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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42014 ***
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration.
+      See 42014-h.htm or 42014-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42014/42014-h/42014-h.htm)
+      or
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/42014/42014-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Down the steps she went, holding out the papers. (Page 173)]
+
+
+MEG OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN
+
+by
+
+GRACE MAY NORTH
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Saalfield Publishing Company
+Akron, Ohio    New York
+
+Copyright MCMXXVI
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+MEG OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                        THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL
+
+
+Jane Abbott, tall, graceful and languidly beautiful, passed through the
+bevy of girls on the wharf below Highacres Seminary with scarcely a nod
+for any of them. Closely following her came three other girls, each
+carrying a satchel and wearing a tailored gown of the latest cut.
+
+Although Esther Ballard and Barbara Morris called gaily to many of their
+friends, it was around Marion Starr that all of the girls crowded until
+her passage way to the small boat, even then getting up steam, was
+completely blocked.
+
+Jane, when she had crossed the gang plank, turned to find only Esther and
+Barbara at her side. A slight sneer curled her lips as she watched the
+adulation which Merry was receiving. Then, with a shrug of her slender
+shoulders that was more eloquent than words, the proud girl seated
+herself in one of the reclining deck chairs and imperiously motioned her
+friends to do likewise.
+
+"It's so silly of Merry to make such a fuss over all those girls. She'll
+miss the boat if she doesn't hurry."
+
+Marion had evidently thought of the same thing, for she laughingly ran up
+the gang plank, her arms filled with candy boxes, boquets and magazines,
+gifts of her admiring friends. Depositing these on a chair, she leaned
+over the rail to call: "Good-bye, girls! Of course I'll write to you,
+Sally, reams and reams; a sort of a round-robin letter to be sent to the
+whole crowd.
+
+"Sure thing, Betty Ann. I'll tell my handsome brother Bob that you don't
+want him to ever forget you." Then as there was a protest from the wharf,
+the girl laughingly added: "But you wished to be remembered to him. Isn't
+that the same thing?"
+
+Noticing a small girl who had put her handkerchief to her eyes, Merry
+remonstrated. "Tessie, don't cry, child! This isn't a funeral or a
+wedding. Of course you'll see us again. We four intend to come back to
+Highacres to watch you graduate just as you watched us today. Work hard,
+Little One, and carry off the honors. I've been your big-sister coach all
+this year, and I want you to make the goal. I know you will! Goodbye!"
+Marion Starr could say no more for the small river steamer gave a warning
+whistle--the rope was drawn in, and, as the boat churned the water
+noisily in starting, the chorus of goodbyes from the throng of girls on
+the wharf could be heard but faintly.
+
+Marion remained standing at the rail, waving her handkerchief, smiling
+and nodding until the small steamer rounded a jutting-out point of land,
+then she turned about and faced the three other girls, who had made
+themselves comfortable in the reclining steamer chairs.
+
+"What a fuss you make over all those undergrads, Merry," Jane Abbott
+remarked languidly. "A casual observer might suppose that each one of
+them was a very best friend, while we three, who are here present, have
+that honor. For myself, I much prefer to conserve my enthusiasm."
+
+Marion sat down in a vacant steamer chair, and merely smiled her reply,
+but the youngest among them, Esther Ballard, flashed a defense for her
+ideal among girls. "That's the very reason why Merry was unanimously
+voted the most popular girl in Highacres during the entire four years
+that we have been at the seminary. Nothing was ever too much trouble, and
+no girl was too unimportant for Merry's loving consideration."
+
+"Listen! Listen!" laughed good natured Barbara Morris. "All salute Saint
+Marion Starr."
+
+But Esther, flushed and eager, did not stop. "While you, Jane
+Abbott"--she could not keep the scorn out of her voice--"while you were
+only voted the most beautiful."
+
+"Only?" there was a rising inflection in Barbara's voice, and she also
+lifted her eyebrows questioningly. "I think our queen is quite satisfied
+with her laurels."
+
+Jane merely shrugged her shoulders, then turning her dark, shapely head
+on the small cherry colored pillow with which she always traveled, she
+asked in her usual languid manner, "Marion, let's forget the past and
+plan for the future."
+
+"You said you had a wonderful vacation trip to suggest, and that you
+would reveal it when we were on the boat. Well, this is the time and the
+place."
+
+"And the girls?" chimed in Barbara. "Do hurry and tell us, Merry. Your
+plans are always jolly."
+
+And so with a smile of pleasurable anticipation, Merry began to unfold
+her scheme.
+
+"Aunt Belle is going to one of those adorable cottage hotels at Newport.
+She is just past-perfect as a chaperone and she said that she thought a
+party of four girls would be ideal. It will only cost each of us about
+$100 a month."
+
+"A mere mite," Jane Abbott commented, "and the plan, as far as I'm
+concerned, is simply inspirational. I've always had a wild desire to live
+at one of those fashionable cottage-hotels, but not having a mother to
+take me, I have never been. I know my father will be glad to have me go,
+since your Aunt Belle is to be there, and I shall ask for $150 a month,
+so that we may have plenty of ice cream and not feel stinted."
+
+The usually indolent Jane was so interested in Merry's plan that she was
+actually sitting erect, the small cherry-colored pillow in her lap.
+
+"I'm not so sure that I can go," Esther Ballard said ruefully. "My father
+is not a Wall Street magnate as is your father, Jane, and $100 a month
+may seem a good deal to him, following so closely the vast sum that he
+has had to spend on my four years' tuition at Highacres."
+
+"Nonsense," Jane flashed at their youngest. "You are the idol of your
+artist-father's existence. He'd give you anything you needed to make you
+happy."
+
+Then, before Esther could voice her retort, the older girl had continued:
+"As for me, I shall need an additional $500 for clothes. Since we are
+going to so fashionable a place, we ought to have the smartest and latest
+summer styles from Paris. Let's all make note of the wardrobe we'd like
+to take."
+
+Out came four small leather notebooks and with tiny pencils suspended
+above them, the girls thought for a moment.
+
+Then Merry scribbled something as she remarked, "My first is a bathing
+suit. Green, the color mermaids wear."
+
+"Mine shall be cherry colored. It best suits my style of beauty," Jane
+said complacently.
+
+"You surely do look peachy in it," Barbara remarked admirably. "It
+doesn't matter what I put on, my squint and my freckled pug nose spoil it
+all."
+
+"Oh, you're not so bad!" Esther said generously. "I heard one of the
+cadets at our closing dance say that he thought your squint was
+adorable."
+
+"Lead me to him!" Barbara jumped up as though about to start in search of
+her unknown admirer, but sank back again when she recalled that she was
+on a steamer which was chugging down the Hudson at its best speed.
+
+"Do be serious, girls. See, I've made out a long list of things that I
+shall need." Jane held up her notebook for inspection. But Esther closed
+hers and replaced it in her natty alligator traveling bag. "I'll select
+my wardrobe after I have had my father's consent," she said. "You might
+as well stop planning now, Jane, as we are nearly to the Battery."
+
+Esther was right and in another five moments all was confusion on the
+small steamer. When they had safely crossed the gang plank, Merry
+detained them long enough to say, "Girls, before we part, let's plan to
+meet at my home next Friday. Since you will all have to travel so far,
+suppose you come early and stay to lunch. Then we can make our final
+plans. How I do hope that we can all go."
+
+"I know that I can," Jane replied confidently. "I always do as I wish,
+and nothing could induce me to spend another summer with my young brother
+and sister. They're so boisterous and bothersome. As for Dan, he's so
+eager to make high grades at college that he always is deep in a book."
+
+"Why Jane Abbott," rebuked Esther. "I think your little sister is
+adorable. I'd give anything if I were not an only child." Jane merely
+shrugged. "Au revoir," she called over her shoulder. "I've got to catch
+the ferry."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                         THE MOST SELFISH GIRL
+
+
+The girls who had been inseparable friends during the four years at the
+fashionable Highacres Seminary parted at the Battery to go in as many
+different directions.
+
+Marion Starr's home was far up on Riverside Drive, while Barbara Morris'
+millionaire father had an extensive estate on Long Island. Esther
+Ballard, the only daughter of devoted parents, resided in the house of
+her grandfather, Colonel Ballard, on Washington Square, while Jane
+Abbott's family of four lived in the same rambling, picturesque wooden
+house that Mr. Abbott's father had built for his bride long before his
+name had become so well known on Wall Street. Edgemere, a pretty little
+town among the Jersey hills, Mr. Abbott deemed a good place to bring up
+his younger girl and boy, and so, although Jane often pleaded that they
+move to a more fashionable suburb, in Edgemere they had remained. Nor
+would her father tear down the old home to replace it with one finer, for
+his beloved wife, who had died at the birth of little Julie, had planned
+it and had chosen all of the furnishings. "Some day you will have a home
+of your own, Jane," he had told his proud older daughter, "and then you
+may have it as fine as you wish."
+
+But in all other things, Mr. Abbott humored her, for she was so like her
+mother in appearance. It was with sorrow that the father had to confess
+in his heart that there the resemblance ceased, for the mother, who had
+been equally beautiful, had been neither proud nor selfish. Little Julie,
+though not so beautiful, was far more like the mother in nature, and so,
+too, was Daniel, the nineteen-year-old lad upon whom the father placed so
+much reliance.
+
+Regrettable as it may seem, Jane Abbott, as she stood on the deck of the
+ferry that was to convey her to the Jersey shore, was actually dreading
+the two weeks that she would have to spend in her own home. Marion had
+suggested that they plan going to Newport by the middle of July and it
+was now the first.
+
+It was late afternoon, and there were many working girls on the huge
+ferry, who were returning to their Jersey homes after a long hot day in
+the New York offices. As they crowded against her, Jane drew herself away
+from them haughtily, thankful, indeed, that her father was so wealthy
+that she would never have to earn her own way in the world, nor wear such
+unattractive ready-made dresses. Unconsciously her lips curled scornfully
+until she chanced to catch a glimpse of her own trim tailored figure in
+one of the panel mirrors; then she smiled complacently and seated herself
+somewhat apart from the working girls, who, from time to time, glanced at
+her, as she supposed, with admiration. But she was disabused of this
+satisfying thought when one of them spoke loud enough for her to hear.
+"See that stiff-necked snob! She thinks she's made of different clay from
+the rest of us. I wish her pa'd lose his money, so she'd have to scrub
+for a living."
+
+This remark merely caused Jane to sneer slightly, but what she heard next
+filled her heart with terrified foreboding, for another girl had turned
+to look at her and replied:
+
+"Well, if she's who I think she is, her father's already gone bankrupt,
+and she's poor enough, all right."
+
+The working girls then moved to another part of the ferry and Jane was
+left alone. It was ridiculous, of course. Her father could not lose his
+vast fortune. Jane determined to think no more about it. The ferry had
+reached its destination, and the proud girl hurried away. Never before
+had she so longed to reach her home.
+
+"Of course it is not true," her panicky thought kept repeating. "But what
+could it mean? What could it mean?"
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Jane vowed to herself that she would not again think of what the spiteful
+working girl had said, for how could she, a mere nobody, have information
+concerning the affairs of a man of her father's standing, which Jane, his
+own daughter, did not have?
+
+But a disquieting thought reminded her that the working girl's face had
+been familiar, and then memory recalled that she had seen her in the very
+building on Wall Street where Mr. Abbott's offices were located.
+
+Jane's troubled reverie was interrupted by a joyous exclamation, and her
+brother, who was three years her senior and a head taller, leaped from
+the crowd and held out both hands. His greeting was so enthusiastic, his
+expression so radiant, that the girl was convinced that all was well with
+their father, and so she said nothing of what she had heard.
+
+It was not until they were seated on the train and had started for
+Edgemere that Jane noticed how pale and thin was her brother's face, and,
+when his eager flow of conversation was interrupted by a severe coughing
+spell, the girl exclaimed with real concern, "Why, Brother Dan, what a
+terrible cold you have! You ought to be in bed."
+
+The boy's smile was reassuring. "Don't worry about that cough, sis," he
+said lightly. "Now the grind is over, it will let up, I'm thinking. But
+it surely has stuck closer than a postage stamp. Caught it weeks ago, but
+I've been so busy, well, doing things, that I haven't had time to coddle
+myself."
+
+Suddenly the lad's expression became very serious, and turning, he placed
+a thin hand, that was far too white, lovingly on his sister's as he said:
+"Jane, dear, some changes have taken place in our home since you went
+back to Highacres last Christmas. For Dad's sake try to bear them
+bravely."
+
+Then it was true, true, all that this dreadful working girl had said. For
+a moment the girl's whole being surged with self-pity, then she felt cold
+and hard. What right had their father to lose his fortune and bring
+disgrace and privation upon his family? In a voice that sounded most
+unfeeling, she asked, "And just what may those changes be?"
+
+It was hard, so hard for Dan to tell the whole truth to a girl whom he
+knew, with sorrow, thought only of herself. He had believed that trouble
+might awaken the true Jane, whom he had always felt must be somewhere
+deep under all the adamant of selfishness, but as yet there was no
+evidence of it.
+
+He removed his hand, as from something that hurt him, and folding his
+arms, he began: "Our father is in great trouble, Jane, and he needs our
+aid, but at present all we can do is to bear cheerfully the
+inconveniences that are not nearly as severe as many others have to
+endure."
+
+But the girl was impatient. "For goodness sakes, Dan, don't preach! Now
+is no time to moralize. If our father has done some idiotic speculating
+and has lost his money, tell me so squarely."
+
+A red spot burned in each pale cheek of the lad and a light of momentary
+indignation flashed in his eyes, but he replied calmly enough: "Remember,
+Jane, that you are speaking of our father, one of the noblest men who
+ever trod on this earth. You know as well as I do that Dad never did any
+wildcat speculating."
+
+"Well, then, stop beating around the bush and tell me just what has
+happened."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                           FACING HARD TRUTHS
+
+
+"It is because our father is honest that today we are poor," Dan Abbott
+began, "and I glory in that fact."
+
+His sister, sitting beside him in the train that was nearing Edgemere,
+curled her lips but did not reply. "The firm to which Dad belonged made
+illegal contracts in western oil fields. The other men will be many times
+richer than they were before, but, because our father scorned to be a
+party to such dishonesty, he has failed. Not a one of the men in whom he
+trusted made the slightest effort to help avert the catastrophe."
+
+"When did this all happen?" Jane's voice was still hard, almost bitter,
+as though she felt hatred and scorn for her father, rather than loyalty
+and admiration.
+
+"Last February," was the brief reply.
+
+"Then why was I not informed? Am I a mere infant to be kept in ignorance
+of facts like these? Father has treated me unfairly, letting me boast to
+my most intimate friends that I could have an elaborate Paris wardrobe
+for the summer. My position is certainly a most unpleasant one."
+
+At this the slow temper of the lad at her side flamed and though he spoke
+in a low voice that the other passengers might not hear, he said just
+what he thought. "Jane Abbott, you are the most selfish, heartless girl I
+have ever known. It is very hard to believe that you are an own daughter
+to that most wonderful woman whom we are permitted to claim as our
+mother. In an hour of trouble (and there were many of them in those long
+ago days) she was always brave and cheerful, comforting Dad and urging
+him above all to be true to an ideal. But I actually believe that you,
+Jane Abbott, would rather our Dad had entered into dishonest negotiations
+as did the other members of his firm."
+
+The lad glanced hopefully at his sister. Surely she would indignantly
+refute this accusation, but she did nothing of the sort. With a shrug of
+her slender shoulders, she sank back against the cherry colored cushion
+as she replied, "I have often heard that an honest man can not be a
+success in business, and I do feel that our father should have considered
+his family above all else."
+
+Dan pressed his lips firmly together. He feared that if his torrent of
+angry thoughts were expressed it might form a barrier between himself and
+his sister that the future could not tear down, and so, after taking a
+deep breath that seemed almost a half sob, he again placed his hand
+tenderly on the cold white one that lay listlessly near him.
+
+"Sis, dear," he implored, "try to be brave, won't you? I'll do all I can
+to make things easier for you, and so will Dad. He's pretty much stunned,
+just now, but, oh, little girl, you can't guess how he is dreading your
+homecoming. That's why I offered to meet you at the ferry station. I
+wanted to tell you and save Dad that agony of spirit. If you would only
+go in brightly and say, what our dear mother would have said, it will do
+more to help our father than anything else in this world."
+
+Selfish as Jane was, she dearly loved the brother who had idolized her,
+and who in moments of great tenderness had always called her his little
+girl, remembering only that she was three years younger and in need of
+his protection.
+
+Tears sprang to her eyes, but as the train was drawing in at the Edgemere
+station she only had time to say, "I'll try. But, oh, it is so hard, so
+hard."
+
+Dan engaged a hack and after assisting his sister in, he sat beside her.
+Then, as they drove along the pleasant streets of the village that were
+shaded by wide spreading elms, the lad told her what changes had occurred
+in their home.
+
+"Mrs. Beach, our housekeeper, and Nora, her assistant, have left, and our
+dear old grandmother has closed up her farm in Vermont and is staying
+with father. It has been his greatest comfort to have his mother with
+him. You always thought her ways so old-fashioned and farmerish, Jane,
+but for all that she is the sweetest kind of a little old lady and as
+brisk and capable as she was two years ago when we visited the farm."
+
+There was a slight curl to Jane's lips, but she merely said: "I suppose I
+shall be expected to wash dishes now. We must be terribly poor if we
+couldn't even keep Nora."
+
+"But we have one big blessing," Dan said brightly, "the home, which was
+mother's can not be taken from us, for it belongs to us children."
+
+Jane was not listening. She was trying to figure out something in her own
+mind. "Dan." She turned toward him suddenly. "I can't see why Dad lost
+his money, just because he did not want to be a partner in what he
+considered a dishonest oil deal. Explain it to me a little more clearly."
+
+"I didn't at first," her brother confessed, "fearing that it would not
+have your sympathy. Many poor people invested their entire savings in the
+oil deal, supposing that father's firm could be relied upon to be
+absolutely honest. It is their money, much of it, which is making the
+rich men richer. Our father, knowing that many had invested their all
+because they trusted his personal integrity, has turned over his entire
+fortune to make up their losses, as far as it will go." Dan was sorry he
+had to make this explanation, for he saw at once the hard expression
+returning to the eyes of his sister.
+
+"If our father has greater consideration for the poor of New York than he
+has for his own children, you can not expect me to express much sympathy
+for him."
+
+"Dear girl, wouldn't you rather have our father honest than rich?" The
+lad's clear grey eyes looked at her searchingly.
+
+Jane put her hand to her forehead as though it ached. "Oh, Dan," she
+said, wearily, "you and father have different ideals from what I have, I
+guess. I never really gave any thought to these things. I like comfort
+and nice clothes and I hate, hate, hate drudgery and work of every kind.
+I suppose now I shall have to scrub for a living." Jane was recalling
+what the working girl on the ferry had said.
+
+Dan's amused laughter rang out. "Oh, Jane, what nonsense. Do you suppose
+that while I have a strong right arm I would let my little pal work in
+any of those drudgery ways? No, indeed, so forget that fear, if it's
+haunting you." But the boy could say no more, for another violent
+coughing spell racked his frail body.
+
+Instantly Jane was self-reproachful. "Oh, Dan, Dan," she said, "I know
+you would give your very life to help me. I'm so selfish, so very
+selfish! I'm going to think of only one thing, and that is how I can help
+you to get well, for I can see now that you must have been ill."
+
+The boy took advantage of this momentary tender spell to turn and take
+the girl's hands in his and say imploringly: "Dear, we're almost home. If
+you really want to help me to get well, be loving and brave to Dad. Your
+unhappiness grieves me more than our loss, little girl, and I can't get
+strong while I am so worried."
+
+There were again tears in the beautiful dark eyes of the girl, and
+impulsively she kissed the one person on earth whom she truly loved.
+"Brother, for your sake I'll try to be brave," she said with a half sob
+as the hack stopped in front of their home.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                            A SAD HOMECOMING
+
+
+As Jane walked up the circling graveled path which led to the
+picturesque, rambling, low-built brown house that she called home her
+heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She bit her trembling lips
+and brushed away the tears that quivered on her eyelashes. She knew, oh,
+how well she knew, that they were prompted only by self-pity. She
+struggled to awaken the nobler self that her brother was so confident
+still slumbered in her soul, but she could not. She felt cold, hard,
+indignant every time she recalled that her father had sacrificed his
+children's comfort for a Quixotic ideal. "It is no use trying," she
+assured herself, noticing vaguely that they were passing the rose garden,
+which was a riot of fragrant, colorful bloom. How tenderly her father
+cared for that garden, for every bush in it had been planted by the loved
+one who was gone.
+
+The tall lad carrying her satchels walked silently at Jane's side. He
+well knew the conflict that was raging in the heart of the girl he had
+always loved, in spite of her ever-increasing selfishness, with a
+tenderness akin to that which he had given his mother, but he said no
+word to try to help. This was a moment when Jane must stand alone.
+
+They were ascending the wide front steps when the door of the house was
+flung open and a little girl of ten leaped out with a glad cry. "Oh,
+Janey, my wonderful big sister Janey." Two arms were held out, and in
+another moment, as the older girl well knew, she would be in one of those
+crushing embraces that the younger children called "bear hugs." She
+frowned slightly. "Don't, Julie!" she implored. "My suit has just been
+pressed. Won't you ever grow up, and greet people in a more dignified
+way?"
