“Does Mr. McGee live here?” asked Billie timidly of a tall athletic looking young man who had opened the door. He was dressed in buckskin with high boots, a blue flannel shirt and a silk handkerchief knotted around his neck. The girls thought him quite the most picturesque person they had seen since they left home. Even in the darkness they could see the deep flush of embarrassment mount to his face.
“There is a Mr. McGee who lives here—yes,” he answered, choking with bashfulness.
“Will you ask him to come out at once, please,” said Miss Campbell, with a growing uneasiness that there might be some mistake.
But her fears were immediately allayed, for Barney himself came running around the side of the rancho.
“Ladies, I hope you’ll excuse me for not bein’ on the spot as soon as you arrived. I waited for you some hours on the door step. Tell the fellers to shut up, Jim, and stop starin’ there like a wooden injun. Call Rosina. Tell her the ladies have arrived.”
The place suddenly became as still as the grave, and by the time the Motor Maids and Miss Helen had alighted and been conducted into a cemented courtyard around which the house was built, after the Spanish style, there was not a person to be seen except Jim, who followed obediently with some of the luggage.
Rosina Steptoe, who had married Barney’s cousin, Brek Steptoe, now hurried into the room. She was a wiry little woman with a dark swarthy face, beady black eyes, black hair and a rather sweet expression which saved her from being really very ugly. The girls thought at first she might have some Spanish blood. Her manners were gracious and she shook hands with them cordially when Barney made the introductions.
“Will you come right in to supper?” she said, without asking them to go to their rooms. “We want to get through early because Barney is giving a dance for you to-night, and the people will be coming before we finish if we don’t hurry.”
“Dear, dear,” ejaculated Miss Campbell under her breath.
They had not counted on being entertained by the cowboy, and began to wonder what they had been drawn into.