Dude Ranch Read Online Free PDF

Vandermeer,” the sheriff said humbly. “And the job is law and order!”
    The two men shook hands. The audience burst into applause, including all the members of The Saddle Club.
    “That was terrific!” Lisa said. “It was so realistic, I
almost
believed it at first.”
    “Me, too,” Carole said.
    Stevie remained silent.
    “Everybody does the first time they see it,” Kate said.
    “How did the guy roll off the porch?” Carole asked.
    “There’s a stack of mattresses,” Kate said. “Come on, I’ll show you.” Lisa and Carole followed her behind the scenes of the cowboy drama.
    But Stevie was distracted by the arrival of a dog. It was a big and beautiful German shepherd. The dog sniffed at Stevie’s hand and then waited patiently. Stevie got the signal. She patted him on the head, and scratched behind his soft ears. His tail wagged joyfully. He sat while she patted him some more. He was wearing tags and she wanted to see if they said what his name was, but before she could read them, there was a loud whistle. The dog’s ears perked up. He stood up, turned abruptly, and ran off in the direction of the whistle. Stevie completely lost him in the crowd and couldn’t even see who his owner was. She shrugged to herself. It was probably somebody who would think she was just a
dude
, anyway.
    She ran after her friends to see the mattresses where the “deputy” had landed. When she got there, she found that Carole and Lisa were having their pictures taken with the man who’d played the deputy. He wasstanding between them grinning proudly. Stevie joined in on the photograph session.
    Why not?
she thought, smiling to herself. After all, she
was
a dude.

S TEWBALL GALLOPED ALONG the Pine Hollow cross-country trail. The German shepherd kept pace with the galloping horse. Stevie held a lariat in her right hand and her reins in her left. She swung the lariat up over her head where it formed a perfect circle. At just the right minute, she tossed it over the bank robber’s head and yanked it tight, pinning his arms to his body. His six-shooter clattered to the ground. She waited for applause. There was none. All she heard was a whistle. The dog ran off.
    Stevie sat up in bed. There was a gray darkness in the room. Her bedside clock said it was 4:45.
    As she sat there, staring at the blue numbers, her very odd dream came back to her. Of course, it was just her mind piecing together the experiences she’dhad in the last few days. They had been an unusual few days, to say the least. But why had she awakened?
    Stevie heard the whistle again. It
hadn’t
been part of her dream. It had been for real. There was something familiar about the sound, but she couldn’t recall what it was or why.
    Silently, Stevie crept out of bed and went to look out the porch window of the bunkhouse. It took her a few seconds to focus in the dim light of the very early morning. Her eyes identified the main house and the barn as well as silhouettes of a few trees against the horizon, where the first dim light of dawn was appearing. Then there was motion.
    Stevie realized that there was another silhouette—this one of a horse and a bareback rider. She squinted her eyes. The horse stood motionless. The rider leaned forward ever so slightly, as if peering into the distance. Then there was the whistle again. It was the rider’s whistle that had awakened her in the first place. Then, from behind the horse, a dog joined the horse and rider. The dog’s tail wagged eagerly. The whistle was familiar; the dog looked familiar. Could it be the dog who had befriended Stevie in Two Mile Creek after the “bank robbery”?
    Then, silently, the horse turned and moved off slowly. The dog trotted easily behind. Soon the threesome was completely out of Stevie’s view.
    She scratched her head and returned to her bunk. What kind of person would go riding at this hour of the day? What kind of person rode bareback?
    “Oh,” she whispered to herself.
Native