“I thank Heaven I escaped death,” Dorothy said, reverently. “And you let Lance alone.”
But Lance Petterby had already had his attention strongly drawn to Tavia Travers, and even had she so wished, she could not have easily avoided him while he remained at the ranch.
Lance stayed for only two nights. Then he had to return to duty, but his mother remained. Ophelia was not easily caught after her last escapade. She had joined Mrs. Ledger’s half-wild flock of fowl, and thus far nobody had been able to catch the little hen from Rand’s Falls, Massachusetts.
When Hank and his wife had a chicken for dinner, Mrs. Ledger took the shotgun and got near enough to the flock to blow the head off of the chicken she selected.
So, as Mrs. Petterby could not think of being parted from Ophelia for any length of time, she agreed to remain at the Hardin Ranch. The lively old lady was some company for Aunt Winnie, so Dorothy and Tavia decided to roam a little after Lance went away.
There was no hope of the girls getting Ned and Nat for companions these days. They were both in the saddle from morning till night. They had helped run down the wild ponies that had stampeded.
Hank declared the boys were wearing out all the cow ponies, they rode so hard. But there were a couple of more or less quiet mounts for the girls’ use, and Flores was always about to help Dorothy and Tavia catch and saddle them. Flores could handle horses like any man, could throw the lariat, and otherwise displayed achievements natural to a girl in the West, but strange to those from the East.
“There!” complained Tavia, as she and her chum rode away from the corral. “You never finished telling me about that girl and the handsome stage driver, Doro. Aren’t they planning to run away and get married?”
“I don’t think so,” said Dorothy, with a little smile.
“But you don’t know for sure?” said the eager Tavia.