+
+The glad expression on the freckled face of the little girl, who could
+not be called really pretty, changed instantly. Her lips quivered and her
+eyes filled with tears. "Don't be a silly," Jane said rebukingly, as she
+stooped and kissed the child indifferently on the forehead.
+
+A dear old lady, wearing a pretty lavender gingham and a white "afternoon
+apron," appeared in the doorway all a-flutter of happy excitement. She
+had not seen Jane for two years, and she took the girl's hands in her own
+that trembled.
+
+"Dear, dear Jenny!" (How the graduate of fashionable Highacres had always
+hated the name her grandmother had given her.) "What a blessing 'tis that
+you have come home at last. It'll mean more to your father to have you
+here than you can think." The old lady evidently did not notice the
+scornful curling of the girl's lips, or, if she did, she purposely
+pretended that she did not, and kept on with her speech. "You know,
+dearie, you're the perfect image of that other Jane my Daniel loved so
+dearly, and she was just your age, Jenny, when they met. It'll be like
+meeting her all over again to have you coming home now, when he's in such
+trouble, you being so like her, and she was most tender and brave and
+unselfish."
+
+Even the grandmother noticed that her well-meant speech was not
+acceptable, for the girl's impatience was ill concealed.
+
+"Where is my father?" she said in a voice which gave Dan little hope that
+the nobler self in the girl had been awakened.
+
+"He's working in the garden, dearie; out beyond the apple orchard," the
+old lady said tremulously. "He told me when you came to send you out. He
+wants to be alone with you just at first. And your little brother,
+Gerald; I s'pose you're wondering where he is. Well, he's got a place
+down in the village as errand boy for Peterson's grocery. They give him
+his pay every night, and he fetches it right home to his Dad. Of course
+my Daniel puts the money in bank for Gerald's schooling, but the boy
+don't know that. He thinks he's helping, and bless him, nobody knows how
+much he is helping. There's ways to bring comfort that no money could
+buy."
+
+Dan knew that Jane believed their gentle old grandmother was preaching at
+her. He was almost sorry. He feared that it was antagonizing Jane; nor
+was he wrong.
+
+"Well, I think the back orchard was a strange place for father to have me
+meet him," she said, almost angrily, as she flung herself out of the
+house. Dan sighed. Then, stooping, he kissed the little old lady. "Don't
+feel badly, grandmother," he said, adding hopefully: "The real Jane must
+waken soon."
+
+The proud, selfish girl, again rebellious, walked along the narrow path
+that led under the great, old, gnarled apple trees which the children had
+used for playhouses ever since they could climb. She felt like one
+stunned, or as though she were reading a tragic story and expected at
+every moment to be awakened to the joyful realization that it was not
+true.
+
+Her father saw her coming and dropped the hoe that he had been plying
+between the long rows of beans. "How terribly he has changed," Jane
+thought. He had indeed aged and there was on his sensitive face, which
+was more that of an idealist than a business man, the impress of sorrow,
+but also there was something else. Jane noticed it at once; an expression
+of firm, unwavering determination. She knew that appealing to his love
+for his daughter would be useless, great as that love was. A quotation
+she had learned in school flashed into her mind--"I could not love thee,
+dear, so much, loved I not honor more."
+
+There was, indeed, infinite tenderness in the clear gray eyes that looked
+at her, and then, without a word, he held out his arms, and suddenly Jane
+felt as she had when she was a little child, and things had gone wrong.
+
+"Father! Father!" she sobbed, and then she clung to him, while he held
+her in a yearning, strong embrace, saying, "It's hard, my daughter,
+terribly hard for all of us, but it was the thing that I had to do. Dan,
+I am sure, has told you all that happened. But it won't be for long,
+Janey. What I have done once, I can do again." He led her to a rustic
+bench under one of the trees, and removing her hat, he stroked her dark,
+glossy hair. "Jane, dear," he implored, when her sobs grew less, "try to
+be brave, just for a time. Promise me!" Then, as the girl did not speak,
+the man went on, "We have tried so hard, all of us together, to make it
+possible for you to finish at Highacres. Poor Dan made the biggest
+sacrifice. I feared that I would have to send for you to come home,
+perhaps only for this term, but Dan wrote, 'Father, use my college money
+for Jane's tuition. I'll work my way through for the rest of this year.'
+And that is what he did. Notwithstanding the fact that he had to study
+until long after midnight, he worked during the day, nor did he stop when
+he caught a severe cold. He did not let us know how ill he was, but
+struggled on and finished the year with high honors, but, oh, my
+daughter, you can see how worn he is. Dr. Sanders tells me that Dan must
+go to the Colorado mountains for the summer and I have been waiting,
+dear, to talk it over with you. You will want to go with Dan to take care
+of him, won't you, Jane?"
+
+Almost before the girl knew that she was going to say it, she heard her
+self-pitying voice expostulating, "Oh, Dad, how cruel fate is! Marion
+Starr wanted me to go with her to Newport. They're going to one of those
+adorable cottage-hotels, she and her Aunt Belle, and we three girls who
+have been Merry's best friends were to go with her. It would only cost me
+one hundred dollars a month. That isn't so very much, is it, Dad?"
+
+Mr. Abbott sighed. "Jane," and there was infinite reproach in his tone,
+"am I to believe that you are willing that Dan should go alone to the
+mountains to try to find there the health he lost in his endeavor to help
+you?"
+
+Again the girl sobbed. "Oh, Dad, how selfish I am! How terribly selfish!
+I love Dan, but the thing I want to do is to go to Newport. Of course I
+know I can't go, but, oh, _how_ I do want to."
+
+The girl feared that her father would rebuke her angrily for the frank
+revelation of her lack of gratitude, but, instead, he rose, saying kindly
+as he assisted her to arise, "Jane, dear, you _think_ that is what you
+want to do but I don't believe it. Dan is to go West next Friday. My good
+friend Mr. Bethel, being president of a railroad, has sent me the passes.
+As you know, I still own a little cabin on Mystery Mountain which I
+purchased for almost nothing when I graduated from college and went West
+to seek my fortune. There is _no_ mystery, and there was _no_ wealth, but
+I have paid the taxes until last year and those Dan shall pay, as I do
+not want to lose the place. It was to that cabin, as you have often heard
+us tell, that your mother and I went for our honeymoon. You need not
+decide today, daughter. If you prefer to go with your friends, I will
+find a way to send you."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                          JANE'S SMALL BROTHER
+
+
+There were many conflicting emotions in the heart of the tall, beautiful
+girl as she walked slowly back to the house, her father at her side with
+one arm lovingly about her.
+
+"Jane," he said tenderly, "I wish there were words in our English
+language that could adequately express the joy it is to me because you
+are so like your mother, and, strangely perhaps, Dan is as much like me
+as I was at his age as you are like that other Jane. She was tall and
+willowy, with the same bright, uplifting of her dark eyes when she was
+pleased."
+
+Then the man sighed, and he said almost pleadingly, "You do realize, do
+you not, daughter, that I would do anything that was right to give you
+pleasure?"
+
+Vaguely the girl replied, "Why, I suppose so, Dad. I don't quite
+understand ideals and ethics. I've never given much thought to them."
+Jane could say no more, for, vaulting over the low fence beyond the
+orchard, a vigorous boy of twelve appeared, and, if ten-year-old Julie
+had made a terrifying onrush, this boy's attack resembled that of a
+little wild Indian. "Whoopla!" he fairly shouted, "If here isn't old
+Jane! Bully, but that's great! Did you bring me anything?"
+
+There was no fending off the boy's well meant embraces, and Jane emerged
+from them with decidedly ruffled feelings.
+
+"I certainly don't like to have you call me old Jane," she scolded. "I
+think it is very lacking in respect. Father, I wish you would tell Gerald
+to call me Sister Jane."
+
+Mr. Abbott reprimanded the crestfallen lad, then he told the girl that
+the boy had not meant to be disrespectful. "You know, Jane, that children
+use certain phrases until they are worn ragged, and just now 'old' is
+applied to everything of which Gerald is especially fond. It is with him
+a term of endearment." Then, with a smile of loving encouragement for the
+boy, their father added: "Why, that youngster even calls me 'old Dad' and
+I confess I rather like it."
+
+The boy did not again address his sister, but going to the other side of
+his father, he clung affectionately to his arm and hopped along on one
+foot and then on the other as though he had quite forgotten the rebuff,
+but he had not. They entered a side door and Jane went upstairs to her
+own pleasant room with its wide bow windows that opened out over the tops
+of the apple trees and toward the sloping green hills for which New
+Jersey is famous. Grandmother was in the kitchen preparing a supper such
+as Jane had liked two years before when she had visited the Vermont farm,
+and Julie was setting the table, when Gerald appeared. Straddling a chair
+he blurted out, "Say, isn't Jane a spoil-joy? I'm awful sorry her
+school's let out, and 'tisn't only for vacation that she'll be home. Dan
+says it's forever 'n ever 'n ever. She'll be trying to tell us where to
+head in. We'll have about as much fun as--as--(the boy was trying hard to
+think of a suitable simile)--as--a----" Then as he was still floundering,
+Julie, holding a handful of silver knives and forks, whirled and said
+brightly, "as a rat in a dog kennel. You know last week how awful unhappy
+that rat was that puppy had in his kennel, till you held his collar and
+let the poor thing get away." Then as the small girl continued on her way
+around the long table placing the silver by each plate, she said
+hopefully, "Don't let's mope about it yet. Jane always goes a-visitin'
+her school friends every summer and like's not she will this."
+
+"Humph! She must be heaps nicer other places than she is here, or folks
+wouldn't want her." Their mutual commiserating came to an abrupt end, for
+Grandma appeared from the kitchen with a covered dish, out of which a
+delicious aroma was escaping. Then in from the other door came Dad, one
+arm about Jane and the other about Dan. Grandma glanced anxiously at her
+big son. His expression was hard to read, but he seemed happier. How she
+hoped Jane had proved herself a worthy daughter of her mother.
+
+It is well, perhaps, that we cannot read the thoughts of those nearest
+us, for all that evening Jane was wondering how she could make over her
+last summer's wardrobe that it might appear new even in a fashionable
+cottage-hotel.
+
+On Thursday, directly after breakfast, Jane went up to her room without
+having offered to help with the morning work. She had never even made her
+own bed in all the eighteen years of her life and the thought did not
+suggest itself to her that she might be useful. Or, if it did, she
+assured herself that Julie was far more willing and much more capable as
+a helper for their grandmother than she, Jane, could possibly be. The
+truth was that bright-eyed, eager, light-footed little Julie was far more
+welcome than the older girl, bored, sulky, and selfish, would have been.
+
+Dan left early for the city, where he wished to purchase a few things he
+would need while "roughing it" in the Colorado mountains. Gerald went
+with him as far as the cross-roads, then the older boy tramped on to the
+depot while the younger one, whistling gaily and even turning a
+handspring now and then, proceeded to his place of business, and was soon
+nearly hidden in an apron much too big for him, while he swept out the
+store.
+
+Mr. Abbott had watched his older daughter closely during that morning
+meal. He had said little to her, but had conversed cheerily with Dan,
+telling him just what khaki garments he would need, and, at Gerald's
+urging, he had retold exciting adventures that he had had in that old log
+cabin in the long ago days, when he had first purchased it. How the boy
+wished that he, also, could go to that wonderful Mystery Mountain, but
+not for one moment would he let Dad know of this yearning. He was needed
+at home to earn what he could by working at the Peterson grocery. His big
+brother was not well, so he, Gerald, must take his place as father's
+helper. He was a little boy, only twelve, and it took courage to whistle
+and turn handsprings when he would far rather have crept away into some
+hidden fence corner and sobbed out his longing for travel and adventure.
+
+All that sunny July morning Mr. Abbott worked in his garden back of the
+apple orchard.
+
+Often as he hoed between the long rows of thrifty vegetables, the
+sorrowing man glanced up at the windows of the room in which he knew his
+beloved daughter sat. How he wished she would come out and talk with him,
+even if it were to tell him that she had decided that she wanted to go
+with her friends to Newport. He had promised to find a way to obtain the
+$300 she would need, if she wished to go for three months.
+
+He sighed deeply, and, being hidden from the house by a gnarled old apple
+tree, he stopped his work and took from his pocket an often read letter
+from an old friend who had offered to loan him any sum, large or small,
+at any time that it might be needed. "If Jane wants to go, I'll wire for
+the money," he decided. Never before had a morning dragged so slowly for
+the man who was used to the whirl, confusion and excitement of Wall
+Street.
+
+And yet, though he hardly realized it, the warm, gentle breeze rustling
+among the leaves of the trees, the smell of the freshly turned earth in
+which he was working, the cheerful singing of the birds far and
+near--brought into his soul a sense of peace. At the end of one row he
+stood up, very straight as he had stood before it had all happened, and
+looking up into the radiant blue sky, he seemed to know, deep in the
+heart of him, that all would be well. It was with a brisker step than he
+had walked in many a day that he returned to the house, when little Julie
+appeared at the back door to ring the luncheon bell.
+
+"Surely Jane has decided by now," he told himself. "And equally surely
+she will want to go West with the brother who has sacrificed himself, his
+ease and his health that she might finish her course at Highacres." So
+confident was he of his daughter's real nobility of nature that he found
+himself planning what he would suggest that she take with her. She would
+ask him about that at lunch. There was not much time to prepare, but she
+would need little in that wild mountain country. At last he heard her
+slowly descending the stairs. His anxiety increased. What would Jane's
+decision be?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                             JANE'S CHOICE
+
+
+The father, with his hands clasped behind him, was pacing up and down the
+long dining room when his daughter entered. He saw at once that she had
+been crying, although she had endeavored to erase the traces of the tears
+which had been shed almost continuously through the morning.
+
+In a listless voice she said at once, "Father, I have decided to go with
+Dan since you feel that it is my duty, but, oh, how I want to go to
+Newport with Merry and the rest: but of course it would cost $300 and
+there is no money."
+
+The father had started eagerly toward his daughter when she had entered,
+but, upon hearing the concluding part of her speech, he drew back, a hurt
+expression in his clear gray eyes. He folded his arms and a more alert
+observer than Jane would have noticed an almost hard tone in his voice.
+Never before had it been used for the daughter who was so like the mother
+in looks only. "The matter is decided. Jane," he informed her. "The $300
+that you require will be forthcoming. However, I wish you would plan to
+leave tomorrow, the same day that your brother goes West. I want to be
+alone, without worries, that I may decide how best to go about earning
+what I shall need to finish paying the debt that I still owe to the poor
+people who trusted me."
+
+"Oh, father, father!" Jane flung herself into her chair at the table and
+put her head down on her folded arms. "I didn't know that you felt that
+you owe them more than your entire fortune."
+
+"It was not enough to cover their investments," the man said, still
+coldly, for he believed the girl was crying because she would have to
+give up even more than she had supposed, and be kept in poverty for a
+longer period of time. She sat up, however, when her father said, "Jane,
+dry your tears. Since you are to go to Newport, I see nothing for you to
+cry about, and I do not wish mother and Julie to know how I feel about
+this whole matter."
+
+Hastily Jane left the table to again remove the traces of tears, and when
+she returned, her grandmother and Julie were in their places. Her father
+had remained standing until she also was seated. Then, bowing his head,
+he said the simple grace of gratitude which had never been omitted at
+that table.
+
+Jane marveled at the courage of her father, for he was actually smiling
+at the little old lady who sat at his side. "Mother mine," he said, "if
+this isn't the same kind of a meat pudding that you used to make for me
+as a special treat, long ago, when I had been good. Have I been good
+today?"
+
+There were sudden tears in the fading blue eyes and a quiver in the
+corners of the sweet old mouth as the grandmother replied, "Yes, Dan, you
+have been very good. And all the while I was making it I was thinking how
+proud and pleased your father would be if he only knew, and maybe he does
+know, how good you've been. When you weren't more than knee high to your
+Dad, he began to teach you that it was better to have folks know that
+your word could be depended on than to be praised for smartness, and
+that's how 'tis, Danny, and I'm happy and proud."
+
+The dear little old lady wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron; then
+she smiled up brightly, and pretended to eat the meat pie, which was in
+danger of being neglected by all except Julie, who prattled, "We've set
+away two big pieces, one for brother Dan, when he comes home from the
+city, and one for Gerry. Umm, won't they be glad when they see them?
+They'll be hungry as anything! I like to be awful hungry when there's
+something extra special to eat, don't you, Janey?" Almost timorously this
+query was ventured. Julie did not like to have the big sister look so
+sad. The answer was not encouraging. "Oh, Julie, I don't want to talk,"
+the other girl said fretfully.
+
+"Nor eat, neither, it looks like," the old lady had just said when the
+front door bell pealed. Julie leaped up, looking eagerly at her father.
+"Oh, Dad, may I go?" But, being nearest the door, he had risen. "I'll
+answer it, Julie," he replied. "It is probably some one to see me." But
+Mr. Abbott was mistaken. A messenger boy stood on the porch. After the
+yellow envelope had been signed for, it was taken to Jane, to whom it was
+addressed.
+
+Eagerly the girl tore it open, the others watching her with varied
+emotions, although Julie's was just eager curiosity. "Ohee," she
+squealed, "telegrams are such fun and so exciting. What's in it, Janey,
+do tell us!"
+
+Mr. Abbott noted that a red spot was burning in each cheek of the
+daughter who had been so pale. She glanced up at him, her eyes shining.
+"Dad," she cried, "you won't have to give me $300. Listen to this. Oh,
+Merry is certainly wonderful!" Then she read:
+
+  "Dearest Jane: Aunt Belle has changed her plans. She has rented a
+  cottage just beyond the hotel grounds and is going to take her own cook
+  and I want you to come as our guest, because, darling girl, I owe you a
+  visit, since you gave me such a wonderful time in the country with you
+  last year, and, what is more, we are going Friday, so pack up your
+  trunk today, and be at the Central Station tomorrow at 4:00. Lovingly,
+  your intimate friend--Marion Starr.
+
+  "P. S.--Who, more than ever, is living up to her nickname, Merry.--M.
+  S."
+
+During the reading of the "night letter" Mr. Abbott had quickly made up
+his mind just what his attitude would be. "That's splendid, Jane, isn't
+it?" he said, and not even his watchful mother noted a trace of
+disappointment in his voice. "If I were you I would pack at once. You
+would better go over to the city in the morning and that will give you
+time to buy a new summer dress, for I am sure that you must need one."
+
+Jane started to reply, but something in her throat seemed to make it hard
+for her to speak, and so she left the room hurriedly without having more
+than touched her plate. Julie followed, as she adored packing. When they
+were gone, the man sighed deeply. "Mother," he said, "I have decided to
+send Julie with Dan. She can cook the simple things he will need and some
+one must go with the boy. I would go myself, but I would be of little
+use. In a few days, as soon as I can pull myself together, I am going
+back to the city to start in some occupation far from Wall Street."
+
+The old lady reached out a comforting hand and placed it on that of her
+son nearest her. "Dan," she said in a low voice, "Jane doesn't know a
+thing about your long illness, does she? Nobody's told her, has there?"
+
+The man shook his head. "Jane has been so interested in her own problems,
+and in finding a way to do as she wished, that she has not even wondered
+why I am working about in the garden instead of going to the city daily,
+as I always have done. But don't tell her, mother. She does not seem to
+care, and, moreover, I am now much stronger. My only real worry is Dan,
+and I do feel confident that if he can be well cared for, the mountain
+air will restore his health."
+
+Rising, he stooped to kiss his mother's forehead, then left the room,
+going through the kitchen to the garden. As he worked he glanced often at
+the open windows of the room above the tree tops. He saw the two girls
+hurrying about, for Jane had gladly accepted Julie's offer of service,
+and the trunk packing was evidently progressing merrily. This assurance
+was brought to him when he heard Jane singing a snatch of a school song.
+
+It sounded like a requiem to the man in the garden below. He leaned on
+his hoe as he thought, self-rebukingly, "It is all my fault. I have
+spoiled Jane. My love has been misdirected. It is I who have made her
+selfish. I wanted to give her everything, for she had lost so much when
+she lost her mother. I have done as much for the other three children,
+but somehow they didn't spoil."
+
+The comfort of that realization was so great that the father soon
+returned to his self-imposed task, and, an hour later, when Dan appeared,
+he told the boy Jane's decision, saying: "Son of mine, it would be no
+comfort to you to have her companionship if her heart were elsewhere."
+The shadow of keen disappointment in the lad's eyes was quickly
+dispelled. Placing a hand on his father's shoulder he said cheerfully,
+"It's all right, Dad. Julie is a great little pal."
+
+But even yet the matter was not decided.
+
+That Thursday night, after the younger members of the household were
+asleep, Mr. Abbott and his mother talked together in his den.
+
+"Julie was the happiest child in this world when I told her she was to go
+with Dan." The old lady smiled as she recalled the hoppings and
+squealings with which the small girl had expressed her joy. "Luckily I'd
+washed and ironed her summer clothes on Monday and Tuesday, and this
+being only Thursday, she hadn't soiled any of them."
+
+Then her tone changed to one of tenderness. "Dan," she said, "Julie and
+Jane aren't much alike, are they? That little girl didn't hop and squeal
+long before she thought of something that sobered her. Then she told me,
+'I don't like to go, Grandma, and leave Gerald at home. He's been wishing
+and wishing and wishing he could go, but he wouldn't tell Dad 'cause he
+wants to stay home and earn money to help.'"
