“Yes, Paw,” replied a sweet, if rather shrill, voice from the open stairway that led to the upper chamber of the store-building.
“Here comes somebody I reckon you’ll wanter see,” bawled the old man.
There was a light step on the stair; but it halted on the last tread and a lithe, red-haired, peachy complexioned girl looked into the big room.
“Well, now, Paw,” she said, sharply. “You ain’t got me down yere for that bashful Ike Stedman, have you? For if he’s come prognosticating around yere again I declare I’ll bounce a bucket off his head. He’s the biggest gump!”
“Come on yere, gal!” snapped her father. “I ain’t said nothin’ about Ike. This yere’s Bill Hicks an’ all his crowd comin’ up from Bullhide in a blamed ol’ steam waggin.”
Sally ran out through the store and reached the piazza just as the snorting automobile came near and slowed down. A lithe, handsome, dark girl was at the wheel; beside her was a very pretty, plump girl with rosy cheeks and the brightest eyes imaginable; the third person crowded into the front seat was a youth who looked so much like the girl who was running the machine that they might have changed clothes and nobody would have been the wiser—save that Tom Cameron’s hair was short and his twin sister, Helen’s, was long and curly. The girl between the twins was Ruth Fielding.
In the big tonneau of the car was a great, tall, bony man with an enormous “walrus” mustache and a very red face; beside him sat a rather freckled girl with snapping black eyes, who wore very splendid clothes as though she was not used to them. With this couple were a big, blond boy and three girls—one of them so stout that she crowded her companions on the seat into their individual corners, and packed them in there somewhat after the nature of sardines in a can.
“Hello, Sally!” cried the girl in the very fine garments, stretching her hand out to greet the storekeeper’s daughter as the automobile came to a stop.
“Hi, Lem!” bawled the man with the huge mustache. “Is Silver Ranch on the map yet, or have them punchers o’ mine torn the face of Nater all to shreds an’ only left me some o’ the pieces?”
“I dunno ‘bout that, Bill,” drawled the fat storekeeper, shuffling down the steps in his list slippers, and finally reached and shaking the hand of Mr. William Hicks, owner of Silver Ranch. “But when some of your cows set their eyes on this contraption they’re goin’ to kick holes in the air—an’ that’s sartain!”