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home is where you hide it
! •'•ontinued )
twisted and bumped up the mountainside. She closed her eyes a couple of times when the car skidded. Finally, somehow, they reached the summit. Rory Mopped the car, and dramatically, like a master of ceremonies introducing a headline act, exclaimed. "There it is. honey!"
Lita looked down. Below her, at least a thousand feet, lay a beautiful hidden valley, surrounded on every side by snow-capped ridges. A gently-winding stream, fed by melting snows, flowed down the valley floor and out of sight around a canyon wall. In (he pasture to the right, a few scattered horses, -haggy in their winter coats, grazed on the first spring grass.
Shivering against the mountain wind, Lita filled her eyes with the view, and said. "It's simply breath:aking. Rory. But — where are we. for heaven's sake?'" Shangri-la. " Rory answered, his eyes dancing. "Hang on and we ll drive down to it." He kicked in the clutch and the car started downhill.
\ few minutes later,, they rolled into a dilapidated ranch yard at the very foot of the mountain. To Lita. the place looked simply awful. An old. weatherbeaten lodge, a number of scattered cabins, an unpainted pitch-roofed barn, and a stunted apple orchard. There was rubbish everywhere — tin cans, boxes, old auto tires. A real mess. From eye-level, it seemed as though the valley were an endless expanse of barren loneliness. After the car motor died, there wasn't a sound. But she decided to let Rory give her the cue. He obviously had something on this mind, for he was looking at her with a strange, inspired look.
"Come on," he said. Lets get out and look around."
"All right." Lita replied, after a slight hesitation.
They walked onto the porch of the lodge. Two giant elk-heads hung from the heavy pine-log wall. ■As Rory absently picked a piece of chinking out of the wall. Lita noticed that that look had come into his eyes again.
"This cabin,'" he confided, "is more than 75 years old. It was built by the Lethrop family, who originally homesteaded this valley in 1879. Fine people. It's a real shame the place hasdeteriorated so badly."
Then Rory conducted her through the old lodge. It consisted of two adjoining bedrooms, a bathroom, a big living room with an immense rock fireplace, a barroom, a huge dining room, kitchen and pantry. Yet all Lita could see were the cracked boards, the broken furniture, and the two inches of dirt which covered everything.
Outside, Rory started talking again, as he took her arm and began walking her down to the barns.
"Honey, .this is the old Circle-B ranch. There are 155 acres of it. running all the way down the valley." He stopped to make a sweeping gesture with his arm. like the last {Continued on pa^e 92)
PLENTY OF WORK 3alhoun, working hard to get his
1 Vr mountain ranch info sound repair, dis
T/rages the crows with a slingshot. Assisting him is Ralph Mantiz, a
IfiR PHP A ffi WRfW os with his lariat—
JVfO rWH M WHDVI. this Qfternoon, he|| be roping
'wo calves which are to be branded. He has always liked cowboy life
PLENTY OF FUN ' " shows Rory how well her
" I VI horse-shoe pitching has come along un
der his instruction. Lita, a night-club singer and dancer since her
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