+
+To the little old lady's surprise, her companion sprang up as he
+exclaimed: "Mother, I won't be gone long. Wait up for me!" Seizing his
+hat from the hall "tree," he left the house. "Well, now, that's certainly
+a curious caper," the old lady thought. "He couldn't have been listening
+to a word I was saying. He must have thought of something he'd forgotten,
+probably it's something for Jane. Well, there's nothing for me to do but
+wait." She glanced at the clock on the mantle. Even then it was late. She
+was usually asleep at ten. There had been time for many a little cat-nap
+before she heard her son returning. His expression assured the old lady
+that he was satisfied with the result of his errand.
+
+"Why, Dan Abbott," she exclaimed, "whatever started you off in that way?
+'Twasn't anything I said, was it?"
+
+The man sank down in his chair again and took from his pocket a telegram.
+"That's what I went after, mother," he told her. "I wired Bethel for one
+more pass, as I had a small son who also wished to go West, and this is
+his answer:
+
+"'Glad indeed to accommodate you, Dan, and I'm sending one more, just for
+good measure. Happened to recall that you have four children. Let me do
+something else for you, old man, if I can.'"
+
+The grandmother looked up with shining eyes as she commented: "Bert
+Bethel's a true friend, if there ever was one. Won't Gerry be wild with
+joy?
+
+"But, goodness me, Danny, that means more packing to do. There's room
+enough in Julie's trunk for the things Gerald will need, and I do believe
+I'll go right up and put them in while the boy's asleep." Then she paused
+and looked at her son inquiringly. "Will it be quite fair to Mr. Peterson
+to have Gerry leave his store without giving notice?"
+
+"I've attended to that, mother," the man replied. "While I was waiting
+for an answer from Bert, I walked over to the grocery and told Jock
+Peterson all that had happened, and he was as pleased as he could be. He
+wants Gerald to come over there first thing in the morning to get a
+present to take with him.
+
+"He didn't say what it would be. I don't even suppose that he had decided
+when he spoke. I was indeed happy to have him praise Gerald as he did. He
+said that he would trust our boy with any amount of money. He has watched
+Gerald, as he always does every lad who works in the store. He said that
+nearly all of them had helped themselves to a piece of candy from the
+showcase when they had wished, but that Gerald had never once touched a
+thing that did not belong to him. Mr. Peterson was so pleased that he
+asked Gerald about it one day, saying: 'Don't you like candy, lad?' And
+our boy replied: 'Indeed I do, Mr. Peterson! I don't buy it because I
+want to save all my money to help Dad.'
+
+"Gerald hadn't even thought of helping himself as he worked around the
+store."
+
+"Of course, Gerry wouldn't," the old lady replied emphatically, "for
+isn't he your son, Daniel?"
+
+"And your grandson, mother?" the man smilingly returned. "But we must get
+some sleep," he added, as the chimes on the mantle clock told them that
+it was eleven. "Tomorrow is to be a busy day."
+
+It was also to be a day of surprises, although this, these two did not
+guess.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                            GERRY'S SURPRISE
+
+
+Grandmother Abbott had indeed been right when she prophecied that
+Gerald's joy, upon hearing that he could accompany Dan and his sister
+Julie, would be unbounded. She told him before breakfast while they were
+waiting for the others to come down. They had planned telling him later,
+but when his father saw how hard the small boy was trying to be brave;
+how the tune he was endeavoring to whistle wavered and broke, he could
+stand it no longer, and, putting a hand on each of the boy's shoulders,
+he looked down at him as he asked: "Son, if you could have your dearest
+wish fulfilled, what would it be?"
+
+The lad hesitated, then he said earnestly: "There's two things to wish
+for, Dad, and they're both awful big. I want everything to be all right
+for you, but, oh, how I do want brother Dan to get well."
+
+Tears sprang to the eyes of the little old lady, and placing a hand
+affectionately on the boy's head she asked: "Isn't there something else,
+dearie, something you'd be wishing just for yourself?"
+
+It was quite evident to the two who were watching that a struggle was
+going on in the boy's heart. He had assured himself, time and again, that
+his dad must not know how he wished that he could go with Dan. He even
+felt guilty, because he wanted to go, believing that his dad needed his
+help at home, and so he said nothing. His father, surmising that this
+might be the case, asked, with one of his rare smiles: "If you knew, son,
+that I thought it best for you to go with Julie, to help her take care of
+Dan, would you be pleased?"
+
+Such a light as there was in the freckled face, but, even then, the boy
+did not let himself rejoice. "Dad," he said, "don't you need me here?"
+
+"No, son, your grandmother has decided to stay all summer. She has found
+a nice family to take care of her farm. Indeed I shall feel better,
+knowing that you are with Julie, if Dan should be really ill."
+
+For a moment the good news seemed to stun the little fellow. But when the
+full realization of what it meant surged over him, he leaped into his
+father's arms and hugged him hard, then turning, he bolted for the
+stairway, and went up two steps at a time.
+
+"Hurray!" he fairly shouted. "Dan, Jane, Julie, I'm going to Mystery
+Mountain!"
+
+This unexpected news was received joyfully by Julie and Dan, but Jane,
+who was putting the last touches to her traveling costume, merely gave a
+shrug, which was reflected back to her in the long mirror. "Well, thanks
+be, I'm not going," she confided to that reflection. "I'd be worn to rags
+by the end of the summer if I had to listen to such shrieking. I'm
+thankful Merry's Aunt Belle has no children. They may be all very well
+for people who like them, but I think they are superlative nuisances."
+
+The entire family had gathered in the dining room when Jane descended,
+and, after the grace had been said, the two youngest members began to
+chatter their excitement like little magpies. Dan, who sat next to Jane,
+smiled at her lovingly. "I suppose you are going to have a wonderful
+time, little girl," he said. "I have heard that Newport is a merry whirl
+for society people in the summer time, with dances, tallyho rides, and
+picnic suppers."
+
+Jane's eyes glowed, and she voiced her agreement. "I've heard so, too,
+and I've always been just wild to have a wee taste of that gay life, and
+now I can hardly believe that I am to be right in the midst of it for
+three glorious months." Then, as she saw a sudden wearied expression in
+her brother's face, she added: "You're very tired, Dan, aren't you? If
+only you were rested, I should try to plan some way to have you go with
+me. I'm wild to have you meet Merry. I do believe she is just the kind of
+a girl whom you would like. You never have cared for any girl yet, have
+you? I mean not particularly well?"
+
+There was a tender light in the gray eyes that were so like their
+father's. Resting a hand on Jane's arm, he said in a low voice, "I care
+right now very particularly for a girl, and she is my dear sister-pal."
+
+Somehow the expression in her brother's eyes made Jane unhappy. She did
+wish he would not look at her--was it wistfully, yearningly or what?
+Rising, their father said, "The taxi is outside, children. Are you all
+ready?"
+
+There was much confusion for the next few moments. The expressman had
+come for the trunks, and there were many last things that the father
+wished to say to the three who were going to his cabin on Mystery
+Mountain.
+
+"Dan, my boy," Mr. Abbott held the hand of his eldest in a firm clasp and
+looked deep into his eyes, "let your first thought be how best you can
+regain your strength. If you need me, wire and I will come at once." Then
+putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out an envelope. "The passes are
+in here. Put them away carefully." Then he turned to Jane. "Goodbye,
+daughter. You will be nearer. Come home when you want to. May heaven
+protect you all."
+
+The two younger children gave "bear hugs," over and over again, to their
+dad and grandmother, and when at last all were seated in the taxi, they
+waved to the two who stood on the porch until they had turned a corner.
+
+Dan smiled at Jane as he said: "This is indeed an exodus. That little old
+home of ours never lost so many of us all at once."
+
+"Gee, I bet ye the apple orchard'll wonder where me and Julie are," the
+boy began, but Jane interrupted fretfully. "Oh, I do wish you would be
+more careful of the way you speak, Gerald. You know as well as any of us
+that you should say where Julie and I are."
+
+The boy's exuberance for a moment was dampened, but not for long. He soon
+burst out with, "Say, Dan, you know that story Dad tells about a brown
+bear that came right up to the cabin door once. Do you suppose there's
+bears in those mountains now?"
+
+"I'm sure of it, Gerry. Dozens of them, but they won't hurt us, unless we
+get them cornered."
+
+"Well, you can bet I'm not going to corner any of them," Gerry confided.
+"But I'd like to have a little cub, wouldn't you, Julie, to fetch up for
+a pet?"
+
+The little girl was doubtful. "Maybe, when it grew up, it would forget it
+was a pet bear, and maybe you'd get it cornered, and then what would you
+do?"
+
+Dan laughed. "The bear would do the doing," he said. He glanced at Jane,
+who sat looking out of the small window at her side. He did not believe
+that she really saw the objects without. How he wished he knew what the
+girl, who had been his pal all through their childhood, was thinking. As
+he watched her, there was again in his eyes that yearning, wistful
+expression, but Jane did not know it as she did not turn.
+
+The little station at Edgemere was soon reached, the trunks checked for
+the big city beyond the river, and, after a short ride on the train and
+ferry, they found themselves in the whirling, seething mass of humanity
+with which the Grand Central Station seemed always to be filled.
+
+The train for the West was to leave at 10, and after it was gone, Jane
+planned going uptown to buy a summer dress. Dad had told her to charge it
+to him. His credit was still good. As they stood waiting for the gates to
+open, Dan took from his pocket the envelope containing the passes. For
+the first time he glanced them over, then exclaimed: "Why, how curious!
+There are four passes! I thought there were but three. Oh, well, they are
+only slips of paper, and do not represent money." He replaced them and
+smiled at Jane. The children raced to a stand to buy a bag of popcorn and
+Dan seized that opportunity to take his sister's hand, and say most
+seriously: "Dear girl, if I never come back, try to be to our Dad all
+that I have so wanted to be."
+
+There was a startled expression in the girl's dark eyes. "Dan, what do
+you mean?" Her voice sounded frightened, terrorized. "If you never come
+back? Brother, why shouldn't you come back!" She clung to his arm. "Tell
+me, what do you mean?" But he could not reply for a time, because of a
+sudden attack of coughing. Then he said: "I don't know, little girl. I'm
+afraid I'm worse off than Dad knows. I----"
+
+"All aboard!" The gates were swung open. Frantically, Jane cried: "Dan,
+quick, have my trunk checked on that other pass. I'm going with you."
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Mr. Abbott smiled through tears as he handed his mother the telegram he
+received that afternoon. "I felt sure our Jane had a soul," he said. "Her
+mother's daughter couldn't be entirely without one."
+
+"And now that it's awakened maybe it'll start to blossoming," the old
+lady replied.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                               ALL ABOARD
+
+
+There had been such a whirl at the last moment that it was not until they
+were on the train and had located their seats on the Pullman, that the
+children realized what had happened. Luckily Jane was too much occupied
+readjusting her own attitude of mind, and trying to think hastily what
+she should do before the train was really on its way, to notice the
+disappointment which was plainly depicted on the faces of Julie and
+Gerald. They gazed at each other almost in dismay when they heard that
+their big sister was to accompany them, but the joy in their brother's
+face and manner was all that was needed to reconcile the younger boy.
+
+In the confusion caused by passengers entering the car with porters
+carrying their luggage, Gerald managed to draw Julie aside and whisper to
+her: "Don't let on we didn't want Jane, not on your life! Dan wanted her,
+and this journey's got just one object, Dad says, and that's to help Dan
+get well."
+
+But Julie was too terribly disappointed to pretend that she was not. "I
+know all that," she half sobbed and turned toward the window across the
+aisle, "but I was so happy when I s'posed I was to cook for Dan, and when
+you and I were to be the ones to take care of him. But now Jane will get
+all the honor and everything, and we'll have to be bossed around worse
+than if we were at home, for Dad's there to take our part."
+
+Gerald's clear hazel eyes gazed at his sister rebukingly. "Julie," he
+said, with an earnestness far beyond his years, "the train hasn't started
+yet and if you'n I are going to think of ourselves we'd better go back
+home. Shall we, Julie?"
+
+The little girl shook her head vigorously. "No, no. I don't want to go
+home." She clung to the back of a seat as though she feared she were
+going to be taken forcibly from the train.
+
+Gerald leaned over to whisper to her, but he first gave her a little kiss
+on the ear, then he said: "Julie, you'n I will have oodles of fun up
+there in the mountains. If Jane isn't too snappish, I'll be glad she's
+along, because, of course, she'll be able to take care of Dan better than
+we could." Then suddenly he laughed gleefully.
+
+"I've got it!" he confided to the girl, who had looked around curiously.
+She could not imagine how Gerald could laugh when such a tragic thing had
+happened. "You're dippy about pretending, Julie. You once said you could
+pretend anything you wanted to, and make it seem real. Well, here's your
+chance. Every time Jane is snappy, pretend she has said something
+pleasant. That'll be a hard one, but for Dan's sake, I'm willing to give
+it a try."
+
+Julie's mania had always been "pretending," and she had often wished that
+Gerald would play it with her, but he was a matter-of-fact sort of a lad,
+and his reply had been that real things were fun enough for him. The
+little girl's face brightened. At last her brother was willing to play
+her favorite game.
+
+"That will be a hard one," she agreed. Then, as she was lunged against
+the boy, she also laughed. "Oh, goodie!" she whispered. "Now the train is
+really started--nobody can send us back home. Honest, I was skeered Jane
+might want to. She thinks we're so terribly in the way."
+
+Happy as Dan was, because the sister he so loved was to accompany him to
+the West, he did not forget the two who had been willing to go with him
+and care for him in the beginning, and, as soon as the train was well
+under way, he called to the children. "Come here, Julie. I've saved the
+window side of my seat for you, and I'm sure Jane will let Gerald sit by
+the window on her seat. Now, isn't this jolly?"
+
+The children wedged into the places toward which he was beckoning them.
+Julie glanced almost fearfully up at the older girl she had accidentally
+jostled in passing, but Jane was gazing out of the window deep in dreams.
+Dan noticed his sister-pal's expression. How he hoped she was not
+regretting her hasty decision.
+
+His fears were soon dispelled, for Jane turned toward him with a tender
+light in her beautiful dark eyes. "Brother," she said, "I have just been
+wondering how I can communicate with Marion Starr. She expects to meet me
+at the Central Station at four. It is now nearly noon. I should have left
+some message for her."
+
+"We must send a telegram to her home when we reach Albany, or sooner, if
+we make a stop. I'll ask the conductor. Suppose you write out what you
+wish to say." And so Jane took from her valise the very same little
+leather covered notebook in which, less than a week before, she had
+written a list of the things she would need for a wardrobe to be worn at
+the fashionable summer resort at Newport.
+
+Of this Jane did not even think as she wrote, after a thoughtful moment,
+the ten words that were needed to tell her best friend that she was on
+her way West with her brother Dan, who was ill and who needed her.
+
+The conductor took the message and said that he expected to have an
+opportunity to send a telegram in a very short time. The train soon
+stopped at a village, where it was evidently flagged, and the young
+people saw the station master running from the depot waving a yellow
+envelope. The conductor received it, at the same time giving him the
+paper on which Jane's message was written. "Please send this at once."
+The sound of his voice came to them through Gerald's window. Then the
+train started again and had acquired its former speed when the kindly
+conductor entered their car. He was reading the telegram he had just
+received. Stopping at their seats, he asked: "Are you Daniel Abbott,
+accompanied by Jane, Julie and Gerald?"
+
+"We are," the tall lad replied in his friendly manner. "Have you a
+message from our father?"
+
+The conductor shook his head. "No, not that. This telegram is from the
+president of the railroad telling us that four young people named Abbott
+are his guests, and he wishes them to receive every courtesy, and now, as
+it is noon, if you will come with me, I will escort you to the diner."
+
+"Oh, but I'm glad," Julie, who treated everyone with frank friendliness,
+smiled brightly up into the face of the man whom she just knew must be a
+father, he had such kind, understanding eyes. "I'm awful hungry; aren't
+you, Gerry?" she whispered, a moment later, as they filed down the aisle
+in procession, the conductor first, Jane next, with Dan at the end as
+rear guard. Julie tittered and Jane turned to frown at her. Gerry poked
+his young sister with the reminder, "Pretend she smiled."
+
+But frowns could not squelch Julie's exuberance when they were seated
+about a table in the dining car, which was rapidly filling with their
+fellow travelers.
+
+"Ohee, isn't this the jolliest? I'm going to pretend I'm a princess
+and----" But the small girl paused and listened. The head waiter was
+addressing Jane. "As guests of Mr. Bethel's," he told them, "you may
+select whatever you wish from the menu. Kindly write out your orders." He
+handed them each an order slip and a pencil and then went on to another
+table. Julie gave a little bounce of joy. The "_real_" was so wonderful,
+she would not have to pretend. She and Gerald bowed their heads over a
+typed menu; and then they began to scribble. Dan, glancing across at
+them, smiled good naturedly. "What are you doing, kiddies, copying the
+entire menu?" he asked. But Jane remarked rebukingly, "Julie Abbott, do
+you wish people to think that you have been starved at home? Tear those
+up at once. Here are two others. If you can't make them out properly,
+I'll do it for you."
+
+Dan saw a rebellious expression in Julie's eyes, so he suggested, "Let
+them try once more, Jane. They can't learn any younger. Just order a few
+things at first, Gerry, and then, if you are still hungry, you can have
+more."
+
+Such a jolly time as the children had! When the train turned sharply at a
+curve and the dishes slid about, Julie laughed outright. She purposely
+did not look at Jane. She could pretend her big sister was smiling
+easier, if she didn't see the frown. But their fun was just beginning.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                               TELEGRAMS
+
+
+Although the children were greatly interested in all they saw, nothing of
+an unusual nature had occurred, when, early one morning they reached
+Chicago.
+
+The kindly conductor directed them to the other train that would bear
+them to their destination, assuring them that on it, also, they would be
+guests of Mr. Bethel.
+
+The four young people were standing on the outer edge of the hurrying
+throng, gazing about them with interest (as several hours would elapse
+before the departure of the west-bound train), when Jane was sure that
+she heard their name being called through a megaphone.
+
+"It's that man in uniform over by the gates. He's calling 'Telegram for
+Jane Abbott!'" Gerald told her. "May I go get it, Dan? May I?"
+
+The older boy nodded and the younger pushed through the crowd, the others
+following more slowly. Very quickly Gerald returned, waving two yellow
+envelopes. One was a night letter from Marion Starr. Tearing it open,
+Jane read:
+
+  "Dearest friend: As soon as I received your message I telephoned your
+  father, knowing that he could explain much more than you could in ten
+  words. What you are doing makes me love you more than I did before, if
+  that is possible. My one wish is that I, too, might go West. I like
+  mountains far better than I do fashionable summer resorts. Will write.
+  Your
+                                                                 Merry."
+
+The other telegram contained a short message, but Jane looked up with
+tears in her eyes as she said: "It is from father and just for me."
+
+Dan smiled down at her and asked no questions. The few words were: "Thank
+you, daughter, for your self-sacrifice. Now I know that Dan will get
+well."
+
+But their father did not know how serious Dan believed his condition to
+be.
+
+"And he shall not," the girl decided, "not until I have good news to
+send."
+
+As soon as they were seated in the train that was to take them the rest
+of the journey, Jane said anxiously: "Dan, dear, aren't you trying too
+hard to keep up? You look so very weak and weary. Let's have the porter
+make up the lower berth, even though it is still daytime. You need a long
+rest."
+
+Dan shook his head, though he pressed her arm tenderly, but a coughing
+spell racked his body when he tried to speak. The conductor on the Rock
+Island was more practical than their former friend, but not more kindly.
+He motioned Jane to one side.
+
+"Miss Abbott," he said, "there is a drawing-room vacant. Bride and groom
+were to have had it, but the order has been canceled. Since you are
+friends of Mr. Bethel, I'm going to put you all in there. It will be more
+comfortable, and you can turn in any time you wish."
+
+Jane's gratitude was sincerely expressed. It would give Dan just the
+opportunity he needed to rest, and the lad, nothing loath, permitted Jane
+to have her way. How elated the children were when they found that they
+were to travel in a room quite by themselves. That evening they went to
+the diner alone, but Gerald was not as pleased as was his sister.
+
+"I should think you'd be tickled pink," Julie said, inelegantly, "to be
+able to order anything you choose and not have Jane peering at what you
+write."
+
+The boy replied dismally: "I can't be much pleased about anything. Don't
+you know, Jane's staying with Dan 'cause she thinks he's too weak to come
+out here? I heard her ask the porter to have their dinners brought in
+there. Julie, you and I'll have to keep quieter if we want to help Dan
+get well. He's sicker than he was when we started. I can see that easy."
+
+The small girl was at once remorseful.
+
+"I'm so glad you told me," she said with tears in her dark violet eyes.
+"I've just been thinking what a lot of fun we're having. I've been worse
+selfish than Jane was."
+
+Seeing that her lips were quivering, Gerald said consolingly: "No, you
+haven't, either. Anyhow, I think Dan's just tired out. He'll be lots
+better in the morning. You see if he isn't."
+
+But when Dan awakened in the morning he was no better.
+
+During the afternoon, that their brother might try to sleep, the
+conductor suggested that Julie and Gerald go out on the observation
+platform.
+
+"Is it quite safe for them out there alone?" Dan inquired.
+
+"They will not be alone," was the reply. "I'll put them in the care of
+Mr. Packard, with whom I am acquainted, as he frequently travels over
+this line."
