CHAPTER VIII
FLAME CITY
Bob and Betty descended the steps and found themselves on a rough platform with an unpainted shelter in the center that evidently did duty as a station. There were a few straggling loungers about, a team or two backed up to the platform, and a small automobile of the runabout type, red with rust.
“Well, bless her heart, how she’s grown!” cried a cordial voice, and Mr. Richard Gordon had Betty in his arms.
“Uncle Dick! You don’t know how glad I am to see you!” Betty hugged him tight, thankful that the worry and anxiety and uncertainty of the last few weeks, while she had waited in Washington to hear from him, was at last over. “How tanned you are!” she added.
“Oh, I’m a regular Indian,” was the laughing response. “This must be Bob? Glad to see you, my boy. I feel that I already know you.”
He and Bob shook hands heartily. Mr. Gordon was tall and muscular, with closely-cropped gray hair and quizzical gray eyes slightly puckered at the corners from much staring in the hot sun. His face and hands were very brown, and he looked like a man who lead an outdoor life and liked it.
Bob took to him at once, and the feeling seemed to be mutual, for Mr. Gordon kept a friendly hand on the boy’s shoulder while he continued to scan him smilingly.
“Began to look as though we were never going to get together, didn’t it?” Mr. Gordon said. “Last week there was a rumor that I might have to go to China for the firm, and I thought if that happened Betty would be in despair. However, that prospect is not immediate. Well, young folks, what do you think of Flame City, off-hand?”
Betty stared. From the station she could see half a dozen one-story shacks and, beyond, the outline of oil well derricks. A straggling, muddy road wound away from the buildings. Trolley cars, stores and shops, brick buildings to serve as libraries and schools—there seemed to be none.