“Stewart’s orders!” echoed Madeline. Her friends were suddenly silent.
“I reckon he won’t take no chances on the boys bein’ surprised sudden by raiders. An’ there’s raiders operatin’ in from the Guadalupes. That’s all. Nothin’ to worry over. I was just explainin’.”
Madeline, with several of her party, expressed relief, but Helen showed excitement and then disappointment.
“Oh, I want something to happen!” she cried.
Sixteen pairs of keen cowboy eyes fastened intently upon her pretty, petulant face; and Madeline divined, if Helen did not, that the desired consummation was not far off.
“So do I,” said Dot Coombs. “It would be perfectly lovely to have a real adventure.”
The gaze of the sixteen cowboys shifted and sought the demure face of this other discontented girl. Madeline laughed, and Stillwell wore his strange, moving smile.
“Wal, I reckon you ladies sure won’t have to go home unhappy,” he said. “Why, as boss of this heah outfit I’d feel myself disgraced forever if you didn’t have your wish. Just wait. An’ now, ladies, the matter on hand may not be amusin’ or excitin’ to you; but to this heah cowboy outfit it’s powerful important. An’ all the help you can give us will sure be thankfully received. Take a look across the links. Do you-all see them two apologies for human bein’s prancin’ like a couple of hobbled broncs? Wal, you’re gazin’ at Monty Price an’ Link Stevens, who have of a sudden got too swell to associate with their old bunkies. They’re practisin’ for the toornament. They don’t want my boys to see how they handle them crooked clubs.”
“Have you picked your team?” inquired Madeline.
Stillwell mopped his red face with an immense bandana, and showed something of confusion and perplexity.