+
+Julie had been very eager to ride on the observation platform, but Jane
+had not wished to go outside because of the dust and cinders which she
+was sure she would encounter, but now that the small girl was actually
+going, she could hardly keep from skipping down the aisle as she followed
+the conductor with Gerald as rear guard.
+
+There was only one occupant of the observation platform, and to Gerald's
+delight, he wore the wide brimmed Stetson hat which the boy had often
+seen on the screen.
+
+"I'll bet yo' he's a cattle-man. I bet yo' he is!" Gerry gleefully
+confided to his small sister while their guide said a few words to the
+Westerner. Then, turning, the conductor beckoned to them.
+
+The stranger arose and held out a strong brown hand to assist the little
+girl to a chair at his side.
+
+"How do you do, Julie and Gerald?" he said, including them both in his
+friendly smile. Julie bobbed a little curtsy, but Gerald's attempt at
+manners was rudely interrupted by the necessity of seizing his cap.
+
+"We have to watch out for our hats," the stranger cautioned, "for now and
+then we are visited by a miniature whirlwind."
+
+Gerald was almost bursting with eagerness. "Oh, I say, Mr. Packard," he
+blurted out, "aren't you a reg'lar--er--I mean a reg'lar----" The boy
+grew red and embarrassed, and so Julie went to his aid with, "Mr.
+Packard, Gerry thinks maybe you're a cow-man rancher like we've seen in
+the moving pictures."
+
+The bronzed face of the middle-aged man wrinkled in a good-natured smile.
+"I am the owner of a cattle-ranch fifteen miles from Redfords," he told
+them.
+
+This information so delighted the boy that Julie was afraid he would
+bounce right over the rail.
+
+"Gee-golly! That's where we're going--Redfords is! Our daddy owns a cabin
+way up high on Mystery Mountain."
+
+The man looked puzzled. "Mystery Mountain," he repeated thoughtfully. "I
+don't seem to recall having heard of it."
+
+Then practical little Julie put in: "Oh, Mr. Packard, that isn't its
+really-truly name. Our daddy called it that 'cause there's a lost mine on
+it and Dad said it was a mystery where it went to."
+
+The man's face brightened.
+
+"O-ho! Then you must mean Redfords' Peak. That mine was found and lost
+again before I bought the Green Hills Ranch. Quite a long while ago that
+was."
+
+Gerry nodded agreement. "Yep. Dan, our big brother is most twenty-one and
+he hadn't been born yet." Then the boy's face saddened as he confided:
+"Dan's sick. He's got a dreadful cough. That's why we're going to Dad's
+cabin in the Rockies."
+
+"Our doctor said the al-te-tood would make him well," Julie explained,
+stopping after each syllable of the long word and saying it very
+thoughtfully.
+
+Gerald looked up eagerly. "Do you think it will, Mr. Packard? Do you
+think Dan will get well?"
+
+The older man's reply was reassuring: "Of course he will. Our Rocky
+Mountain air is a tonic that gives new life to everyone. Are you three
+traveling alone?"
+
+Julie and Gerald solemnly shook their heads, and the small girl, in
+childish fashion, put a finger on her lips as though to keep from saying
+something which she knew she ought not. It was Gerald who replied: "Our
+big sister Jane is with us." The boy said no more, but Mr. Packard was
+convinced that, devoted as the youngsters were to Dan, Jane, for some
+reason, was not very popular with them.
+
+Then, as he did not wish to pry into their family affairs, the genial
+rancher pointed out and described to fascinated listeners the many things
+of interest which they were passing.
+
+The afternoon sped quickly and even when the dinner hour approached the
+children were loath to leave their new friend.
+
+"Me and Julie have to eat alone," the small boy began, but, feeling a
+nudge, he looked around to see his sister's shocked little mouth forming
+a rebuking O! and so, with a shake of his head, he began again: "I mean
+Julie and I eat alone, and gee-golly, don't I wish we could sit at your
+table, Mr. Packard. Don't I though!"
+
+"The pleasure would be mine," the man, who was much amused with the
+children, replied. Then, after naming an hour to meet in the diner, the
+youngsters darted away and Mr. Packard laughed merrily.
+
+It was quite evident that some one of their elders had often rebuked them
+for putting "me" at the beginning of a sentence, he decided as he also
+arose and went within.
+
+Meanwhile Julie and Gerald had quietly opened the door of the
+drawing-room, and, finding Dan alone, they told him with great gusto
+about their new friend. "Mr. Packard says he's a really-truly neighbor of
+ours," Gerry said. "How can he be a neighbor if he lives fifteen miles
+away?"
+
+"I don't know, Gerald, but I suppose that he does," Dan replied. "I would
+like to meet your new friend. I'll try to be up tomorrow."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                          A CATTLE-MAN FRIEND
+
+
+The next day Dan seemed to be much better as the crisp morning air that
+swept into their drawing-room was very invigorating. By noon he declared
+that he was quite strong enough to go to the diner for lunch, and, while
+there, the excited children pointed out to him their friend Mr. Packard.
+
+That kindly man bowed and smiled, noting as he did so that the older girl
+in their party drew herself up haughtily. The observer, who was an
+interested student of character, did not find it hard, having seen Jane,
+to understand the lack of enthusiasm which the children had shown when
+speaking of her.
+
+Not wishing to thrust his acquaintance upon the girl, who so evidently
+did not desire it, the man passed their table on his way from the diner
+without pausing.
+
+It is true that Julie had made a slight move as though to call to him,
+but this Mr. Packard had not seen, as a cold, rebuking glance from Jane's
+dark eyes had caused the small girl to sit back in her chair, inwardly
+rebellious.
+
+Dan, noting this, said: "I like your friend's appearance. I think I shall
+go with you for a while to the observation platform. I cannot breathe too
+much of this wonderful air."
+
+Jane reluctantly consented to accompany them there. "Gee-golly, how I
+hope Mr. Packard is there," Gerald whispered as he led the way.
+
+The Westerner rose when the young people appeared and Jane quickly
+realized that he was not as uncouth as she had supposed all ranchers
+were.
+
+Dan was made as comfortable as possible and he at once said: "Mr.
+Packard, Gerald tells me that you are our neighbor. That is indeed good
+news."
+
+"You have only one nearer neighbor," the man replied, "and that is the
+family of a trapper named Heger. They have a cabin high on your
+mountain."
+
+Then, turning toward Jane, he said: "Their daughter, whom they call Meg,
+is just about your age, I judge. She is considered the most beautiful
+girl in the Redfords district. Indeed, for that matter, she is the most
+beautiful girl whom I have ever seen, and I have traveled a good deal.
+How pleased Meg will be to have you all for near neighbors."
+
+Jane's thoughts were indignant, and her lips curled scornfully, but as
+Mr. Packard's attention had been drawn to Gerald, he did not know that
+his remarks had been received almost wrathfully.
+
+"Ranchers must have strange ideas of beauty!" she was assuring herself.
+"How this crude man could say that a trapper's daughter is the most
+beautiful girl he has ever met when he was looking directly at _me_, is
+simply incomprehensible. Mr. Packard is evidently a man without taste or
+knowledge of social distinctions."
+
+Jane soon excused herself, and going to their drawing-room, she attempted
+to read, but her hurt vanity kept recurring to her and she most heartily
+wished she was back East, where her type of beauty was properly
+appreciated. It was not strange, perhaps, that Jane thought herself
+without a peer, for had she not been voted the most beautiful girl at
+Highacres Seminary, and many of the others had been the attractive
+daughters of New York's most exclusive families.
+
+Dan returned to their drawing-room an hour later, apparently much
+stronger, and filled with a new enthusiasm. "It's going to be great,
+these three months in the West. I'm so glad that we have made the
+acquaintance of this most interesting neighbor. He is a well educated
+man, Jane." Then glancing at his sister anxiously, "You didn't like him,
+did you? I wish you had for my sake and the children's."
+
+Jane shrugged her slender shoulders. "Oh, don't mind about me. I can
+endure him, I suppose."
+
+Dan sighed and stretched out to rest until the dinner hour arrived.
+
+Julie and Gerald joined them, jubilantly declaring that they were to
+reach their destination the next morning before sun-up.
+
+"Then we must all retire early," Dan said. This plan was carried out, but
+for hours Jane sobbed softly into her pillow. It was almost more than she
+could bear. She had started this journey just on an impulse, and she
+_did_ want to help Dan, who had broken down trying to work his way
+through college that there might be money enough to keep her at
+Highacres. It was their father who had been inconsiderate of them. If he
+had let the poor people lose the money they had invested rather than give
+up all he had himself, she, Jane, could have remained at the fashionable
+seminary and Dan would have been well and strong.
+
+Indeed everything would have been far better.
+
+But the small voice in the girl's soul which now and then succeeded in
+making itself heard caused Jane to acknowledge: "Of course Dad is so
+conscientious, he would never have been happy if he believed that his
+money really belonged to the poor people who had trusted him."
+
+It was midnight before Jane fell asleep, and it seemed almost no time at
+all before she heard a tapping on her door. She sat up and looked out of
+the window. Although the sky was lightening, the stars were still shining
+with a wonderful brilliancy in the bit of sky that she could see. Then a
+voice, which she recognized as that of Mr. Packard, spoke.
+
+"Time to get up, young friends. We'll be at Redfords in half an hour."
+
+Gerald leaped to his feet when he heard the summons. Then, when he
+grasped the fact that they were nearly at their destination, he gave a
+whoop of joy.
+
+"Hurry up, Julie," he shook his still sleeping young sister. "We are
+'most to Mystery Mountain, and, Oh, boy, what jolly fun we're going to
+have."
+
+Half an hour later, Mr. Packard and the young Abbotts stood on a platform
+watching the departing train. Then they turned to gaze about them. It
+surely was a desolate scene. The low log depot was the only building in
+sight, and, closing in about them on every side were silent, dark,
+fir-clad mountains that looked bold and stern in the chill gray light of
+early dawn. Jane shuddered. How tragically far away from civilization,
+from the gay life she so enjoyed--all this seemed.
+
+The station master, a native grown too old for more active duty, shuffled
+toward them, chewing tobacco in a manner that made his long gray beard
+move sideways. His near-sighted eyes peered through his brass-rimmed
+spectacles, but, when he recognized one of the new arrivals, he grinned
+broadly. In a high, cracked voice he exclaimed: "Wall, if 'tain't Silas
+Packard home again from the East. Glad to git back to God's country,
+ain't you now, Si? Brought a parcel of young folks along this trip? Wall,
+I don't wonder at it. Your big place is sort o' lonesome wi' no wimmin
+folks into it. What? You don' mean to tell me these here are Dan Abbott's
+kids! Wall, wall. How-de-do? Did I know yer pa? Did I know Danny Abbott?
+I reckon I was the furst man in these here parts that did know him. He
+come to my camp, nigh to the top of Redfords' Peak, the week he landed
+here from college." The old man took off his bearskin cap and scratched
+his head. "Nigh onto twenty-five year, I make it. Yep, that's jest what
+'twas. That's the year we struck the payin' streak over t'other side of
+the mountain, and folks flocked in here thicker'n buzzards arter a dead
+sheep. Yep, that's the year the Crazy Creek Camp sprung up, and that's
+how yer pa come to buy where he did."
+
+Then, encouraged by the interest exhibited by at least three of the young
+people, the old man continued:
+
+"The payin' streak, where the camp was built, headed straight that way,
+and I sez to him, sez I--'Dan Abbott,' sez I, 'If I was you I'd use the
+money I'd fetched to get aholt of that 160 acres afore it's nabbed by
+these rich folks that's tryin' to grab all the mines,' sez I. 'That's
+what I'd do.' And so Dan tuk it, but as luck would have it, that vein
+petered out to nothin' an' I allays felt mighty mean, havin' Dan stuck
+that way wi' so much land an' no gold on it, but he sez to me, 'Gabby,'
+that's my name; 'Gabby,' sez he, 'don' go to feelin' bad about it, not
+one mite. That place is jest what I've allays wanted. When a fellow's
+tired out, there's nothin' so soothin',' sez he, 'as a retreat,' that's
+what he called it, 'a retreat in the mountains.' But he didn't need 160
+acres to retreat on, so he let go all but ten. He'd built a log cabin on
+it that had some style, not jest a shack like the rest of us miners run
+up, then Dan went away for a spell--but by and by he come back." The old
+man's leathery face wrinkled into a broad smile. "An' he didn't come back
+alone! I reckon you young Abbotts know who 'twas he fetched back with
+him. It was the purtiest gal 'ceptin' one that I ever laid eyes on.
+You're the splittin' image of the bride Danny brought." The small blue
+eyes that were almost hidden under shaggy gray brows turned toward Jane.
+"Yep, you look powerful like your ma."
+
+But Jane had heard only one thing, which was that even this garrulous old
+man knew one other person whom he considered more beautiful. How she
+wanted to ask the question, but there was no time, for "Gabby" never
+hesitated except to change the location of his tobacco quid or to do some
+long distance expectorating.
+
+Turning to Mr. Packard, he began again: "Meg Heger's took to comin' down
+to Redfords school ag'in. She's packin' a gun now. That ol' sneakin' Ute
+is still trailin' her. I can't figger out what he wants wi' her. The
+slinkin' coyote! She ain't got nothin' but beauty, and Indians ain't so
+powerful set on that. Thar sure sartin is a mystery somewhere."
+
+The old man stopped talking to peer through near-sighted eyes at the
+canon road.
+
+"I reckon here's the stage coach," he told them, "late, like it allays
+is. If 'tain't the ho'ses as falls asleep on the way, then it's Sourface
+his self. Si, do yo' mind the time when the stage was a-goin' down the
+Toboggan Grade----"
+
+It was quite evident that Gabby was launched on another long yarn, but
+Mr. Packard laughingly interrupted, placing a kindly hand on the old
+man's shoulder.
+
+"Tell us about that at another time, Gab," he said. "We're eager to get
+to the town and have some breakfast."
+
+He picked up Jane's satchel and Dan's also, and led the way to the edge
+of the platform, where an old-fashioned stage was waiting. Four white
+horses stood with drooping heads and on the high seat another old man was
+huddled in a heap as though he felt the need of seizing a few moments'
+rest before making the return trip to Redfords.
+
+"They have just come up the steep Toboggan Grade," Mr. Packard said by
+way of explanation. "That's why the horses look tired."
+
+Then in his cheerful way he shouted: "Hello, there, Wallace. How goes
+it?"
+
+The man on the seat sat up and looked down at the passengers with an
+expression so surly on his leathery countenance that it was not hard for
+the young people to know why he had been given his nickname, but he said
+nothing, nor was there in his eyes a light of recognition. With a grunt,
+which might have been intended as a greeting, he motioned them to get
+into the lower part of the stage, which they did.
+
+Then he jerked at the reins and the horses came to life and started back
+the way they had so recently come. Gabby had followed them to the edge of
+the platform, and as far as the Abbotts could make out, he was still
+telling them the story which Mr. Packard had interrupted.
+
+"How cold it is!" Julie shivered as she spoke and cuddled close to Dan.
+He smiled down at her and then said:
+
+"Mr. Packard, this is wonderful air, so crisp and invigorating. I feel
+better already. Honestly, I'll confess now, the last two days on the
+train I feared you would have to carry me off when we got here, but
+now"--the lad paused and took a long breath of the mountain air--"I feel
+as though I had been given a new lease on life."
+
+The older man laid a bronzed hand on the boy's sleeve.
+
+"Dan," he said, "you have. When you leave here in three months you'll be
+as well as I am, and that's saying a good deal."
+
+Then the lad surprised Jane by exclaiming: "Perhaps I won't want to
+leave. There's a fascination to me about all this."
+
+He waved his free arm out toward the mountains. "And your native
+characters, Mr. Packard, interest me exceedingly. You see," Dan smilingly
+confessed, "my ambition is to become a writer. I would like to put
+'Gabby' into a story."
+
+Mr. Packard's eyes brightened. "Do it, Dan! Do it!" he said with real
+enthusiasm. "Personally I can't write a line, not easily, but I have real
+admiration for men who can, and I am a great reader. Come over soon and
+see my library."
+
+Then he cautioned: "I told you to write, but don't begin yet. Not until
+you are stronger. Stay outdoors for a time, boy. Climb to the rim rock,
+take notes, and then later, when you are strong, you will find them of
+value."
+
+While they had been talking, the stage had started down a steep, narrow
+canon. The mountain walls on both sides were almost perpendicular, and
+for a time nothing else was to be seen. It was more than a mile in
+length, and they could soon see the valley opening below them.
+
+"Redfords proper," Mr. Packard smilingly told them as he nodded in that
+direction. "It is not much of a metropolis."
+
+The young Abbotts looked curiously ahead, wondering what the town would
+be like.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                                REDFORDS
+
+
+"Is that all there is to the town of Redfords?" Jane gasped when the
+stage, leaving Toboggan Grade, reached a small circular valley which was
+apparently surrounded on all sides by towering timber-covered mountains.
+A stream of clear, sparkling water rushed and swirled on its way through
+the narrow, barren, rock-strewn lowland. The rocks, the very dust of the
+road, were of a reddish cast.
+
+"That road yonder climbs your mountain in a zig-zag fashion, and then
+circles around it to the old abandoned mining camp." Then to Gerald, he
+said: "Youngster, if you're pining for mystery, that's where you ought to
+find one. That deserted mining camp always looks to me as though it must
+have a secret, perhaps more than one, that it could tell and will not."
+
+"Ohee!" squealed Julie. "How interesting! Gerry and I are wild to find a
+mystery to unravel. Why do you think that old mining camp has secrets,
+Mr. Packard?"
+
+Smiling at the little girl's eagerness, the rancher replied: "Because it
+looks so deserted and haunted." Then to Dan, "You heard what Gabby said
+at the depot. Well, he did not exaggerate. A rich vein of gold was found
+on the other side of your mountain, and a throng of men came swarming in
+from everywhere, and just overnight, or so it seemed, buildings of every
+description were erected. They did not take time to make them of
+permanent logs, though there are a few of that description. For several
+months they worked untiringly, digging, blasting, searching everywhere,
+but the vein which had promised so much ended abruptly.
+
+"Of course, when the horde of men found that there was no gold, they
+departed as they had come. For a time after that a wandering tribe of Ute
+Indians lived there, but the hunting was poor, and as they, too, moved on
+farther into the Rockies, where there are many fertile valleys. Only one
+old Indian, of whom Gabby spoke, has remained. They call him Slinking
+Coyote. Why he stayed behind when his tribe went in search of better
+hunting grounds surely is a mystery."
+
+Julie gave another little bounce of joy. "Oh, goodie!" she cried. "Gerry,
+there's two mysteries and maybe we'll find the answers to both of them."
+
+"I would rather find something to eat," Jane said rather peevishly. "I
+never was obliged to wait so long for my breakfast in all my life. It's
+one whole hour since we left the train." She glanced at her wrist watch
+as she spoke.
+
+Mr. Packard looked at her meditatively. The other three Abbotts were as
+amiable as any young people he had ever met, but Jane was surely the most
+fretful and discontented. Although he knew nothing of all that had
+happened, he could easily see that she, at least, was in the West quite
+against her will.
+
+"Well, my dear young lady," he said as he reached for her bag, "you won't
+have long to wait, for even now we are in the town, approaching the inn."
+
+"What?" Jane's eyes were wide and unbelieving. "Is this wretched log
+cabin place the only hotel?" She peered out of the stage window and saw
+two cowboys lounging on the porch, and each was chewing a toothpick. They
+were picturesquely dressed in fringed buckskin trousers, soft shirts,
+carelessly knotted bandannas and wide Stetson hats. Their ponies were
+tied in front, as were several other lean, restless horses.
+
+Mr. Packard nodded. "Yes, this is the inn and the general store and the
+postoffice. Across the road is another building just like it and that has
+a room in front which is used as a church on Sunday and a school on
+weekdays, while in back there is a billiard room. There are no saloons
+now," this was addressed to Dan, "which is certainly a good thing for
+Redfords."
+
+"Billiard room, church and a school house all in one building," Jane
+repeated in scornful amazement. "But where are the houses? Where do the
+townspeople live?"
+
+Mr. Packard smiled at her. "There aren't any," he said. "The ranchers,
+cowboys, mountaineers and summer tourists are the patrons of the inn and
+billiard rooms. But here we are!" The stage had stopped in front of the
+rambling log building and reluctantly Jane followed the others.
+
+Mr. Packard held the screen door open for the young people to pass, then,
+taking Jane's arm, he piloted her through the front part of the building,
+which was occupied by the postoffice and store, to the room in the rear,
+where were half a dozen bare tables. Each had in the center a vinegar
+cruet, a sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers. At least they were clean,
+but the dishes were so coarse that had not Jane been ravenously hungry,
+she told herself, she simply could not have eaten. Mr. Packard led the
+way to the largest table, at which there were six places, and as soon as
+they were seated a comely woman entered through a swinging green baize
+door.
+
+"Howdy, Mr. Packard?" she said in response to the rancher's cordial
+greeting. "Jean Sawyer, your foreman, was in last night an' left your
+hoss for yo'. He said as how he was expectin' yo' in some time today.
+You've fetched along some visitors, I take it." The woman looked at the
+older girl with unconcealed admiration. The blood rushed to Jane's face.
+Was this innkeeper's wife going to tell her that she had never seen but
+one other girl who was more beautiful? But Mrs. Bently made no personal
+comment.
+
+When Mr. Packard explained that his companions were the young Abbotts,
+and that they were to spend the summer in a cabin on Redford Mountain,
+her only remark was: "Is it the cabin that's been standin' empty so long,
+the one that's a short piece down from where Meg Heger lives?"
