, but one with a heart of gold, is close to her chum all the time, and the two inseparables had now, but the week before, bidden the beautiful old school good-bye.

Dorothy Dale was a bright and quick-witted girl; the impulsive Tavia was apt to get them both into little scrapes of which Dorothy was usually obliged to find the door of escape.

Now, when the maid announced the black-mustached man, and the boys departed by another door, Tavia drew Dorothy into the embrasure of a curtained window, whispering:

“Let’s wait. I’m crazy to know what has brought such a brigandish looking fellow here.”

“But it is not nice to listen,” objected Dorothy.

“But your aunt doesn’t mind.”

Mrs. White smiled at the two girls as she saw them pop behind the draperies. There was nothing private about the proposed interview.

The Major sat back in his chair while Aunt Winnie arose to meet the stranger as the maid ushered him into the library.

CHAPTER III
THE “TWO-FACED” MAN

The boys were discussing the extent of Colonel Hardin’s great estate when Dorothy and Tavia joined them at the garage an hour later. The possibilities of the vast cattle pastures and game preserves, walled in by the natural boundary of the higher Rockies, appealed strongly to Ned and Nat, and even to Dorothy’s younger brothers.

“And it was all begun by Colonel Hardin taking advantage of the Homestead Law when he came out of the army. Too bad your father didn’t do that, Dorothy,” said Ned.

“What is the Homestead Law?” asked Dorothy.

“I can tell you,” interposed Nat, quickly. “Not just in the wording of the law—the legal phraseology, you know,” he added, his eyes twinkling. “But the upshot of it is, that the Government is willing to bet you one hundred and sixty acres of land against fourteen dollars that you can’t live on it five years without starving to death!”

“How ridiculous!” scoffed Dorothy.

“What is the use of asking these boys anything?” demanded Tavia, her nose in the air. “They’re like all other college freshmen.”

“Don’t say that, Miss,” urged Ned, easily. “Remember that we’re freshmen no longer, but sophs. Or, we will be so rated next fall.”

“Then perhaps you’ll know a little less than you have appeared to know this past year,” said the sharp-tongued Tavia. “As juniors you will know a little less. And when you’re seniors, you’ll probably be still more human—less like Olympic Joves, you know.”

“Compliments fly when quality meets,” quoth Dorothy. “Don’t let’s scrap, children. We can tell the boys something they don’t know. We’ve got to get a hustle on, to quote the provincialism of the locality for which we are bound—the wild and woolly West. A telegram has been already sent to Tavia’s folks. We start West to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” cried Ned and Nat, in surprise.

“The Mater must have changed her mind mighty sudden,” added Ned.

“She did,” said Tavia, nodding. “Or, rather, we changed it for her.”

“How was that?” asked Nat. “And say! what did the fellow want who came so far for a drink?” and he grinned. “What’s his name?”

“Mr. Philo Marsh,” said Dorothy, gravely. “And a very shrewd, if not an out-and-out bad man.”

“Hul-lo!” exclaimed Ned. “What’s happened? Let’s hear about it.”

“You should have stayed and seen the visitor,” said Dorothy.

“He’s a two-faced scamp!” declared Tavia, with emphasis.

“Right out of Barnum & Bailey’s—eh?” asked Nat. “One of the greatest freaks of the age. Two faces, no less!”

But Ned saw that something serious had happened. “What is it, Dorothy?” he asked.

“I wish you had remained and seen that Philo Marsh,” said Dorothy Dale. “I—I think he is a bad man. I do not trust him at all.”

“And good reason!” broke in Tavia, forgetting that she had first exclaimed over the romantic appearance of the man with the silky black mustache and the yellow diamond.

Then, eagerly, she went on to tell the boys of what had happened to her and Dorothy on the road that morning.

“Why! the scamp!” ejaculated Nat, quite savagely.

“But that isn’t all the story?” queried Ned, turning to Dorothy. “What were you going to say about Philo Marsh?”

Dorothy at once told them how she and Tavia had hidden behind the window draperies when Mr. Philo Marsh was announced, having recognized him as he stood waiting on the porch.

“And you should have heard him talk!” interrupted Tavia.

“He is a very smooth talking man,” went on Dorothy, seriously, “and we could see father and Aunt Winnie were impressed.”

“But what did he want?” Ned demanded.

“He says he represents a committee of citizens of Desert City and the farmers on that side of the Hardin estate. He had papers all drawn up, ready to sign, leasing to him and his fellow-committeemen the water rights on the Hardin place, and he wants father and Aunt Winnie to sign up right now.”

