Henderson Daily Dispatch

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

SANDRA HAD hoped to shock Susy Adams, by stepping up to the booth where she sat with a cowboy But there was no such satisfaction.
The cowboy, however, seemed agitated, trying as he was to keep the red-haired girl and her partner from seeing the several hundred-dollar bills he was shoving into his wallet.
But Susy was as calm as if she were serving tea to an old maiden aunt. "Hello there!" She smiled, her usual congenial smile, so maddening to Sandra. "Dumpy and I were having a business transaction." She turned now to the cowboy and her smile faded a bit. "You might as well get started, Dumpy."
"Yes," he agreed. He got up and crowded awkwardly around the edge of the booth. "I'm pullin freight."
Susy discouraged his explanation. "Goodby, Dumpy."
Dumpy understood. He shut his lips so tightly they all but disappeared and he moved away as swiftly as a cowpuncher can move in high-heeled boots, across a polished dance floor.
Sandra overtook him easily and kept beside him. "So you are the tattle-tale guy, Dumpy!"
This little bantam-sized cow-puncher from the ranch adjoining the Mesquite: the one with whom she had eaten sandwiches and played pinball the night Gordon had met her at the gate and kissed her. No wonder Susy had been so well informed.
Dumpy turned and met Sandra's scathing look. He colored a bit, but not much. "A fellow has to live." he muttered defensively.
"Most cowpunchers ride after cattle. Or play the guitar and sing."
"Or marry a girl with six million bucks. But I ain't got the looks of Gordon Adams. Nope, Miss Edwards, I ain't pretty. And I can't play no guitar and yodel. And cows and horses give me hay fever.
So I just make my livin' in my own way."
He glanced back toward the booth. Susy Adams was watching them, but making no attempt to follow. Of course Bernie's fat body was across the end of the booth. That possibly had something to do with it, but mainly Susy did not consider it worth her time. She owned Dumpy: he would behave.
Sandra also glanced back and felt the blond girl's contemptuous smile over her.
At the exit door Sandra put her hand on the cowpuncher's arm to detain him a moment longer. "So now you are off to find Mr. Adams? Is that right?"
"Yeh. And I will find him. It'll take time, but what do I care? The more time, the more expense money." He reddened again beneath Sandra's glare.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," she said helplessly.
His brazen manner had returned "And you should have more money Then you could outbid Mrs. Adams
So long." He swaggered out the door.
A horrible sensation of futility settled over Sandra. There didn't seem to be anything she could do to better her own predicament.
These people, she noted with abhorrence, were as cut-throat in their methods as rival designers in Wakeman-Benet.
Bernie rolled over to meet her, as she came back toward Susy's booth. "Let's not go back there," he suggested. "I think our work is done so far as she is concerned. She said she wished you'd get out of her hair. So I told her you intended to leave and she was delighted. So let's leave her to her delight." They were at the refreshment counter now. "Beers," he ordered.
When they were put before them, in tall glasses. Bernie lifted his in a salute: "Here's to a new address, Sandra." They drank.
"I'm surprised that she wants me to leave." the girl said. "I supposed she'd like me to stick around so she could poke her finger into my eye at regular intervals."
"The person whose eye she'd really like to poke is Gordon. You, like Belinda, are simply a minor nuisance that she prefers not to have to look at, while she sits around and waits. And she will wait, Sandra. She has the patience of Job in some ways." He patted his companion's arm. "Of course I know you are waiting also, Sandra, but get your mind on something besides Gordon Adams, while you are waiting."
Although she had assurance that Susy wanted her to leave the Mesquite, Sandra did not tell anyone-except Brody-where she was going. To others she said she intended to spend some time in La Madera.
She did spend two days there.
Then she and Spenser boarded a train for Los Angeles, installed themselves in an apartment hotel, and the following week-end, when she could get away from school, met Belinda downtown for lunch.
They lunched in a restaurant where soft organ music made a background for, not a threat against, conversation. The reunion was as exciting as if they had been separated for months, instead of days. Belinda and Spenser made food disappear as if they were magicians. Fruit cocktail, roast lamb, green peas and whipped potatoes, orange and avocado salad, marshmallow sundae and milk.
"In Mr. Birch's drug store," said Belinda, "I always take the paper out of the sundae and lick it."
"But there is no paper in this sundae dish."
Spenser, intent on scraping the bottom of the silver dish, did not even glance up. "Of course, at Mr. Birch's drug store I always ordered two of whatever I was having."
Sandra let his wistful tone ring in the air for several seconds, until he did look up, in fact. "I heard you," she said then. "Do you think you and Belinda could eat another sundae?"
"I think we might have a dash at it, don't you, Belinda?"
"Sure. Chocolate this time. You know, school is great, but we don't get sauce on our ice cream. So far anyway. Just plain ice cream."
"It's probably just as well, If you're going to feast this way every time you get out," observed Sandra.
At the same time she distributed her mild chastisement, she was thinking: This is pretty wonderful. My having the love of these two fine youngsters. It is especially wonderful because neither cared anything about me at first.
Glutted with food, Spenser finally sank back against the cushioned wall. "You know." he said lazily. "if we had a house instead of an apartment we could have Tex with us. And sometimes we could have Belinda spend the night with us."
"But supposing we shouldn't stay long enough to take a lease on a house?"
"Not stay?" The English boy's tone was bewildered. "But we have to stay here, dash it all, so long as Belinda is in school. When she goes back to the Mesquite we'll toddle along and when she comes back to school we'll go back to our house."
His face cleared, now that he had solved everything. "It's extremely simple. Really it is."
"There is only one drawback. It sounds like a great deal of money."
Spenser was still more bewildered now. "Does that make so much difference, Sandra?"
"It makes enough that I may have to go back to work "
The doctor said no.
"He said no to my bringing you along, too, Spenser, and I hardly think we can complain about the way things turned out."
"I wasn't sick."
Sandra reminded with a slight smile: "I thought you had a stomach ache."
"Oh, that!" Spenser blushed.
"Sandra, you must not go back to work. Not until you are well rested."
The little girl now came out of her stupor, caused by her abundant lunch.
"You must never worry about money, Red. You know what a batch of it I have and I'm spending it now that I know it's from my grandfather instead of her."
They'll be impatient with me If I cry, Sandra cautioned herself She simply patted Belinda's shoulder.
"Thank you, dear." She was so touched by the girl's quixotic gesture that Spenser's sudden pugnaciousness shocked her.
"I'll look after Sandra." he bellowed.
"How?" squelched Belinda. "The only dough you have is the allowance Sandra gives you."
"When I go to work at Superior Studios. That's how."
"And what makes you so sure you'll be the one chosen to go to work at Superior Studios?"
(To Be Continued)