+
+"Yes, that's it, Mrs. Bently." Then the man implored: "Please bring us
+some of your good ham and eggs and coffee and----"
+
+"There's plenty of waffle dough left, if the young people likes 'em." The
+woman smiled at Julie, who beamed back at her.
+
+"Oh, boy!" Gerald chimed in. "Me for the waffles!"
+
+The cooking was excellent and even the fastidious Jane thoroughly enjoyed
+the breakfast.
+
+When they emerged from the inn, Dan said, regretfully: "The sun is high
+up. We've missed our first sunrise."
+
+"We were on the Toboggan Grade when the sun rose," Mr. Packard told them.
+He then shook hands with Jane and Dan as he said heartily:
+
+"Here is where we part company. That is my horse over yonder. A beauty,
+isn't he? Silver, I call him. By the way, Dan, I want you to meet Jean
+Sawyer. He is just about your age, and a fine fellow, if I am a judge of
+character. I would trust him with anything I have. In fact, I do. I send
+him all the way to the city often, to get money from the bank to pay off
+the men. I know he isn't dishonest, and yet, for some reason, he ran away
+from his home. You know, we have a code out here by which each man is
+permitted to keep his own counsel.
+
+"We ask no one from whence he came or why. We take people for what they
+seem to be, with no knowledge of their past."
+
+Then, breaking off abruptly, the older man repeated: "I would, indeed,
+like you to meet Jean and tell me what you think of him. Come over to our
+place soon, or, better still, since that is a rough trip until you get
+hardened to the saddle, I'll send him over to call on you next Sunday."
+
+Dan's face brightened. "Great, Mr. Packard; do that! A chap whom you so
+much admire must be worth knowing. Have him take dinner with us. Goodbye,
+and thank you for being our much-needed guide."
+
+When their neighbor and friend had swung into his saddle and had ridden
+away, Jane said fretfully: "I don't see why you asked that Jean Sawyer,
+who may be an outlaw, for all we know, to come over to our place for
+dinner." Then, when she saw the expression of troubled disappointment in
+her brother's face, again the small voice within rebuked her, and she
+implored: "Oh, Dan, don't mind me! I know I am horridly selfish, but I am
+so tired, and these people are all so queer. What are we to do next?"
+
+The older lad knew what an effort Jane was making, and he held her arm
+affectionately close as he replied: "Mr. Packard said that the stage
+would call for us at 8:30. We will have half an hour to purchase our
+supplies. Grandmother made out a list of things we would need. Julie has
+that. Jane, here is my wallet. I wish you would take charge of our funds.
+You won't be climbing around as I will. It will be safer with you."
+
+Together the girls went into the store and purchased the supplies they
+would need. Then they rejoined the boys, who had waited outside. Gerry
+wanted to look in the school house.
+
+The Abbotts found the door of the rambling log cabin across from the inn
+standing open, and they peered in curiously. The room was long and well
+lighted by large windows, but it was quite like any other country school.
+There were eight rows of benches, one back of the other, with a
+shelf-like desk in front of each. These had many an initial carved in
+them. The teacher's table and chair faced the others, with a blackboard
+hanging on the wall at the back. Near the door was a pail and a dipper.
+Dan smiled. "It doesn't look as though genius could be awakened here,
+does it?" he was saying, when a pleasant voice back of them caused them
+to turn.
+
+"You're wrong there, my friend." The young people saw before them a
+withered-up little old man with the whitest of hair reaching to his
+shoulders. Noting their unconcealed astonishment, he continued, by way of
+introduction, "I am Preacher Bellows on Sunday and Teacher Bellows on
+weekdays. Now, as I was saying, having overheard your remark, this little
+schoolroom and the teacher who presides over it are proud to tell you
+that your statement is not correct. It may not look as though genius
+could be awakened here," he smiled most kindly. "I'll agree that it does
+not, but that is just what has happened. Meg Heger, one of my mountain
+girls, has written some beautiful things. Her last composition, 'Sunrise
+From the Rim-Rock,' is truly poetical."
+
+Jane turned away impatiently. Was she never to be through with hearing
+about Meg Heger? "Brother," the manner in which she interrupted the
+conversation was almost rude, "isn't that the stage returning? I am so
+tired, I do want to get up to our cabin." She started to cross the
+street. Dan quickly joined her. He did not rebuke her for not having said
+goodbye to the teacher.
+
+"He's a nice man, isn't he, Dan?" Gerald skipped along by his brother's
+side as he spoke. "He loves mountain people, doesn't he?"
+
+Dan smiled down at the eager questioner. "Why, of course, he must, if he
+practices what I suppose he preaches; the brotherhood of man."
+
+"Well, I certainly don't want to claim people like the ones we have met
+in Redfords as any kin of mine," Jane snapped as they all crossed to the
+stage that awaited them. Again the four white horses drooped their heads
+and the driver slouched on his high seat, as though at every opportunity
+they took short naps. But the horses came to life when the driver snapped
+his long whip and with much jolting they forded the stream.
+
+"Oh, my; I'm 'cited as anything!" Julie squealed. "Wish something,
+Gerald, 'cause this is the first time we've ever been up our very own
+mountain road."
+
+"There's just one thing to wish for," the small boy said with the
+seriousness which now and then made him seem older than his years, "and
+that's that Dan will get well. What do you wish, Jane?"
+
+"Why, the same thing, of course," the girl replied languidly.
+
+Gerald continued his questioning. "What do you wish, Dan?"
+
+The boy thought for a moment and then he exclaimed, "I have a wonderful
+thing to wish. Wouldn't it be great if we could find the lost gold vein
+on our very own ten acres? Then Dad could pay the rest that he owes and
+be free from all worry?"
+
+"Me, too," Julie cried jubilantly. "Now, we've all wished and here we go
+up the mountain."
+
+The road was narrow. In some places it was barely wide enough for the
+stage to pass, and, as Jane looked back and down, she shuddered many
+times.
+
+At last, when nothing happened and the old stage did stick to the road,
+Jane consented to look around at the majestic scenery, about which the
+others were exclaiming. Beyond the gorge-like valley in which was
+Redfords, one mountain range towered above another, while many peaks were
+crowned with snow, dazzling in the light of the sun that was now high
+above them.
+
+The air was becoming warmer, but it was so wonderfully clear that even
+things in the far distance stood out with remarkable detail.
+
+At a curve, Gerald pointed to the road where it circled above them.
+"Gee-whiliker! Look-it!" he cried excitedly. "How that boy can ride." The
+others, turning, saw a pony which seemed to be running at breakneck
+speed, but as the stage appeared around the bend, the small horse was
+halted so suddenly that it reared. When it settled back on all fours, the
+watchers saw that, instead of a boy, the rider was a girl, slender of
+build, wiry, alert. She drew to one side close to the mountain, to permit
+the stage to pass. She wore a divided skirt of the coarsest material, a
+scarlet blouse but no hat. Her glossy black wind-blown hair fluttered
+loosely about her slim shoulders. Her dusky eyes looked curiously out at
+them from between long curling lashes. Dan thought he had never before
+seen such wonderful eyes, but it only took a moment for the stage to
+pass.
+
+They all turned to look down the road. The pony was again leaping ahead
+as sure-footed, evidently, as a mountain goat, the girl leaning low in
+the saddle. Jane's lips were curled scornfully. "Well, if that is their
+mountain beauty, I think they have queer taste! She looked to me very
+much like an Indian, didn't she to you, Dan?"
+
+The boy replied frankly: "I should say she might be Spanish or French,
+but I do indeed think she is wonderfully beautiful. I never saw such
+eyes. They seem to have slumbering soul-fires just waiting to be kindled.
+I should like to hear her talk."
+
+Jane shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I certainly should not. I have heard
+enough of this mountain dialect, if that's what you call it, to last me
+the rest of my life. I simply will not make the acquaintance of that--Oh,
+it doesn't matter what she is--" she hurried on to add when she saw that
+Dan was about to speak. "I don't want to know her, and do please remember
+that, all of you!"
+
+"Gee, sis," Gerald blurted out, "you don't like the West much, do you? I
+s'pose you wish you had stayed at home or gone to that hifalutin watering
+place."
+
+Jane bit her lips to keep from retorting angrily. Julie was still
+watching the small horse that now and then reappeared as the zigzagging
+mountain road far below them came in sight.
+
+"That girl's going to school, I guess. Though I should think it would be
+vacation time, now it's summer," she remarked.
+
+"I rather believe that winter is vacation time for mountain schools. It's
+mighty cold here for a good many months and the roads are probably so
+deep in snow that they are not passable."
+
+Dan had just said this when Gerald, who had been kneeling on the seat,
+watching intently ahead, whirled toward them with a cry of joy. "There's
+our log cabin on that ledge up there! I bet you 'tis! Gee-whiliker, we're
+stopping. Hurray! It's ours."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                            THE ABBOTT CABIN
+
+
+It was quite evident that the picturesque log cabin which nestled against
+the side of the mountain on a wide, overhanging ledge was indeed their
+own. The road curved about twenty feet below it, and crude steps had been
+hewn out of the rocks. The small boy tumbled out of the stage almost
+before it came to a standstill.
+
+"Oh, Julie, look-it, will you! We've got a real stairway leading right up
+to our front door. I'll beat you to the cabin."
+
+Julie, equally excited, scurried up after her brother and reached the top
+almost as soon as he did. Then they turned and shouted joyfully to the
+two below them: "Jane! Dan! Look at us! We're top of the world."
+
+"Oh, boy!" Gerald capered about, unable to stand still. "I'm glad I came.
+I bet you, Julie, we'll have a million adventures, maybe more." But Dan
+was calling and so they scampered back down the rocky flight of stairs.
+
+The older lad laughed at their enthusiasm. "I know just how you feel," he
+told them. "If I weren't afraid of shocking your sedate sister here, I
+believe I would--well--I don't know just what I would do."
+
+"Stand on your head," Gerald prompted. "Do it, Dan. I'll dare you."
+
+But the older boy was needed just then to tell the surly driver where the
+trunks were to be put. "Let me help you, Mr. Wallace." Dan made an
+attempt to take one end of a trunk, but the husky man, with the
+unchangeable countenance, merely grunted his dissent, and swinging a
+trunk up on his broad shoulders, he began the ascent of the steep stone
+stairs quite as though it were not a herculean task.
+
+Dan followed. "Just leave them on the porch until we get our bearings,"
+he directed. "We can move them in after we have unpacked." Then, from the
+loose change that he had in his pocket, he paid the man. A few moments
+later the stage rumbled on its way up the road, which circled the
+mountain and then descended to a hamlet in the valley on the other side.
+
+As soon as the four young Abbotts were alone, Dan, slipping an arm about
+Jane, exclaimed: "Think of it, sister! Isn't it almost beyond
+comprehension that we have such magnificence right in our front
+door-yard." He took a long breath. The pine trees, though not large, were
+spicily fragrant. Then, whirling toward her, he caught both of her hands,
+and there were actually tears in his eyes as he said, "Jane, I'm going to
+live! I know that I am!"
+
+Selfish as the girl was, she could not but respond to her brother's
+enthusiasm. The younger children had raced away on a tour of discovery.
+Their excited voices were heard exclaiming about something they had
+discovered beyond the cabin. Clear and high Gerry's voice rang out: "Dan,
+Jane, come quick! We've found Roaring Creek, and it isn't making a
+terrible lot of noise at all."
+
+But the older boy had noted the extreme weariness on his sister's face.
+He well knew that she had sacrificed herself to come to a country which
+did not appeal to her; where she had to meet people whom she considered
+far beneath her, and she had done it all to help him get well. Instantly
+the boy decided that he would make Jane's comfort his first care, that
+her stay with him might be as pleasant as possible, and so he called
+back: "After a time, Gerald. Come on; I'm going to unlock the door. Don't
+you want to see what's on the inside of our cabin?"
+
+"Oh, boy, don't I, though!" Gerry, closely followed by Julie, raced back
+to the wide front porch, which was made of logs. Dan took from his
+satchel a very large key and holding it up, he called merrily, "The key
+to health and happiness."
+
+"You left out something," Gerry prompted. "It's health, wealth and
+happiness. Maybe we'll find that lost mine, who knows?"
+
+Dan merely laughed at that. "Now," he said, as he put the key in the
+lock, "what do you suppose we'll find on the other side of this door?"
+
+What they saw delighted the hearts of three of the young people. A large
+log cabin room with a long window on either side of the door. At the back
+was a crude fireplace made of rocks. There was no window on that side of
+the room, as a wall of the mountain came so close to the cabin that there
+would have been no view.
+
+The rafters were logs with the bark still on, and the furniture had been
+made of saplings. There were leather cushions in the chairs, but the
+thing that made Gerald caper about, mad with joy, was a bearskin on one
+of the walls.
+
+"Oh, look-it, will you, Dan? What kind of a bear is it? Do you think it
+is a grizzly, and do you s'pose it's that one Dad said came right down
+here to our ledge? Do you, Dan?"
+
+The older boy looked at the rather small bearskin and shook his head.
+
+"No, it isn't a grizzly," he said. "I think it is the skin of a black
+bear. But here is another on the floor in front of the fireplace. That's
+Dad's bear, I remember now. This old fellow was the grizzly who was
+unfortunate enough to come down here to try to help himself to Dad's
+supplies."
+
+Jane had dropped wearily into a big chair that really was comfortable
+with its leather-covered cushions, and Dan, noting how tired she was,
+exclaimed:
+
+"Jane, I'll unlock the packing trunk and get out some of the bedding, and
+if you wish, you may lie down for a while. Dad said there were two good
+beds here and several cots."
+
+Gerald and Julie had darted through a door at one side and, reappearing,
+they beckoned to their big brother.
+
+"We've found one of 'em," the younger lad announced. "It's in a dandee
+room! I bet you Jane will choose it for hers."
+
+Then Julie chimed in with: "Jane, please come and see it."
+
+The older girl, who was feeling terribly sorry for herself, rose
+languidly and went with the small sister. The boys followed.
+
+"Why, what a nice room this is!" Dan, truly pleased, remarked. Then
+anxiously, and in his voice there was a note that was almost imploring,
+he asked: "Jane, dear, don't you think you can be comfortable in here?"
+
+The girl's heart was touched by the tone more than the words, and she
+turned away that she might not show how near, how very near, she had been
+to crying out her unhappiness. It was hardship to her to be in a log
+cabin where there were none of the luxuries and conveniences to which she
+had been used. She smiled at her brother, but he saw her lips tremble. He
+was tempted to tell her to go back to civilization, since it was all
+going to be so hard for her, but something prompted him to wait one week.
+Inwardly he resolved: "If Jane is not happy here by one week from today,
+I am going to insist that she return to Newport and to the friend Merry
+for whom she cares so much."
+
+But Jane, too, had been making a resolve, and so when she spoke her voice
+sounded more cheerful.
+
+"It is a nice room," she said. "That wide window has a wonderful view of
+the mountains and the valley." It was hard to keep from adding, "If
+anyone cares for such a view, which I do not."
+
+But instead she looked up at the rafters. "What are those great bundles
+that are hanging up there?" she inquired.
+
+Dan laughed. "Why, those bundles, Dad said, contain the mattress and
+bedding which he and mother stored away. They are wrapped in canvas and
+so he expected that we would find them in good condition."
+
+"But how are we to get them?" Julie wanted to know.
+
+Gerald's quick eyes found the answer to that.
+
+"Look-it!" he cried, pointing. "There's a ladder nailed right against the
+back wall. I'll skin up that in two jiffs. Give me your knife, Dan. I'll
+cut the ropes."
+
+The boy was soon sliding along a rafter. "Out of the way down below
+there!" he shouted the warning. "Here they come!"
+
+There was a soft thud, followed by another as the two great bundles fell
+to the floor. An excellent mattress was in one of them and clean warm
+blankets in the other.
+
+"Now, I'll get the sheets from the packing trunk and a pillow case, and
+in less than no time at all we'll have a fine bed in our lady's chamber."
+
+Dan led Jane to another large comfortable though rustic chair as he said:
+
+"The rest of us are going to pretend that you are a princess today and we
+are going to wait upon you. By tomorrow, when you have had a long sleep,
+perhaps you will want to be a mountain girl."
+
+Again there was the yearning note in his voice. How he hoped that Jane
+would want to stay, but a week would tell.
+
+Jane was quite willing to pretend that she was a princess and be waited
+upon, and so half an hour later, when the bed in her room was made, she
+consented to lie down and try to make up the many hours of sleep that she
+had lost on the train. Hardly had her head touched the pillow before she
+was sound asleep. Two of her windows, that swung inward, were wide open
+and a soft mountain breeze wafted to her the scent of the pines. Even
+though she was not conscious of it, the peace of the mountains was
+quieting her restless soul. She had supposed that, as soon as she were
+alone, she would sob out her unhappiness, but her weariness had been too
+great, and not a tear had been shed.
+
+Julie reported that Jane had gone right to sleep and Dan's face
+brightened. Surely his sister-pal would feel better when she awakened and
+how could she help loving it all, so high up on their wonderful mountain.
+
+The younger children had gone on another trip of exploration, and soon
+burst back into the big living-room with the information that on the
+other side of the cabin there were two smaller bedrooms and a real
+kitchen.
+
+Dan held up a warning hand and framed the word "quiet" with his lips, and
+so the excited children took his hands and dragged him from the deep easy
+chair where he had sought to rest for a moment and showed him what lay
+behind the two doors on the other side of the cabin. "Aren't these little
+bedrooms the cunningest?" Julie whispered. "See the front one has a bed
+in it like Jane's and the other has the cot. But there are three of us,
+so what shall we do?" Julie's brown eyes were suddenly serious and
+inquiring.
+
+"That's easy!" Dan told her. "Dad said there were several cots. See,
+there they are, hanging up on the rafters. I shall take one of those and
+put it out on the wide front porch. That's where I want to sleep. I don't
+want to be shut in by walls. And Julie may have this pretty front room
+with the bed and Gerald the other. Now, let's get them made up, just as
+quietly as we can. Then we will unpack the supplies that you got from the
+store, Julie, and prepare a noon meal."
+
+The cots were untied from the rafters and one was placed on the porch in
+the position chosen by Dan, then the bedding was put on all of them and
+it was 11 o'clock and the sun was riding hot and high above the mountain
+when Julie, suddenly becoming demure, announced that she wanted Dan to go
+to sleep also, and that she and Gerald would get the lunch.
+
+The older boy did not require much urging and when he saw the eager light
+in the eyes of the little girl, who had in the beginning supposed that
+she alone was to be the one to take care of him, he decided to do as she
+wished. Julie had had six months' training with her grandmother, who
+believed that a girl could not begin too young to learn how to cook, and
+she had often boasted that she had a very apt pupil.
+
+He soon heard the children whispering and laughing happily at the back of
+the cabin, then a door was closed softly and the lad heard only the
+soughing in the pine trees close to the porch and the humming of the
+winged insects far and near. Then he, too, fell into a much needed
+slumber.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                            TWO LITTLE COOKS
+
+
+The kitchen of the log cabin had one window and a door which opened out
+into what Gerry called the "back-yard part of their ledge." It was only
+about fifty feet to the very edge, and Gerry crept on hands and knees to
+look over, that he might see where their "back-yard went." He lifted a
+face filled with awe and beckoned his sister to advance with caution.
+Lying flat, the two children gazed over the rim of the ledge, straight
+down a wall of rock, far below which the road could be seen curving.
+"Ohee!" Julie drew back with a shudder. "What if our cabin should slide
+right off this shelf that it's built on?"
+
+"It can't, if it wants to," the boy told her confidently. "We're safe
+here as anything. That's two ways a bear can't come," he continued; "but
+on the other side, where the creek is, and in front, where the stone
+steps are, I suppose the bear came in one of those two ways."
+
+The small girl looked frightened. "Oh, Gerry," she said, "what if a bear
+should come again? What would we do?"
+
+"Why, Dan would shoot it, just the way Dad did," the boy replied with
+great assurance. His big brother was his hero, and that he could not
+perform any feat required was not to be thought of for one moment.
+
+"But Dan hasn't a gun, has he?" Julie was not yet convinced.
+
+"Indeed he has, silly. Do you s'pose Dad would let us come into this wild
+country without guns? Dan has two in his trunk. One's a big fellow! Dad
+let me hold it once, and, Oh, boy, I'm telling you it's a heavy one. I
+most had to drop it, and I've got bully muscle. Look at what muscle I've
+got!"
+
+Gerry crooked his bare arm, but his sister turned away impatiently,
+saying: "Oh, I don't want to! You make me feel what muscle you've got
+most every day."
+
+Julie returned to the kitchen, but Gerry followed, and, if he were
+offended by her lack of interest in his brawniness, he did not show it.
+He was far too interested in the subject under discussion. "That big gun
+I was telling you about is the very one Dad used when he shot the
+grizzly, and if it shot one bear, then of course it can shoot another
+bear."
+
+The little girl was convinced. That seemed clear reasoning, but she
+interrupted when the boy began again, by saying: "Gerald Abbott, do stop
+telling bear stories, and help me clean up this kitchen. Jane won't be
+any more use than nothing and we might as well do things and pretend she
+isn't here, the way I wish she wasn't."
+
+"I sort of wish she hadn't come, myself," Gerry confessed. "Now, let's
+see. Here's a cupboard all nailed up. I guess I can pull out the nails,
+but first I'd better make a fire in this old stove. I'll have to fetch in
+some wood."
