Dorothy Dale to the Rescue by Margaret Penrose

"Who? Them? " asked Lance, in apparent surprise at the question. "Why, the names of those two rogues is mighty unpopular words round this section. Reckoned you knew who they was. They was the two I been tellin' you about-pals of Larrimer's."

"Not -- " began Dorothy.

Lance nodded, jerking the little car to the middle of the road as they bounced over a particularly uneven spot in the trail that threatened to send them into a ditch by the roadside.

"Stiffbold and Lightly. You got them right the first time, ma'am."

"Oh, isn't this perfectly thrilling? " cried Tavia delightedly. "At every turn in the road the plot thickens!"

"But they told us their names were Blake and Gibbons! " cried Dorothy, leaning forward in her seat while Lance, crouched behind the wheel, turned half-way around the better to hear her.

This position undoubtedly imperiled the safety of the car and its passengers. It also greatly alarmed the plump and rosy Mrs. Petterby, who had not yet outgrown her fear of the car nor developed the absolute faith in her husband's ability to "drive with one hand and the other tied behind him" that Lance declared he deserved.

However, she kept silent, merely gripping the edge of the seat with two plump hands and praying for the best.

"Very likely they did, Miss Dorothy," returned Lance, in response to Dorothy's declaration that, aboard the train, the names of her traveling companions had been given as Blake and Gibbons. "Reckon they have a different set of names for every town they stay in. I imagine their moves are many and devious and they are not always keen on havin' them followed up."

"I wonder what they were doing in Chicago," said Dorothy, speaking her thought aloud. At her words Lance immediately, as Tavia described it, "pricked up his ears."

"Oh, then they was in Chicago? " he said, whistling softly. "Kind of glad to know that, all things considered. Ain't no other information you'd like to give me, is there, ma'am?"

Whereupon Dorothy immediately launched into a detailed account of their meeting with the two men and of the startling, though unsatisfactory, conversation which she and Tavia had accidentally overheard in the dining room of the Chicago hotel.

Lance evinced great interest, especially in the fact that Garry's name had been mentioned.

"Why should these scoundrels especially pick on Garry? " asked Tavia suddenly. "Isn't there anybody besides Garry around here that has something they want?"

"There ain't nobody around here that has something that they don't want to get it away from them, Miss Tavia," rejoined Lance, with his grim chuckle.

"Then why must they pick on Garry? More than the rest, I mean? " persisted Tavia.

Lance shrugged his shoulders eloquently.

"Because Garry Knapp happens to have the largest and most succulent wheat land anywhere around here," he said. "Lightly and Stiffbold and those fellers believe in hookin' the big fish first. Then they can come after us little ones."

"Do you think Garry is in any real danger? " asked Dorothy slowly. "Any personal danger, I mean?"

Lance shook his head emphatically.