“But they didn’t?” cried Ned and Nat.

“He urged them to. He claims haste is necessary.”

“Why?” asked the older cousin.

“He wasn’t just clear about that. I guess that is what made father doubtful. But he was very persuasive.”

“Say!” interrupted Nat. “What about this water? If there is so much of it on the Hardin place, doesn’t it flow somewhere?”

“That’s a curious thing,” Dorothy said, quickly. “It seems this water-supply is a stream called Lost River.”

“Lost River?” ejaculated Ned.

“Yes. There’s more than one like it out there, too. I guess this particular Lost River has its rise on the estate somewhere. And without flowing beyond the boundaries of the land Colonel Hardin has left to us, it dives right down into a crack in the earth again.”

“Crickey!” exclaimed Nat. “Some river! I want to see that.”

“I’ve read of such things,” said his brother.

“It must be wonderful,” Dorothy said. “You see, they want father and Aunt Winnie to let them turn the water into another channel. From that channel they will pipe water to Desert City, while the surplus will be carried by open ditches to the irrigated farms.”

“And how about the water supply for the cattle pastures?” demanded Ned, who, from the first, had shown a deep interest in the cattle end of the business in hand.

“Oh, they say there is water in abundance,” Dorothy answered.

“Well,” asked Ned, “did that fellow get mother to sign up? That’s the important question.”

“Do you think we would let her, after what we know about the fellow?” retorted Tavia, indignantly.

“I don’t see how you girls knew much about him,” chuckled Nat. “You simply did not like the cut of his jib, as the sailors say.”

“What did you do to stop them?” asked Joe Dale, round-eyed. “Walk right in and give him away?”

“That would have been melodramatic, wouldn’t it?” laughed Dorothy.

“But what did you do?” insisted Joe.

“Why,” said Tavia, “we climbed out of the window—and I ripped my skirt, of course!—and we ran around to the hall and sent the maid in to call Mrs. White out. Then we told her about Philo Marsh—the two-faced scamp! Why, to hear and see him in that library, you’d think butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!”

“Well, wouldn’t it?” grunted Nat.

“I guess the Major was suspicious, anyway,” chuckled Tavia, ignoring Master Nat. “And Mrs. White declared she would have to look over the ground personally before she could make any decision.”

“He was in an awful hurry,” said Dorothy.

“Who’s in a hurry?” asked Ned, quickly.

“That Philo Marsh, as he calls himself. So we are going to start for the West to-morrow, instead of next week.”

“And what is this fellow who’s come East here going to do?” asked Ned.

“Going back. Says he’ll meet us at Dugonne. That is where we leave the train. Oh, Aunt Winnie has already looked up our route, and the time-tables, and all that,” Dorothy said.

“Well, we’ll be on hand to look out for Little Mum, and see that this fellow doesn’t ‘double cross’ her in any way,” said Nat, with assurance.

“We girls shall watch him, too,” Tavia declared. “I believe he’s a regular ‘bad man’—like you read about.”

“Shouldn’t read about such things,” advised Dorothy, laughing.

“I guess we four can hedge Little Mum about so that no wild and woolly Westerner will trouble her,” Ned said, with gravity.

But only time could prove whether that was so, or not.

CHAPTER IV
TO CATCH THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

The Fire Bird looked like an express truck—or so Nat said. They had loaded up the boys’ auto with more than a fair share of the baggage.

“But just the same, you girls have got to find room in here,” declared Ned. “Nat and I must have somebody to chin to while we’re driving over Hominy Ridge. They say there are ‘ha’nts’ in the woods, and we’d be afraid to go alone.”

“Poor ’ittle sing!” crooned Tavia. “Doro and I know just how scared you are. But we’ll go with you—providing you can find us room.”

“We’ll make room,” said Nat. “Mother will have to carry some of the baggage in her car. There is no use in putting the last camel on the straw’s back!”

“Joe and Roger have begged to go along,” Dorothy said.

“Well, they’re excess baggage, too,” answered Nat. “They’ll have to go in the other car.”

It was the evening following the June day on which Aunt Winnie had divulged her Great Surprise. The intervening hours had been very, very busy for the girls.

It was arranged that the party should go by auto to Portersburg to catch the midnight express on the P. B. & O.

Dorothy and Tavia—as well as Mrs. White—had made exceedingly swift preparations for this journey. Of course, Ned and Nat did not have much to get ready.

“Wish I were a boy,” groaned Tavia.

“I’ve heard you express that wish a thousand times,” declared Dorothy.