+
+"No, you won't! Not just at first. There's a box full behind the stove.
+Big, knotty pieces; pine, I suppose; but maybe we do need some kindling.
+Then bring me some water from the creek and I'll wash up everything. Dad
+said we'd find some dishes in the cupboard, if they hadn't been stolen."
+
+"Gee, I hope they haven't!" The boy, who was as handy about a home as was
+his small sister, soon had a fire in the stove, and then, having found a
+pail, he went to the creek, stealing around past the front porch and
+under his sister's window as quietly as he possibly could. Although dry
+twigs creaked and snapped, the two sleepers did not waken.
+
+Such fun as those youngsters had putting the kitchen in order. In the
+cupboard they found all of the dishes which their father had mentioned.
+Although the china was coarse, the green fern pattern was attractive.
+Gerald, standing on a chair, handed it out, piece by piece, to the small
+girl, who put them in hot, sudsy water and then dried them till they
+shone. Gerald, meantime, was washing the shelves. Then they replaced the
+dishes and stood back to admire their handiwork.
+
+"Oh, aren't we having fun?" Julie chuckled. "Now, we're all ready to get
+the lunch."
+
+It was one o'clock when Julie went to waken Jane, and Gerald, at the same
+time, went out on the porch where Dan had been sleeping, but the older
+boy was sitting up on the edge of his cot drinking in the beauty of the
+scene which, to him, was an ever-changing marvel. He sprang up,
+wonderfully refreshed, and going to the packing trunk, he procured a
+towel.
+
+"Hello, Jane," he called brightly to the tall girl, who appeared in the
+open door. Then he gave a long whistle. "Sister," he exclaimed, love and
+admiration ringing in his voice, "I hope that Jean Sawyer, who is coming
+to dine with us day after tomorrow, has a heart of adamant. I pity him if
+he hasn't! I honestly never saw anyone so beautiful as you are, with the
+flush of slumber on your cheeks and your eyes so bright."
+
+Jane came out smiling. This was the sort of adulation she desired and
+required, but her brother felt a twinge of guilt, for, even as he had
+been talking, he had seen in memory a slender, alert little creature with
+eyes, star-like in their dusky radiance, gazing out at him from under
+dark, curling lashes.
+
+But they were so unlike, these two, he told himself. The one proud,
+imperious, ultra-civilized; the other, a wild thing, untamed, or so she
+had appeared to him in that one moment's glance, a native of the
+mountains.
+
+"Where are you going with that towel?" Jane asked him.
+
+The lad laughingly dived again into the packing trunk and brought out
+another. "Let's go to the creek to wash," he suggested. "I haven't even
+seen it yet, and I'm ever so eager to feel that cold mountain water dash
+into my face." Then in a low tone he whispered close to his sister's ear,
+"The children have a surprise for us, Jane, and so let's be very much
+surprised and not disappoint them."
+
+Jane shrugged. To her, children and their ways had to be endured, but she
+took no interest in what they did or did not do. However, she accompanied
+her brother around the house.
+
+She glanced at him with a sense of satisfaction, which was, as usual,
+prompted by selfishness. If Dan seemed so much better in one day, he
+might be so well by the end of a fortnight that she would not need to
+remain with him. If she were sure that all was to be well with him, she
+would return to Merry. The lad, not dreaming what her thoughts were,
+caught her hand boyishly. "Oh, Jane," he cried as he pointed ahead, "can
+you believe it, Sister-pal, that is our very own mountain stream! Isn't
+it a beauty?"
+
+The sunlight, falling between the pines, lighted the narrow, rushing,
+whirling little mountain brook, which sparkled and seemed to sing for the
+very joy of being. Standing on its edge, Dan looked up the mountain along
+the course the brook had come. "See," he cried jubilantly, "wherever the
+sunlight filters through, it gleams as though it were laughing. Dad said
+that it springs out just below the rim rock. Oh, I do hope by next week I
+will be able to climb up that high."
+
+Jane's glance followed her brother's up the rough, rocky mountain side
+and she shook her head. "I'll never attempt it," she decided, but Dan
+whirled, laughing defiance. "I'm going to prophesy that you'll climb the
+rim rock before a fortnight is over."
+
+Then kneeling, he splashed the clear, cold water in his face and reached
+for the towel that Jane held. Then he implored her to do the same. With
+great reluctance she complied, and so cool and restful did she find it,
+that she actually smiled, almost with pleasure.
+
+But Dan had the misfortune to say the wrong thing just then. "I suppose
+this brook, or one like it, is all the mirror that the mountain girl, Meg
+Heger, has ever had," he began, when he sensed a chill in his sister's
+reply.
+
+"I certainly do not know, nor do I care." Then she added, as an
+afterthought, "And I shall never find out."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                              FRETFUL JANE
+
+
+Luckily Dan had succeeded in changing his sister's thought before they
+returned to the cabin, and he vowed inwardly that he would never again
+mention Meg Heger, since Jane had taken such a strange dislike to her.
+How one could dislike a girl one had barely seen was beyond his
+comprehension, but girls were hard to understand, all except Julie. She
+was just a wholesome, helpful little maid with a pug-nose that was always
+freckled.
+
+"Now for the surprise!" Dan said as they neared the cabin.
+
+"Well, I certainly hope it is something to eat," Jane began, with little
+interest, but when the two children threw open the front door and she saw
+the table in the living-room close to the wide window with four places
+set, she delighted the little workers by announcing that it was the best
+sight she had beheld that day. Then, when Jane and Dan were seated, Julie
+and Gerry skipped to the kitchen and returned with as tempting a lunch as
+even Jane could have wished for. There was creamed tuna on toast and jam
+and a heaping plate of lettuce sandwiches and two of the Rockyford melons
+for which Colorado is famous. Then there was for each a glass of creamy
+milk.
+
+"Great!" Dan exclaimed. "I didn't know we were going to be able to get
+milk."
+
+Julie nodded eagerly. "It comes from the Packard ranch, fresh to the inn
+every day, and Mrs. Bently said she would send us two quarts every time
+the stage comes up our road, which usually is three times a week. We can
+keep it cool as anything in the creek. Mrs. Bently told us how."
+
+"After lunch can we get out the guns, Dan?" Gerald asked when he had
+hungrily gulped down a sandwich.
+
+"Why, I guess so," the older boy laughed good naturedly. "You aren't
+expecting a bear to find out this soon, are you, that we have some
+supplies that he might wish to devour?"
+
+Julie looked anxiously toward the open door of the cabin. "Don't you
+think maybe we'd better keep that door closed when we're eating?" she
+asked anxiously. "You know Dad said he and mother were sitting right here
+where we are, maybe, one morning at breakfast, when mother looked up and
+there was an old grizzly standing in the open door. He had been around to
+the kitchen and had eaten up all the supplies he could find and he was
+hunting for more."
+
+Gerald chimed in with: "It was lucky Dad kept his big gun always standing
+in the corner. I suppose it was right there, near you, Dan, so he could
+just grab it and shoot."
+
+The children were watching the door as though they expected at any minute
+that another grizzly might appear. Dan laughed at them. "We might as well
+have stayed at home if we are going to stay in the cabin and keep the
+door closed," he told them. "I'm going to suggest that we put the table
+on that nice porch just outside of the kitchen. That will make an ideal
+outdoor dining-room, with a big pine tree back of it to shelter us from
+the sun. It will be handy to the kitchen, and, what is more, a bear
+simply could not scale up that wall beyond the ledge." Then, very
+seriously, the older brother addressed the younger two. "Julie, I don't
+want you or Gerald to go close to that cliff. It's too dangerous."
+
+Honest Gerald blurted in with, "We did go once, Dan. We squirmed out on
+our tummies till we could look 'way down, and I tell you it made us
+dizzy. We won't ever want to do it again."
+
+After lunch the children announced that they would do up the dishes if
+Dan would give them a lesson in shooting the big gun when they were
+through. "Well," the older boy smilingly conceded, "I'll try to teach you
+to handle the smaller gun; yes, both of you," he assured Julie, who was
+making an effort to attract his attention by motions behind Jane's back.
+"You really ought to both know how to use it. You might need to know how
+some time to protect yourselves."
+
+"What shall you do, Jane, while we are learning to shoot?" Julie inquired
+when the kitchen had again been tidied and the children were ready for
+their very first lesson with the small gun.
+
+"Maybe Jane'll want to learn too," Gerald suggested, but the older girl
+declared that she simply could not and would not touch one of the
+dreadful things.
+
+"Won't you come with us and watch the fun?" Dan lingered, when the two
+active youngsters had bounded out of the cabin. But the girl shook her
+head. "It wouldn't be fun to me," she said fretfully. "I'd much rather be
+left all alone. I want to write a long letter to Merry. She will be eager
+to hear from me, just as I am from her." There was a self-pitying tone in
+the girl's voice and a slight quiver to her lips. She turned hastily into
+her room and closed the door. She did not want Dan to see the tears. The
+lad went out on the wide front porch and stood for a moment with folded
+arms, his gray eyes gazing across the sun-shimmered valley, but he was
+not conscious of the grandeur of the scene. He was regretting, deeply
+regretting that he had permitted his sister to come to a country so
+distasteful to her. He well knew that she had shut herself in her room to
+sob out her grief and disappointment and then perhaps to write it all to
+this friend of whom she so often spoke and whom she seemed to love so
+dearly.
+
+Once Dan turned toward the door as though to return to the cabin. His
+impulse was to go to Jane and tell her not to unpack. The stage would be
+passing there again on the following day, and, if she wished she could go
+back to the East. In fact, the lad almost believed that if Jane went, it
+might hasten his recovery. Her evident unhappiness was causing him to
+worry, and that was most detrimental. With a deep sigh of resignation, he
+did turn toward the open door, bent on carrying out his resolve, but a
+cry of alarm from Julie sent him running around the cabin and up toward
+the brook.
+
+He met the children, white-faced, big-eyed, hurrying toward him, Gerald
+carrying the small gun.
+
+"What is it, Gerry? What have you seen to frighten you?" He looked about
+as he spoke, but saw nothing but the jagged mountain side, the rushing,
+whirling brook and the peaceful old pines.
+
+But it was quite evident by the expressions of the two children that they
+at least thought they had seen something of a dangerous nature. Gerald
+pointed toward a clump of low-growing pines on the other side of the
+brook as he said in a tense, half-whispered voice: "Whatever 'twas, Dan,
+it's hiding in there." Then he explained: "Julie and I were crossing the
+water on those big stones when, snap, something went. I whirled to look.
+Honest, I expected to see a grizzly, but there wasn't anything at all in
+sight. Julie and I stood just as still as we could; we didn't even make a
+sound! Then we saw those bushy trees moving, though there wasn't a bit of
+wind, so we know whatever 'tis, it's in there."
+
+While the small boy had been talking, Dan had been loading the gun.
+"You'd better let me go alone," he said to the children, but their
+disappointed expressions caused him to add: "At least let me go ahead,
+and if I think best for you to come, I'll beckon."
+
+Dan crossed the brook on the big stones and went toward the clump of
+small stubby pines. Then he stood still, watching the dense low trees
+intently. His heart beat rapidly, not from fear, for he almost hoped that
+it might be a grizzly, and yet, would it not be unwise to shoot at it
+with a small gun? It might infuriate a huge beast, and so endanger all of
+their lives. But, although he waited, watching and listening for many
+minutes, no sound was heard. He began to believe that the children had
+imagined the stealthy noise they thought they had heard, for, after all,
+they had not really seen anything, and so he beckoned them to join him.
+They leaped across the brook and were quickly at his side.
+
+"Wasn't it a bear, or a wildcat, or anything?" Gerald asked eagerly. Dan
+shook his head, as he replied with a laugh: "Don't be too disappointed,
+youngsters, even if you don't see everything on the first day. This time
+it was just a false alarm."
+
+But Dan was mistaken, for, from a safe hiding place, the old Indian,
+Slinking Coyote, was watching their every move.
+
+"Why don't we shoot into that pine brush anyway?" Julie suggested. "We
+might scare out whatever is hiding there." But Dan didn't wish to do
+this. He felt that it would be safer to have the larger gun with him
+before he started beating up hidden wild creatures of any kind.
+
+"Come along, youngsters, let's get back on the home-side of our brook and
+set up a target," the older boy suggested as he crossed the brook,
+followed by the children.
+
+In their door-yard Dan paused and looked about meditatively. "I want to
+set up a target near enough to be within call, and yet far enough away to
+keep from disturbing Jane too much with our racket."
+
+"Oh, I know!" Gerald cried. "Over there, just above where the road bends!
+That'll be a dandee place. Won't it, Dan?"
+
+The older boy smiled his agreement. "I do believe it will do as well as
+any place." They went toward the spot indicated and Dan continued:
+"Suppose we choose a cone on that lowest pine branch. If a bullet hits
+it, the cone will surely fall. Now, Gerald, just to be polite, shall we
+let Julie try first?"
+
+The boy nodded, his eyes shining with eagerness. "Sure! How many tries do
+we each get? Three?"
+
+"Any number you wish is all right with me." Then Dan placed the small gun
+in the position that Julie was to hold it, showed her how to look along
+the barrel, and how to take aim.
+
+"Hold it steady! One, two, three, go!" But no report was heard.
+
+"What's the matter, chick-a-biddie?" Dan was surprised to see how white
+the small girl's face had become, and to note that her arm was shaking so
+that she could hardly hold the gun. "I'm scared," she confessed. "I don't
+know why, but I am, Dan." She dropped the gun and ran to his arms. Then
+she smiled up through her tears. "I guess I'm afraid to hear the noise."
+
+"Pooh, pooh! That's just like a girl," said Gerry almost scornfully.
+"Anyhow, you don't need to learn to shoot. Dan or I'll always be around
+to protect you'n Jane. Can I have a try now, Dan? Can I?"
+
+The older lad turned to the small girl. "Suppose we let Gerald practice
+today, and later, when you feel that you would like to try again, you may
+do so?"
+
+This plan seemed quite satisfactory to Julie, who seated herself upon a
+rock which overhung the curving mountain road, and was about twenty feet
+above it. Gerald, instead of dreading the noise that the small gun would
+make, was eager to hear it, and after repeated trials, he managed to
+dislodge the brown cone. "Hurray! I did it! Bully for me! I'm a marksman
+now! Isn't that what I am, Dan? Now I'll pick out another one, and I bet
+you I'll hit it first shot."
+
+Julie, having wearied of the constant report of the small gun, had
+wandered away in search of wild flowers. The boys saw her running toward
+them, beckoning excitedly. "Dan," she said in a low voice, "Come on over
+here and look down at the road. The queerest man seems to be hiding. I
+was so far up above him, he didn't see me. He's hiding back of some rocks
+watching the road. Who do you suppose he is?"
+
+Dan looked troubled. He thought at once that it might be the old Ute
+Indian who had not gone with his tribe when they went in search of better
+hunting grounds, nor was he wrong. Very quietly, the three went to the
+rim of their ledge. About twenty feet below they beheld a most uncouth
+creature crouching behind a big boulder. Evidently he was intently
+watching the road as it wound up from Redfords. His cap was of black fur
+with a bushy tail hanging down at the back. They could not see his face
+as they were above him. Julie clung fearfully to her brother. "Oh, Dan,"
+she whispered. "What do you suppose he's watching for?"
+
+Before Dan could decide what he ought to do, a pounding of horse's feet
+was heard just below the bend, and a wiry brown pony leaped into view.
+The old Indian sprang from his hiding place so suddenly that the small
+horse reared, but the rider, her dark face flushed, her wonderful eyes
+flashing angrily, cried: "What did I tell you last time you stopped me?
+Didn't I say I'd shoot? You know I pack a gun, and I _never_ miss. I
+can't give you any more money. I'm saving all I can to go away to school.
+I've told you that before, and if you _are_ my father, as you're always
+telling me that you are, you'd ought to be glad if I'm going to have a
+chance."
+
+The old Indian whined something, which Dan could not hear. Impatiently
+the girl took from her pocket a coin and tossed it to him. "I don't
+believe you're hungry. You don't need to be, with squirrels as thick as
+they are. You'll spend all I give you on fire-water, if you can get it."
+
+Already the old Indian, evidently satisfied with what he had received,
+had started shambling down the road in the direction of the town, but the
+girl turned in the saddle to call after him: "Mind you, that's the last
+time I'll give you money. I don't believe that you are my father, and
+neither does Mammy Heger."
+
+She might have been talking to the wind for all the attention the old
+Indian paid. His pace had increased as the descent became steeper.
+
+Dan felt guilty because he had overheard a conversation not meant for his
+ears, and he drew the children away toward the cabin, and so heard,
+rather than saw, the girl's rapid flight up the road.
+
+The chivalry of the ages stirred in his heart. "It's a wicked shame that
+she hasn't a brother to protect her," he thought. "A young girl ought not
+to be tormented by such a coward. Slinking Coyote, that's what he is.
+Blackmailing, it would be called in civilized countries." Dan's
+indignation increased as he recalled how wonderfully beautiful the girl
+had looked when her dark eyes had flashed in anger. "I'd be far more
+inclined to think her a daughter of noble birth."
+
+His thoughts were interrupted by Julie, who, believing that they were a
+safe distance from the road, asked anxiously, "Who was the awful looking
+man, Dan? Will he hurt us?"
+
+The same question had presented itself to Dan, but he made himself say
+lightly, "Oh, no! That old Indian isn't at all interested in us. He
+evidently is just a beggar. He was asking the mountain girl for money and
+she gave it to him." Then, as an afterthought, he cautioned, "Don't
+mention having seen him to Jane, will you, children?"
+
+Willingly they agreed. They were indeed pleased to share a secret with
+their big brother.
+
+Julie chattered on, "Dan, I'd like to go up and see that nice girl. Do
+you think she'd let me ride on her pony? May Gerald and I go up there
+tomorrow?"
+
+Dan forced himself to smile. He did not want either of his companions to
+know that he was troubled. "Yes, we'll go up there tomorrow. I would like
+to meet the trapper who is, I believe, the father of that little
+horsewoman." But even as he spoke Dan recalled that the slinking Indian
+had insisted that he was her father, and that the girl did not believe
+it.
+
+When he reached the cabin, Jane was still shut in her room. The children
+declared that they were hungry as wolves and that they would get the
+evening meal, and so the older lad seated himself on the edge of the
+front porch to think over all that he had seen and heard, and decide what
+it would be best for him to do. Perhaps, after all, he had been unwise to
+bring either of the girls to a place so wild. Perhaps he ought to send
+them both home. He and Gerald could protect themselves if there were to
+be trouble of any kind. He decided that the very next day, as soon as the
+mountain girl had gone to the Redfords school, he would climb up the road
+to the cabin, which he believed was just about a mile above them. Then he
+could discover from the trapper if any real danger might lurk on the
+mountain for the two Eastern girls.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                               MEG HEGER
+
+
+To the surprise of the young people, almost as soon as the sun had set,
+night descended upon them. Dan had helped the children clean the lamps
+and lanterns. Their grandmother, at their father's prompting, had
+remembered to put kerosene on their list and also candles.
+
+Jane chose one of the latter to light her to bed. She simply detested
+kerosene lamps, she declared when Dan had asked if she didn't want to sit
+up with them a little while and read some of the books their father and
+mother had left in the cabin. "No, thank you!" had been the emphatic
+refusal. "The nights here are bitterly cold. In bed at least I can keep
+warm."
+
+"Gee-whiliker," Gerald said when the girl to whom everything seemed
+distasteful had retired. "Ain't she a wet blanket?"
+
+Before Dan could rebuke him for criticizing his elders, Julie burst in
+with, "Why, Gerry Abbott, didn't you promise Dad you wouldn't ever say
+ain't, and there you said it."
+
+The boy squirmed uncomfortably. "It's an awful long time since I said it
+before," he tried to excuse himself. "I bet you I won't do it again. You
+see if I do."
+
+Dan was looking at the empty hearth. "We should have cut some wood and
+had a roaring fire tonight. Let's do it tomorrow and make it more
+cheerful for Jane, if----" He paused as though he had said more than he
+had intended, but his alert companions would not let a sentence go
+unfinished.
+
+"If what, Dan?" Julie asked curiously.
+
+The boy was not yet ready to tell, even these two, that he might think it
+best to start Jane and Julie on their homeward way the next day. He knew
+that the older girl would be overjoyed, but the younger would be so
+disappointed that it seemed almost a cruel thing to contemplate. "I'll
+tell you tomorrow noon," he compromised, when he saw both pairs of eyes
+watching him as though awaiting his answer.
+
+In a very short time the children were nodding sleepily and Dan was glad
+when Julie took a candle and Gerry a lantern and bade him good-night.
+
+"We're going to get up to see the sunrise," Julie said.
+
+"If you wake up," Dan laughingly told them. Then, putting out the
+remaining lights, he, too, retired to his cot on the porch. He placed his
+loaded gun in the corner, back of him, where it could not be reached by
+anyone else without awakening him.
+
+For long hours he lay with wide eyes watching the sky, which seemed to be
+a canopy close above him, brilliant with stars. A slight wind kept the
+mosquitos away and, as it rustled through the pine boughs that were so
+near, a sense of peace stole into his heart--his fears were banished and
+he seemed to know that all was well.
+
+It was long after sunrise when he wakened and no one else was astir in
+the cabin. Very quietly he arose and dressed. Then he went to the
+kitchen, and a fragrance of coffee was what finally awakened the two
+children. They bounded from bed, ashamed of their laziness, and when they
+joined their big brother he had a good breakfast spread on the table in
+their out-of-door dining-room.
