The Motor Maids Across the Continent Part 25

It was a rest to their eyes and their minds, therefore, to look down on this peaceful and exquisite valley, Evelyn's home.

"It's all very beautiful," observed Miss Campbell. "I'm sure I never saw a more enchanting scene in my life. But there's one thing that makes it more beautiful to me even than the Vale of Cashmere, and that's a hot bath. I'm looking forward to a hot bath, my dears, and a good night's rest on a hair mattress in the best hotel in the city. I trust you feel the same."

The girls laughed.

"We look a good deal like a United States geological surveying party, after three months in the wilderness," answered Daniel Moore, looking quizzically at the girls' sunburned faces, and glancing down at his gray flannel s.h.i.+rt, borrowed from Jim Bowles.

"I do feel as if I had returned to my natural element," said Elinor; "just a handful of dust. I am chewing dust and seeing dust and hearing dust. My hair is dust and so are my clothes."

"After we are scrubbed and shampooed and manicured and fed and rested,"

here put in Billie, "I shall write a note to your Evelyn, Mr. Moore."

The young man hesitated.

"I've repented my bargain with you, Miss Billie. I'm afraid you might get into some kind of trouble. I should never forgive myself if I involved you in any difficulties."

"Nonsense," said Billie, who, having made up her mind to see Evelyn, was not going to be thwarted at the eleventh hour. "There could be no possible harm in my writing and asking her to call. Besides, we know her now anyhow, quite well. Don't we, Helen?"

"Yes-s-," hesitated her cousin. "But I agree with Mr. Moore, that we had better not make any more efforts to see Evelyn, although I can't possibly see how we could become involved in any trouble by renewing our acquaintance."

So the discussion came to an end. What this beautiful city with the mysteries which hung over it had in store for them, they could not even guess. Perhaps they would visit its chief points of interest like ordinary tourists, and perhaps, who knows, they might penetrate far deeper into its secrets. They were certain of one thing, however, that Daniel Moore, for all his self-contained and calm exterior, was consumed with an unquenchable flame of determination. By hook or by crook, he would see Evelyn Stone, and, provided she was willing, he would take her away from Utah.

"And we are likely to be the 'hook or crook,'" observed Billie, through whose mind these thoughts were pa.s.sing, as she guided the Comet into a broad, s.p.a.cious street, lined with beautiful stone houses.

"Where does Evelyn live?" asked Nancy. "Couldn't we go by the house on our way to the hotel?"

"Their town house is on this very street," answered Evelyn's lover, "but they are likely to be in the country at this time of the year. That's another difficulty. You will see the place presently. It's on the corner. Old Stone is a very rich person, I'm afraid. If he hadn't had so much money, he wouldn't have looked down on me as a son-in-law."

Billie slowed up as they neared the fine granite mansion built by Evelyn's father. The front shades were all pulled down, and there was not a sign of life about the place.

"It looks more like a prison than a home," Billie exclaimed. "Does he keep his pretty Evelyn locked up there all winter?"

"I'm afraid so," said Daniel ruefully. "She hasn't had much liberty since she met me, anyhow. He's an infernal old--"

Daniel broke off in the middle of a sentence, for the front door of the Stone house had opened, and there on the threshold, like a dragon at the castle gate, stood John James Stone. He could never be said to glance casually at anything, but his sharp eyes only rested for a moment on the pa.s.sing motor car, and he turned on his heel and entered the house.

"The old fox is never away, you see," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Daniel Moore.

But they soon approached an immense, splendid hotel, and the thought of hot baths and clean clothes was sweeter to the weary ladies at that moment than the most idyllic romance ever conceived.

It was to this hotel that Daniel Moore's luggage had been checked, and there he found and redeemed it with the check the late train robber had considerately returned to him.

"You won't see us again until seven o'clock to-night, Mr. Moore," Miss Campbell had said. "And then you may not know us, we shall be so transformed with soap and water."

"I may have news for you by then," he said, as they separated at the elevator.

And that was the last they were to see of Daniel Moore for many a day to come.

"I suppose b.u.t.terflies feel about as we do," observed Nancy that evening as they filed down to dinner.

"Meaning when they cease to be worms and appear clothed in fine raiment," asked Billie.

"Not so very fine," answered Nancy, fingering a streamer of her pink sash with a tender touch, as she glanced complaisantly down at her lingerie frock.

Billie laughed teasingly.

"Little b.u.t.terfly," she said, "is there anything; you like better than pretty clothes?"

Nancy pouted and smiled.

"There is just this minute," she answered. "Dinner with waiters and soup and mayonnaise and strawberry ice cream."

They exchanged happy smiles over Nancy's inconsequential menu.

After a month's Gypsying, it was good to be civilized for a few days before the thirst for wandering came over them again, and they must push on toward California.

Daniel Moore was not at the appointed meeting-place, in one of the small sitting rooms. They waited impatiently for him for a quarter of an hour, and finally left word at the desk that he would find them in the dining room. There, in the interest of dinner and of the occupants of other tables, their recent fellow traveler completely pa.s.sed from their minds.

"It takes a thousand miles of privation to appreciate real comfort,"

observed Miss Helen Campbell, delicately nibbling the breast of a spring chicken. "My dear children, how very pleasant this is, to be sure."

The Motor Maids fully agreed with her. The lights and the flowers, the music and the well-trained waiters, as well as the delicious dinner, afforded them supreme enjoyment for the moment. They tried to remember that less than seventy years had pa.s.sed since the first ox-drawn emigrant wagon had entered the valley.

"And since that time all this has happened," cried Mary dramatically.

For it was she, more than the others, who loved the history of the places through which they pa.s.sed. "They say Brigham Young saw it all in a dream," she continued, "and the moment he set eyes on the valley and the lake, he said: 'This is the place. Drive on.'"

"'And forty years later Brigham Young laid the corner-stone for the Temple,'" read Billie from the guide book in a sing-song voice. "'The architecture is composite--' What's that?"

She raised her eyes questioningly. "Why, you haven't heard a word I--"

she began.

Four pairs of eyes were turned toward the entrance of the dining room, where stood a tall, slender, young girl, in a white dress. Her red-gold hair was coiled low on her neck. Her arms hung limply at her sides, and she gazed with a listless air into s.p.a.ce, without seeing any of the diners at the tables. Her father, the imperturbable John James Stone, was on one side of her, and on the other an equally imperturbable young man, with a stern, rather hard countenance, a square jaw and a mouth as inscrutable and enigmatic as the shut door of a tomb.

The head waiter conducted the party to a table in a far-distant corner of the room, where the girls could see them without staring rudely.

"That's Evelyn Stone," said a woman at the table next to them. "She's with her fiance, Ebenezer Stone. He's her second cousin, you know."

"When did you say they were to be married?"

"The day after to-morrow. That's why they're in town. She is to be married in the annex of the Temple on Sat.u.r.day. They say she's not over-anxious, either. There was another man in the case, you know. But something happened, and she's consented to marry Ebenezer, who's always wanted her. He's a good Mormon and hard working. He's made a lot of money, I believe--"

"He's a piece of granite without any soul," put in a man in the party.

"Strike it hard enough, and sparks will fly," said one of the women.

The Motor Maids and Miss Campbell exchanged looks of dismay.