“Jerry told them that about a mile, straight ahead, they would find a side road leading toward the mountains. If they would turn there, they would come to a rushing stream. They could have all the water they wished. And then, Jerry said, feeling so terribly sorry for them, he added on an impulse, ‘There’s a herder’s shack close by. Stay all night in it if you want. It’s my father’s land and you’re welcome.’”
Dora turned an eager face toward the speaker. “Dick,” she said, “I believe I can tell you what happened next. That poor family stayed all night in that herder’s shack and they never left.”
Dick nodded. “Are you a mind reader?” he asked, his big, dark eyes smiling at her through the shell-rimmed glasses.
“No-o. I don’t believe that I am.” Then eagerly, “But do tell me what possible connection that poor family can have with this expedition of ours.”
“Isn’t that like a girl?” Dick teased. “You want to hear the last chapter, before you know what happened to lead up to it. I’ll return to the morning after. Jerry said he had thought of the family all the afternoon, and that night when he got home, he told his mother, who, as you know, has a heart of gold.”
“Oh, Dick!” Dora interrupted. “Gold may be precious, but it isn’t as tender and kind, always, as the heart of Jerry’s mother.”
“Be that as it may,” the boy continued, “Mrs. Newcomb packed a hamper—this very one now reposing at our feet, I suppose—with all manner of good things and she had Jerry harness up as soon as he’d eaten and take her to call on their unexpected guests. They found the woman lying on the one mattress, coughing pitifully, and the others gazing at her, the little ones frightened, and huddled, the older girl on her knees rubbing her mother’s hands. The father stood looking down with such despair in his eyes, Mrs. Newcomb said, as she had never before seen.
“‘There’d ought to be a doctor here,’ she said at once, but the woman on the mattress smiled up at her feebly and shook her head. ‘I’m going on now,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and I’d go on gladly,—I’m so tired—if I knew my children had a roof over their heads and—and—,’ then a fit of coughing came. When it passed, the woman lay looking up at Jerry’s mother, her dim eyes pleading, and Mrs. Newcomb knelt beside her and took her almost lifeless hand and said, ‘Do not worry, dear friend, your children shall have a roof over their heads and food.’ Then the mother smiled at her loved ones, closed her eyes and went on.”
There were tears in Dora’s eyes, and she frankly wiped them away with her handkerchief. Unashamed, Dick said, “That’s just how I felt when Jerry told me about the Dooleys. That’s their name. Of course, Mrs. Newcomb kept her word. That little shack is in a lovely spot near the stream with big cottonwood trees around it. After the funeral, Mr. Newcomb told the father that he and the boys could cut down some of the small cottonwoods upstream, leaving every third one, and build another room, so they put up a lean-to. Then he gave them a cow to milk and the boys started a vegetable garden. Mr. Dooley does odd jobs on the ranch, though he isn’t strong enough for hard riding, and the girl Etta mothers the baby and the little boys.”
“Have we reached that last chapter?” Dora asked. “The one I was trying to hear before we got to it? In other words, may I now know how this terribly tragic story links up with our today’s adventuring?”