+
+"Julie, will you see if Jane is awake?" the older lad asked, and the
+small girl cautiously opened the door into her sister's room. Then she
+entered and went to the bedside. "You've got one of your dreadful
+headaches, haven't you, Janey?" The younger girl was all compassion. She
+knew well how Jane suffered when these infrequent headaches came. What
+she did not know was that they always followed a spell of anger or of
+worry. "I'll draw the curtains over this window so the sun can't come in
+and I'll fetch you your breakfast."
+
+Julie liked nothing better than to be mothering someone, but Jane showed
+no sign of appreciation. Her only comment was, "Have the coffee hot."
+
+Dan was sorry to hear that Jane had neuralgia, and, from past experience,
+he knew that she would be unable to travel that afternoon, and so she
+would be obliged to wait until the following Tuesday, when the stage
+would again pass that way. He felt elated at the thought, but first he
+must find out if it were safe for the girls to remain. Directly after
+breakfast he drew Gerald aside and asked him if he would stay at the
+cabin while he (Dan) went up the mountain road to interview the trapper.
+Although the small boy would much rather have accompanied Dan, he always
+wanted to do his share, and so he consented to remain.
+
+Dan waited until he was sure that Meg Heger had passed on her way to the
+Redfords school before he began the ascent of the mountain road. He could
+not have explained to himself why he did not want to meet the girl. It
+might have been a feeling that he had lacked in chivalry on the day
+before, when he had listened to the conversation in which she had
+probably revealed a secret which she would not wish strangers to share.
+He sauntered along by the brook, his gun over his shoulder, stopping
+every few feet to examine some rock or growth or just to gaze out over
+the valley, seeing new pictures at each changed position.
+
+It was a glorious morning, but with the invigorating chill yet in the
+air. He breathed deeply and walked with shoulders thrown back. Birds sang
+to him, squirrels in the pine boughs over his head, or scurrying among
+the dry soft carpet of needles, chattered at him; some were curious, many
+were scolding, but he laughingly told them that he was a comrade. He
+stopped on a level with one protesting bushy-tailed fellow to say, "Mr.
+Bright-Eyes, I wouldn't harm you, not for anything! This gun is merely to
+be used on something that would harm me, if it got the chance first. I
+don't believe in taking life from a little wild creature that enjoys
+living just as much as I do." Then, as he continued his walk, he thought,
+"I must tell Gerry not to kill any harmless creature unless we need it
+for food."
+
+Coming to a sudden sharp descent of about fifteen feet, he saw that the
+brook became a waterfall and just below it was a large pool which would
+make an excellent swimming hole. The water was as clear as crystal and
+was held in a smooth, red rock basin. After standing for some time,
+watching the joyous waterfall on which broken sunlight flashed, the lad
+glanced at his watch. It was after nine and so he could safely take to
+the road without fear of encountering the mountain girl. She was surely,
+by now, reciting to that kindly old man, Teacher Bellows. After another
+downward scramble, the road was reached. The ascent was gradual and Dan's
+thoughts wandered on without his conscious direction. He wondered how
+that mountain girl had happened to have a thirst for knowledge. That, in
+itself, proved to him that the old Ute was not her father, but, if he
+were not, why did he pretend that he was? What could be his reason? To
+obtain what money he could by making her think it her duty to help care
+for him. Dan had just decided this to be the most plausible explanation
+of the whole thing, when he was greatly startled by hearing the sudden
+report of a gun from the high rocks at his right. He looked up and beheld
+the girl about whom he had been thinking, every muscle tense, a smoking
+gun still against her shoulder. It was pointed at the bushes directly at
+his left. "Don't you move!" she shouted the warning. "Maybe I didn't kill
+it."
+
+Dan whirled toward the rocks and low-growing bushes at his left and what
+he saw reassured him. A mountain lion lay there, evidently dead, its
+position showing that it had been just about to spring upon him. He
+turned to thank the girl, but she had disappeared. She, too, had
+evidently been convinced that the animal was dead. On examining it
+closer, the boy saw that the bullet had entered the creature's head at a
+most vulnerable spot, and being thus assured that it was not playing
+possum, he went on his way.
+
+Already Meg Heger had won a right to his chivalry. She had saved his
+life. How he wished that in turn he might do something to save her from
+her tormentor.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                          THE TRAPPER'S CABIN
+
+
+Dan felt a glow of pleasure as he neared the log cabin which nestled
+against the mountain, sheltered by rock walls on the side from which the
+worst storms always came.
+
+Eagerly he looked ahead, hoping that he would see the girl. He wanted to
+thank her for having saved his life, but no one was in sight.
+
+It was a pleasant, home-like place, with chickens clucking cheerfully in
+a large, wired-in yard. Goats climbed among the rocks at the back, and a
+washing fluttered on a line at one side, while, to the boy's delight,
+masses of wild flowers, showing evidence of loving care, carpeted the
+earth-filled stretches between boulders, and some of them that trailed
+along the ground hung over the cliff in vivid bloom. It was Meg's garden,
+he knew, without being told.
+
+He rapped on the closed front door, but a voice from outside called to
+him. "Whoever 'tis, come around here. I'm washin'."
+
+Dan did as he was told and saw a thin, angular woman, who stood up very
+straight and looked at him out of keen blue eyes, as she wiped her sudsy
+hands on her gingham apron. Then she brushed back her graying locks.
+
+Her smile was a friendly one. "You're Dan Abbott's son, ain't you?" she
+began at once. "Hank Wallace, him as drives the stage, stopped in for
+dinner to our place yesterday and he told us all about having fetched you
+up. Pa and I knew your pa, and your ma, too, years back, afore any of you
+children was living, and long afore I had Meg." The woman nodded toward
+the wooded mountain beyond. "Meg's out studyin' some fandangled thing she
+calls bot'ny." Then she waved a bony hand toward the glowing gardens.
+"Them's what she calls her specimens. Queer things they get to larnin' in
+schools nowadays. I didn't have much iddication. None at all is more like
+the real of it. But pa, he went summers for a spell, and learned readin',
+writin' and 'rithmetic. All a person needs to know in these mountains;
+but Meg, now, she's been goin' ever since she could talk, seems like.
+Notion Pa Heger took. He got talked into doin' it by Preacher Bellows."
+Then, before saying more, the woman cautiously scanned the woods and the
+road. Feeling sure that there was no one near enough to hear her, she
+confided: "You see, we ain't dead sure who Meg is. She was about three
+when one of the Ute squaw women fetched her, all done up in one of them
+bright-colored blankets they make. It was a terrible stormy night.
+There'd been a cloudburst, and the thunder made this old mountain shake
+for true. Pa Heger said he heard someone at the door, and I said 'twas
+the wind. He said he knew better, and he went to see. There stood a Ute
+squaw, and she grunted something and held out the blanket bundle. Pa took
+it, bein' as he heard a cry inside of it. That squaw didn't stop. She
+shuffled away and Pa shut the door quick to keep the storm out.
+
+"'Well, Ma,' he says, turning to me, 'what d' s'pose we've got here?'
+
+"'Some Indian papoose,' I reckoned 'twas.
+
+"'Well, if 'tis,' said he, 'I can't throw it out into this awful storm.
+We'll have to keep it till it clears, an' then I'll pack it back to the
+Utes.'
+
+"They was over at the Crazy Creek camp then, but when that storm let up,
+and Pa did go over, there wa'n't a hide or hair left of that Ute tribe.
+They'd gone to better huntin' grounds, the way they allays do, and we've
+never seen 'em since. None of 'em 'cept ol' Slinkin' Coyote. It's queer
+the way he sticks to it that he's Meg's pa, but my man won't listen to
+it. Gets mad as anythin' if I as much as say maybe it's true. He'll rave,
+Pa will, an' say: 'Look at our Meg! Does she look like a young 'un of
+that skulkin' old wildcat?' Pa says, an' I have to agree she don't. But
+he pesters her, askin' for money. That is, he used to afore Pa Heger set
+the law on him. Pa has a paper from the sheriff, givin' him the right to
+arrest that ol' Ute if he ever sets eyes on him.
+
+"But I declare to it! Here comes Pa Heger himself. He'll be glad to meet
+you, bein' as he knew your pa so well."
+
+The lad turned eagerly. He was always glad to meet someone who had known
+his father in the long ago years, when he had come West, just after
+leaving college, hoping to win a fortune.
+
+Then, as the boy waited for the man to come up, he wondered why Meg did
+not return. Didn't she care to make his acquaintance?
+
+"Pa Heger," as he liked to be called, was a pleasant-faced man whose
+deeply wrinkled, leathery countenance showed at once that he had
+weathered wind and storm through many a long year in the mountains.
+
+As Ma Heger had done, he seemed to know intuitively who the visitor was.
+But before he could speak, his talkative spouse began:
+
+"Pa, ain't this boy the splittin' image of Danny Abbott, him as used to
+come over to set by our fire and hear you spin them trappin' yarns o'
+yourn? That was afore he went away an' got married. 'Arter that he wa'n't
+alone when he come climbin' up the mountain, but along of him was the
+sweetest purtiest little creature I'd ever sot my eyes on. The two of 'em
+were a fine lookin' pair."
+
+Dan shook hands with the silent man, who showed his pleasure more with
+his smiling eyes than with words. He was quite willing to let his wife do
+most of the talking. The lad was pleased with the praise given his father
+and mother, when they were young, and he at once told Mrs. Heger that his
+sister Jane, who was with him, very closely resembled that bride of long
+ago.
+
+"Wall, now," the good woman exclaimed, "how I'd like to see the gal.
+She'n my Meg ought to get on fine, if she's anyhow as friendly as her ma
+was. Mis' Abbott used to come right out to my kitchen. She'd been goin'
+to some fandangly cookin' school, the while she was gettin' ready to be
+married, and she larned me a lot of things to make kitchen work easier.
+I'm doin' some of 'em yet, and thinkin' of her often."
+
+Dan did not comment on the possibility of his proud sister becoming an
+intimate friend of the mountain girl, but, for himself, he found that he
+very much wanted to know more about their adopted daughter.
+
+"Mr. Heger," he turned to the man, who stood shyly twirling his fur cap,
+"your daughter has just saved my life."
+
+His listeners both looked very much surprised.
+
+"Why, how come that?" Mrs. Heger inquired. "You didn't say as how you'd
+seen Meg, all the time I was talkin' about her."
+
+Dan might have replied that he had not had an opportunity to say much of
+anything. But to an interested audience he related the recent occurrence.
+
+"Pshaw, that's queer now!" Pa Heger scratched his gray head back of one
+ear, which Dan was to learn was a habit with him when he was puzzled.
+
+"You say the mountain lion was crouched to spring at you? Then it must o'
+been that she had some young near. They're cowards when it comes to
+humans, them lions are. They kill sheep an' calves an' deer, an' all the
+little wild critters, but they don't often attack a man. They'll trail
+'em for hours, curious, sort of, I reckon, keepin' out of sight. Makes
+you feel mighty uncomfortable to know one of them big critters is
+prowlin' arter you, whatever his intentions may be. But that 'un, now,
+you was mentionin', I'll walk back wi' you, when you go, an' take a look
+at it. Thar's a bounty paid for 'em by the ranchers. An' if young air
+near by, there'll be no time better for puttin' an end to 'em."
+
+Ma Heger glanced often toward the wooded mountain beyond Meg's "Bot'ny
+Gardens." Then to her husband she said: "I reckon Meg knows thar's
+company, an' that's why she's stayin' so long. She said to me, 'Ma, I
+ain't agoin' to school today,' says she. 'I reckon I'll get some more
+specimens.'"
+
+At that the man looked up quickly, evident alarm in his clear blue eyes.
+
+"Did she say anything about havin' seen that skulkin' Ute? Has he been
+pesterin' her? The day arter she's given him money, she don' dare go to
+school, fearin' he'll be rarin' drunk wi' fire-water an' waylay her. If
+ever I come up wi' that coyote, I'll--I'll----"
+
+The wife tried to quiet the increasing anger of her spouse.
+
+"Pa Heger," she said, "you're alarmin' yerself needless. That Ute knows
+the sheriff gave you power to jail him, an' he's mos' likely gone to whar
+his tribe is."
+
+Dan stood silently, wondering what he ought to say. He knew that Meg had
+given the old Indian money, and he realized that was why she had been at
+home to save his life.
+
+"I shall be glad to have you walk back with me, Mr. Heger," he said.
+
+Dan wanted to be alone with the mountaineer. When they had started down
+the mountain road, the man at Dan's side was silent, a frown gathering on
+his leathery forehead. Suddenly he blurted out: "This here business has
+got to stop. That slinkin' ol' Ute's got to prove that my Meg is his gal.
+In the courts, he's got to prove it, or I'll have him strung up. Jail's
+too good for him. Pesterin' a little gal to get her to give up her
+savin's that she's been puttin' by this five year past, meanin' to go to
+school in the big city and larn to be a teacher. That's what Meg's
+figgerin' on, and that skulkin' Ute drainin' it away from her little by
+little. I made her pack a gun, an' tol' her to shoot him on sight, but I
+reckon she ain't got the heart to take a life, though I'd sooner trap him
+than I would a--well, a coyote that he's named arter."
+
+Dan could be quiet no longer. "Mr. Heger," he said, "it was about that
+very Indian that I came up here to talk to you this morning. I saw him in
+hiding near our cabin. Yesterday afternoon he frightened the children,
+although he did not come out into the open; then about two hours later we
+saw him hiding behind boulders on the road below us. He waylaid your
+daughter, just as you fear. Also she gave him money." While the boy had
+been talking, the man's great knotted hands had closed and unclosed and
+cords swelled out on his reddening face. "I knew it," he cried. "Dan
+Abbott, I want you to help me catch that Ute. Meg won't. She ain't sure
+but what he is her pa, an' it's agin nature to ask her to harm him. I
+won't let on that you tol' me, but, Dan, we've got to trap him. You
+needn't be afraid of him. He won't harm you or your family. He's too
+cowardly for that. What's more, he's paralyzed in one arm; it's all
+shriveled up so he can't hold a gun."
+
+Dan felt greatly relieved upon hearing this, and wishing to change the
+conversation to something pleasanter, he inquired how soon Meg expected
+to be able to go away to school. But the subject evidently was not
+pleasant to the old man. "Next fall's the time, an' me and ma can't bring
+ourselves to think on it. Snowed in all winter without Meg's 'bout as
+pleasin' as bein' shet in a tomb." The anger had all died out of the
+leathery, wrinkled face and in the blue eyes there shone that wonderful
+love-light that is the most beautiful thing the world holds. "Queer, now,
+ain't it, how a slip of a baby girl could fill up two lives the way Meg
+did our'n from the start. An' she cares for us jest as much as we for
+her, I reckon. 'Pears like she does." The old man's voice had become
+tender as he spoke.
+
+"I'm sure of it," Dan said heartily. Then, after a pause, Pa Heger
+continued slowly: "That gal of our'n has the queerest notions. One's the
+way she takes to flowers." Then, looking up inquiringly, "Did Ma tell you
+how she earned the money she's savin' for her iddication?" Dan shook his
+head, and so the old man continued: "Teacher Bellows 'twas got her
+started on it. He's what folks call a naturalist, an' when he used to
+stay up to our cabin for weeks at a time an' he'd take Meg wi' him
+specimen huntin'. Seems like thar's museum places all over this here
+country that wants specimens of flowers growin' high up in the Rockies.
+So Teacher Bellows and Meg would hunt for days, startin' early every
+mornin' and late back in the arternoon, till they had a set of specimens.
+They'd press 'em till they was dry as paper, then mount 'em, as they call
+it, an' send 'em off to a museum, and along come a check. Arter Teacher
+Bellows went back to his school, Meg kept right on doin' it by herself,
+him helpin' now an' then, an' she's saved nigh enough for the two years'
+schoolin' she'll need to be a low grade schoolmarm. She's got another
+queer notion, Meg has. I wonder if Ma tol' you about that?" The old man
+looked up inquiringly, and Dan, finding himself very much interested in
+the notions of this girl whom he did not know, said that he would very
+much like to hear about it.
+
+The old man removed his fur cap and scratched his gray head again. His
+voice grew even more tender. "You know what it says in that good book
+Preacher Bellows is allays readin' out of, how a little child shall lead.
+Wall, that's sartin what Meg's done for me and Ma Heger. When she was
+about six year old, or maybe, now, she was seven, it was curious how
+friendly even the skeeriest little wild critters was toward her. She
+could feed 'em out of her hand, arter a little coaxin', an' how she loved
+'em! You see, they was all the playmates she's ever had. Then 'twas she
+started her horspital for hurt critters, an' she's kept it goin' ever
+sence. Got one now, but, plague it, I can't remember what kind of
+patients she's got into it. She won't keep nothin' captive arter they're
+well enough to fight for themselves out in the forest. Wall, as I was
+sayin' back a piece, Meg was about seven as I recollect, when she sort of
+sudden like seemed to realize how 'twas I made my livin', trappin' wild
+animals and sellin' their skins at the tradin' post.
+
+"But even then, she didn't fully sense what it meant, seemed like, till
+the day we couldn't find her nowhar. She'd never gone far into the
+mountains afore that, but when she didn't come home at noonday, Ma asked
+me to go an' hunt for her. It was late arternoon afore I come upon her,
+an' I'll never forget that sight as long as I'm livin'.
+
+"My habit was to set them powerful steel traps to catch mountain lions
+and the fur animals I wanted for pelts. Then, every few days, I'd go the
+round and shoot the critters that had been caught in 'em. Wall, as I was
+goin' toward whar one of them big traps was. I heard sech a pitiful
+cryin'. Good God, but I was wild wi' fear, an' I ran like wolves was
+arter me. I'd a notion our baby gal was catched in it. An' thar she was,
+sure enough, but not hurt. Instead she was down on the ground wi' her
+arms around a little black bear cub that had been catched hours before
+and was all torn and bleedin'.
+
+"The fight was gone out o' him, but he wa'n't dead yet. It was our little
+Meg who was doin' the cryin'. Clingin' to the little fellow, not heedin'
+the blood, her sobbin' was pitiful to hear. I picked her up, an' I ain't
+'shamed to be tellin' you that I was cryin' myself along about that time.
+
+"'Take him out, Pa,' my little gal was beggin'. 'Maybe he'll get well,
+Pa.'
+
+"So I opened the great steel jaws of that trap and took out the little
+cub bear. He was too small to be worth anything for a pelt, an' we
+fetched him home, but he died soon arter, and Meg, she had me bury him.
+But she couldn't get over what she had seen. She had a ragin' fever for
+days. I sot up every night holdin' her little quiverin' body close in my
+arms, an' prayin' God if he'd let my little gal live, I'd never set
+another of them cruel steel traps to catch any of His critters as long as
+I'd breath in my body.
+
+"Wall, boy, sort of a miracle took place. That little gal of mine had
+fallen asleep while I sat holdin' her, but jest as I made that promise,
+silent to God, she lifted up her little hand and put it soft like on my
+face, an' says, still asleep, seemed like--'I love you, Pa Heger.' An'
+when she woke up next mornin', the fever was gone, and she was well as
+ever.
+
+"I kept my promise," he went on grimly. "I went all over the mountain an'
+I took them steel traps, one by one, unsprung 'em and dropped 'em down
+into that crack some earthquake had split into Bald Peak. It's
+bottomless, seems like, an' what goes into that crack never does no more
+harm. Now, when I kill a critter that needs killin', I shoot an' they
+never know what hits 'em. Meg is a sure-shot, too, though she'd never
+pack a gun if 'twant that I make her."
+
+They had reached the spot where the mountain lion still lay, and the old
+man stooped to examine it. "I reckon that was a sure shot, all right."
+Then he shouldered the limp creature. "Thar's fifty dollars bounty, so I
+might as well have it. I'll hunt for the cubs tomorrer. So long. Hit the
+trail up our way often."
+
+As Dan walked slowly down the mountain road toward his home cabin, he
+found that he was more interested in this unknown Meg than he had ever
+before been in any girl.
+
+Jane's headache was better when Dan returned, but her disposition was
+worse, and poor Julie was about ready to cry. She had been spoken to so
+sharply when she had really tried to help. Gerald was angry and
+indignant. He had at first urged his small sister and comrade to pretend
+that Jane was being pleasant, but, after a time, even he had decided that
+such a feat was too much for anyone to accomplish. Then he had
+intentionally slammed a door and had declared that he hoped it would make
+"ol' Jane's" head worse.
+
+It was well that Dan returned just when he did. He entered the cabin
+living-room calling cheerily, "Good, Jane, I'm glad to see you are up."
+Then he looked from one to the other. Julie, tearful, rebellious, stood
+near the kitchen door, and Gerald, with clenched fists, had evidently
+been saying something of a defiant nature. "Why, what's the matter? What
+has gone wrong?"
+
+Dan was indeed dismayed at the picture before him. Jane, who had seated
+herself in the one comfortable chair in the room, said peevishly:
+"Everything is the matter. Dan, you can see for yourself what a mistake I
+made in coming to this terrible place, and trying to live with these two
+children who have had no training whatever. They are defiant and
+rebellious."
+
+Even as Jane spoke, a memoried picture presented itself of Julie's sweet
+solicitude for her earlier that morning, but she would not heed, so she
+hurried on: "I have been lying in there with this frightful headache
+thinking it all out, and I have decided that either the children must go
+back or I will." A hard look, unusual in Dan's face, appeared there and
+his voice sounded cold. "Very well, Jane, I will help you pack. The stage
+passes soon. If we hurry, we may be ready." The children could hardly
+keep from shouting for joy. Something which Julie was cooking, boiled
+over and so she darted to the kitchen, followed by Gerald, who stood upon
+his head in the middle of the floor. But they had rejoiced too soon, for
+Gerry, who a moment later went to the brook for water, returned with the
+disheartening news that the stage was passing down their part of the
+road. Julie plumped down on the floor and her mouth quivered, but before
+she could cry, Gerald caught her hands, pulled her up and said
+comfortingly: "Never mind, Jule. The stage will be going past again on
+Monday. Me and you'll stay on the watch and tell Mister Sourface to stop
+for Jane when he goes back to Redfords on Tuesday. That is not so awful
+long. Oh, boy, then won't we have the time of our lives?"
+
+Julie agreed that they would indeed and decided to be very patient during
+the remaining two days. So she went back to her cooking and, with
+Gerald's help, soon had the lunch spread.
+
+Jane ate but little, and again shut herself up in her room for all that
+afternoon. Dan was almost as glad as were the children that she was to go
+back to the East, but Jane, strangely enough, was deeply hurt because her
+brother, who had been her playmate when they were little, and her pal in
+later years, had actually chosen the younger children in preference to
+herself. That proved how much he really cared for _her_ and, as for his
+health, he seemed to be recovering remarkably. He had coughed a while the
+evening before, and for a shorter time that morning.
+
+Then he had evidently been on a long hike. Of all that had happened Dan
+had said nothing, knowing that Jane would not wish to hear about the
+mountain girl, toward whom she felt so unkindly.
+
+That afternoon Dan gave the children another lesson at shooting cones
+from an old pine, far enough from the cabin to keep from disturbing Jane.
+Julie grew braver as she watched Gerald's success, and at last she too
+tried, and when, after many failures, she sent a brown cone spinning, she
+leaped about wild with joy.
+
+"Now we are both sharpshooters," Gerald cried generously. Then, glancing
+over at the cabin, he added: "There's Jane sitting out on the porch. She
+does look sort of sick, doesn't she?"
+
+Dan's heart was touched when he saw the forlorn attitude of the sister he
+so loved. "You youngsters amuse yourselves for a while," he suggested, "I
+want to have a quiet talk with Jane." Dan neglected to tell the children
+not to wander away.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                             QUEER KITTENS
+
+
+Left alone, Julie and Gerald scrambled to the road and looked both up and
+down. "Which way will we go?" Julie inquired.
+
+"We've been down--or, I mean, we've been up the down road." Then the boy
+laughed. "Aw, gee! You know what I mean. We came up the road yesterday in
+the stage; so now, let's go on further up."
+
+Julie hopped about, clapping her hands gleefully. "Ohee, I know what!
+Let's see if we can find that cabin the innkeeper lady said was about a
+mile up the mountain road from our place. Wouldn't that be fun? And maybe
+that nice girl will be at home from school, and, if she is, I just know
+she'll let me ride her pony."
+
+Gerald, nothing loath, fell into step by his sister's side, the gun over
+his shoulder. After the fashion of small brothers, he could not resist
+teasing. "I bet you couldn't stay on that pony, however hard you tried.
+It's a wild Western broncho sort, like those we saw at Madison Square
+Garden that time Dad took us to Buffalo Bill's big circus." Then, in a
+manner which seemed to imply that he did not wish to boast, he added: "I
+sort of think I could ride it easy. Boys get the knack, seems like,
+without half trying."
+
+They had rounded the bend and were nearing the very spot where the
+mountain girl had shot the lion, when Julie clutched her brother's arm
+and drew him back, whispering excitedly: "Gerry! Hark! What's that noise
+I hear?"
+
+The boy listened and then crept cautiously toward the bushes. He also
+heard queer little crying sounds that were almost plaintive. "Huh!" he
+said boldly. "'Tisn't anything that would hurt us. Sounds to me like
+kittens crying for their mother."
+
+A joyful shout from the girl, closely following him, turned into "Gerry!
+That's just what they are! Great big kittens! See how comically they
+sprawl? They haven't learned to walk yet. Their little legs aren't strong
+enough to stand on. See, I can pick one right up. He doesn't seem to mind
+a bit." The small girl suited the action to the word, and it was well for
+her that the mother lion had been killed, or Julie would soon have been
+badly torn, despite the fact that her brother still carried his small
+gun.
+
+The boy had lifted the other weak creature, which had not been alive many
+days, and, with much curious questioning as to what kind of "pussy cats"
+they might be, they continued their walk and soon reached the cabin.
+
+Meg Heger, who had remained long in the forest that day, having sought a
+rare lichen high on the mountain, was just descending from the trail that
+led into her "botany gardens" when she saw the two children entering the
+front yard of her home cabin. Unbuckling the basket which she carried
+much as an Indian squaw carries a pappoose, the girl leaped down the
+rocks and exclaimed: "Oh, children, where did you find those darling
+little mountain lion babies?"
+
+Luckily she took the one Julie was holding in her own arms as she spoke,
+for if she had not, that particular "baby" would have had a hard fall,
+for when the small girl from the East heard that she was actually holding
+a mountain lion, she uttered a little frightened scream and let go her
+hold. But Gerald, being a boy, realized that even a future fierce wild
+animal was harmless when its legs were too weak for it to stand on, and
+so he continued to hold his pet, even venturing to admire it.
+
+"It's a little beauty, ain't--I mean, isn't it?" He glanced quickly at
+Julie, but the slip had evidently not been observed, for she was intently
+watching the mountain girl, who was caressing the little creature she
+held as though she loved it, as she did everything that lived in all the
+wilderness.
+
+But as Meg Heger held that helpless, hungry baby her heart was sad, for
+well she knew that it was unprotected and perhaps starving because she
+had shot and killed its mother. Of course she had to kill the lion to
+save the life of the lad who had gone too close to the place where the
+mother had her young; but, nevertheless, she felt that, in a way, her act
+had made her responsible for these helpless little wild creatures, since
+they had been brought to her.
+
+Brightly she turned to the children. "Don't you want to come with me to
+the hospital?" she invited. "We'll give them some supper."
+
+She did not ask who the children were, nor from whence they had come.
+Perhaps she remembered having seen them the day before on the stage; or
+Sourface Wallace may have told her.
+
+Julie and Gerald followed, wondering what the "hospital" might be.
+
+Back of the cabin, on a rocky ledge, the children saw a queer assortment
+of wooden boxes, small cages and little runways. "This is the hospital."
+Meg flashed a merry smile at them over her shoulder. "There aren't many
+patients just now. Most of them have been cured. Here's one little
+darling, and I'm afraid he never will be well. Some prowling creature
+caught him and had succeeded in breaking a wing when it heard me coming.
+Why it dropped its prey when it ran, I don't know, but I brought the
+little fellow home and Pap helped me set its wing. It's ever so much
+better, but even yet can't fly, but it can scuttle along the ground just
+ever so fast."
+
+Gerald was much interested.
+
+"What kind of a bird is it, Miss Heger?" he began, very politely, when
+the girl's musical laughter rippled out. "Don't call me that!" she
+pleaded. "It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher
+Bellows told our class about. It's a little quail bird, dearie. You'll
+see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of
+cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage
+have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the grass rather
+than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so
+many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain
+quail; it is one of the largest cousins. The one that lives in the South
+is called a partridge."
+
+Gerald listened politely to the life history of the pretty bird, but his
+attention had been seized and held by what Meg had said about the very
+ancient pine. "Was there ever a tree that lived a thousand years?" he
+asked with eager interest. The girl nodded. "Indeed, there are many that
+have lived much longer, but this pine was blown over, and Teacher Bellows
+was allowed to cut it up to read its life history. He found that it had
+been in two forest fires, and about five hundred years ago an Indian
+battle had been fought near it, for there were arrow heads imbedded in
+the rings that indicated that year of its life."
+
+Then Meg concluded with her bright smile: "Some day, when Teacher Bellows
+is up here, I'll have him tell you the names and probable ages of all our
+neighbor trees! It's a fascinating study."
+
+Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree's life and so she
+began eagerly: "Miss--I mean--do you want us to call you Meg?" she
+interrupted herself to inquire.
+
+The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express
+bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. "Haven't you any more patients?"
+
+Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like
+beds.
+
+"Only just Mickey Mouse. He's a little cripple! His left foot was cut off
+in a trap, but he gets around nicely on one stump. That's his hole over
+there. I put grain and bits of cheese in front of it. Keep ever so still
+and I'll put a kernel of corn right by his door. Then perhaps you'll see
+his bright eyes." And that is just what happened. As soon as the corn
+kernel rolled in front of the hole, out darted a sharp brown nose with
+twitching whiskers and two beady black eyes appeared just long enough for
+their owner to drag his supper into the safe darkness of his particular
+box.
+
+Meg laughed happily. "He's the cunningest, Mickey is! I sometimes take
+him with me in my pocket. He likes to ride there, or so it seems. At any
+rate he is just as good as he can be. Often he goes to sleep, but at
+other times, he stands right up and looks out of the pocket, just as
+though he were enjoying the scenery."
+
+At that moment a sharp, almost impatient cry from the small creature she
+held recalled to the head doctor of the hospital the fact that she had
+started out to feed the baby lions. She brought milk from a cave-like
+room, only the front wall of which was wood, the rest being in the
+mountain. "That's our cooler," she told Gerald, whom she could easily
+observe was interested in all the strange things he saw. Dipping one
+corner of her handkerchief into the milk, she put it in the mouth of her
+tiny lion and the children were delighted to see how readily and joyfully
+the creature seemed to feast upon it. Having gathered courage, Julie
+wished to feed the other baby lion and then Meg suggested that they be
+put in a soft lined box on the rocks near, since they were used to being
+high up. The baby lions, being no longer hungry, cuddled down and went to
+sleep. Gerald's conscience was troubling him. "We'll have to be going,"
+he said. "Nobody knows where we are." Then he hesitated. He knew that it
+would be polite to ask the mountain girl to call upon them, but he was
+afraid that Jane would not treat her kindly, so, in his embarrassment, he
+caught Julie by the hand and fairly dragged her away as he called,
+"Goodbye, Meg, I'm coming up often." When they were on the down-road, the
+boy cautioned Julie to say nothing whatever of their adventure to their
+sister, but just to Dan.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                            A YOUNG OVERSEER
+
+
+Sunday dawned gloriously, and Dan declared that he felt better than he
+had supposed that he ever would again. Jane, too, though she did not
+voice it, was conscious of feeling more invigorated than she had been in
+the East, and yet, of course, she was very glad that she was going back
+again on the following Tuesday. She would go directly to Newport to visit
+Merry Starr, as had been their original plan. Her conscience would not
+trouble her, since it was Dan's wish that she be the one to leave.
+
+The two children, on the evening before, had failed to confide that they
+had visited the cabin up the mountain road. They were wild to tell Dan,
+but they wished to get him off by himself before they did so. They
+dragged him out into the kitchen after the Sunday morning work was done
+and asked him if he would go with them for a hike up along the brook to a
+natural bridge that they could see from their door-yard.
+
+The older lad hesitated. "I'll ask Jane if she would like to go," he
+began, but the immediate disappointment expressed by the two freckled
+faces made him turn back to add, "Or, rather, I'll ask Jane if she minds
+our going, just for a little while." This suggestion was far more
+pleasing to the children.
+
+They all entered the living-room where Jane sat reading. "My goodness,
+don't go far," she said petulantly. "Don't you remember that the terrible
+overseer from the Packard ranch is coming to take dinner with you today?
+I intend to shut myself in my room and stay there until he is gone."
+
+"Hm!" Dan snapped his fingers as he ejaculated. "Queer I'd forget that
+visit, since I have been looking forward to it so eagerly." Then he
+queried: "Why do you say that he is terrible, Jane? A foreman on a vast
+cattle ranch is not necessarily an uncouth specimen of humanity."
+
+The girl flung herself impatiently in the chair as she emphatically
+replied: "Of course he'll be terrible! A big, rawboned creature who will
+speak with a dreadful dialect, or whatever you call it; and he will be so
+embarrassed at meeting people from the city, that he will stutter more
+than likely."
+
+Dan laughed at the description. "Maybe you are right, sister of mine, but
+we'll be home to prepare the meal for our guest, long before the hour he
+is to arrive. Goodbye! Fire off the gun if you are frightened at
+anything."
+
+The girl merely shrugged her shoulders, and when they were gone she
+decided, since it really was very lovely out-of-doors, to take her book
+to the porch, and so she dragged thither the comfortable chair with the
+leather pillows. She was soon reading the story, which interested her so
+greatly that she did not notice the passing of time until she heard a
+step near by. Jane supposed that her family was returning, and did not
+glance up until she heard a pleasant, well-modulated voice saying:
+
+"Pardon me if I intrude, but is this the cabin occupied by the Abbott
+family?"
+
+Looking up in astonishment, Jane saw before her a handsome youth whose
+wide Stetson hat was held in one hand. He wore a tan-colored shirt of
+soft flannel, and his corduroys, of the same shade, were tucked into
+high, laced boots. Even before she spoke, Jane was conscious that the
+youth with the clean-shaven face, strong square chin, pleasant mouth,
+blue eyes with clear, direct gaze was not in the least embarrassed by her
+presence. He was indeed the kind of a lad she had always met in the homes
+of her best friends, the kind that Dan was. But that of which she was
+most conscious was the fact that he was very good looking, and that in
+his eyes there was an expression of sincere admiration for her.
+
+Graciously Jane rose and held out a slim white hand. "We are the
+Abbotts," she began; then, laughingly confessed that, unfortunately, she
+was the only one at home, as the others had gone on a hike--she really
+had not inquired where.
+
+The lad did not seem to consider it unfortunate. "Please be seated again,
+Miss Abbott, and I'll occupy the door-step, if you don't mind. I'd heaps
+rather meet strangers one by one. It's easier to get acquainted."
+
+Then, as he thought of something, he exclaimed: "I hope I have not come
+over much earlier than I was expected. I hiked all the way. I thought it
+might be easier to come cross-lots, so to speak, than to ride horseback
+to Redfords and then up your mountain road."
+
+"Was it?" Jane asked, wishing to appear interested.
+
+"It was great! I adore mountain climbing, don't you, Miss Abbott?"
+
+Then, not waiting for her reply, he continued with boyish enthusiasm: "I
+tell you, it means a lot to me to have you Abbotts here. I love the West,
+but I've missed my friends. We'll have great times! How long are you
+going to stay?"
+
+Jane hesitated. She should have replied that she was leaving on Tuesday,
+but now she was not sure that she wished to go.
+
+For a merry half hour these two chattered. The lad seemed to be quite
+willing to talk of everything but his home, and Jane was too well bred to
+ask questions. Jean told of his college life, and when she asked if he
+regretted that his days of study were over, he laughingly declared that
+they never would be. "Mr. Packard is a great student," he looked up
+brightly to say, "and our long winter evenings, that some chaps might
+call dull, are the most interesting I have ever spent. We take one
+subject after another and go into it thoroughly. We're most interested in
+experimental inventions and we have rigged up all sorts of labor saving
+contrivances over on the ranch." Recalling something which for the moment
+had been forgotten, Jean exclaimed: "Mr. Packard wished me to invite you
+all to visit us as soon as you are quite settled here."
+
+Then with that unconscious admiration in his eyes, he concluded: "For
+myself I most eagerly second the invitation." Jane's vanity was indeed
+gratified. She laughed a happy musical laugh which sounded natural,
+although it had really been cultivated. "I am greatly flattered that you
+should be so anxious to entertain the Abbotts," she told him, "since I am
+the only one of us whom you have met."
+
+"True!" he confessed, merrily, "but you know we scientists can visualize
+an entire family from one specimen. How could the other three be
+undesirable when one is so lovely? Maybe it's because I am a blonde that
+I admire the olive type of beauty."
+
+Just why she said it Jane could not have told, unless the memory of what
+that awful Gabby at the station had said still rankled. Be that as it
+may, almost without her conscious direction she heard herself saying: "I
+suppose, then, that you must be a great admirer of Meg Heger?" There was
+a note in the girl's voice which made the lad look up a bit puzzled. What
+he said in reply was both pleasing and displeasing to his companion. With
+a ring of sincerity he assured his listener that there were few girls
+finer than Meg Heger.
+
+"I do not know her personally very well," he told Jane. "She seems to
+shun the acquaintance of all young people. I sometimes think that she may
+believe her friendship would not be desired since she is supposed to be
+the daughter of that old Ute Indian, but this is not true. We in the West
+ask not the parentage but the sincerity of our friends. It's through her
+foster-father that I know the girl, really. I often go with him to the
+timber line and above it, when I am not needed on the ranch. It's a
+beautiful thing to hear him tell how Meg has enriched their lives."
+
+Then, as his direct gaze was again lifted to the olive-tinted face of the
+girl near him, he said frankly: "Many of the cowboys and others of our
+neighbors rave about Meg's beauty. But I do not admire the Spanish or
+French type as much as I do our very own American girl."
+
+Jean did not say in words which American girl he thought wonderfully
+lovely to look upon, but his eyes were eloquent.
+
+Jane could have sat there basking in the lad's evident admiration for
+hours, but the position of the sun, high above them, suggested to her
+that something must be amiss. "I wonder why Dan and the children do not
+return," she said, rising to look up the brook trail. Jean leaped to his
+feet and together they went around the cabin and scanned the
+mountain-side and the lad yodeled, but there was no response.
+
+"Of course, nothing could have happened to them all," Jane assured him.
+"They have gone farther than they planned, I suppose." Then, turning with
+a helpless little laugh, she said in her most winning way (and Jane could
+be quite irresistible when she wished), "I have a terrible confession to
+make. You will have to starve if they do not return, for I have never
+learned to cook."
+
+"Great! I'm glad you haven't, because that will give me an opportunity of
+shining in an art at which I excel." The lad seemed brimming over with
+enthusiasm. Jane smiled up at him. He stood a head taller than she, with
+wide, square shoulders that looked so strong and capable of carrying
+whatever burden might be placed upon them.
+
+"How did you happen to learn how to cook?" the girl inquired, and then
+wondered at the sudden change of expression in his handsome face. The
+joyful enthusiasm of the moment before was gone and in its place was an
+expression both tender and sad. "The last year of my little mother's life
+we two went alone to our cabin on the Maine coast. Mums wanted to take
+our Chinaman, but I begged her to let me have her all alone by myself,
+and so under her direction I learned to cook. Miss Abbott," the boy
+turned toward her, seeming to feel sure of her understanding sympathy,
+"that was the happiest summer of my life, but it had the saddest ending,
+for, try as I might to keep her, my little mother faded away and left
+us." Then abruptly he exclaimed, as though he dared not trust himself to
+keep on: "Won't you lead me to the kitchen, and when the wanderers return
+we will have a feast ready for them."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                               A NEW COOK
+
+
+Such a pleasant half hour was spent by these two who seemed content just
+to be together, Jane, with a twinge of regret, realized that the youth
+was idealizing her. He constantly attributed to her qualities that she
+well knew that she did not possess. He told her that he could understand
+why she had not learned to cook simply because for years she had been
+away at a fashionable seminary. "But now is your golden opportunity, and
+I am indeed lucky to be your first teacher." That he was pleased was
+quite evident. "I am sure you agree with me, Miss Abbott, that cooking is
+as essential in a young woman's education as painting or singing." Then
+he laughed boyishly. "I'm afraid, when I am hungry that I would far
+rather have a beautiful girl cook for me than sing to me. Now, what is
+the menu to be?"
+
+Jane looked about the kitchen helplessly. She did not wish to confess to
+Jean Sawyer that she had not before been in there except to pass through
+it to their outdoor dining-room.
+
+"Julie and Dan were planning the meal. I really don't know." The
+situation was relieved by Jean's asking: "May I prepare anything I can
+find?"
+
+"Oh, yes, do please! It really doesn't matter which of our supplies are
+used first." The girl was glad to have the problem thus easily solved.
+After a few moments of ransacking, the lad looked up from a box as he
+asked: "Miss Jane, will you pare the potatoes?"
+
+She shrank away before she realized what she was doing. "Oh, wouldn't
+they stain my hands terribly?" Then, with her most winning smile, she
+held them both out to him. "You see, they haven't a stain on them yet,
+and I did hope they never would have." The boy made a move as though to
+take the hands in his. But he stooped quickly over the box of potatoes
+and said earnestly: "Right you are, Miss Abbott. They are far too lovely
+to mar."
+
+Perhaps because of associated ideas it was that he recalled a poem that
+went somewhat in this way: "Beautiful hands are those that do work that
+is useful, kind and true." What he said was: "Suppose you set the table.
+I'll make the fire and have a pot of goulash in no time. That is my
+favorite camp menu, perhaps because it is the simplest."
+
+Everything was in readiness when merry voices were heard without, and
+Julie, evidently believing they were unheard, said in a stage whisper:
+"Don't tell Jane that we've been up to see Meg Heger's hospital, will
+you, Dan? She'd be mad as anything." The older lad was opening the
+kitchen door at that moment, and the two, who had been keeping so still
+in the kitchen that the surprise might be complete, could not but hear.
+Vaguely Jean Sawyer wondered why Jane would be "mad" because the rest of
+her family had been to call upon a neighbor. Glancing at her proud,
+beautiful face, he saw a scornful curl to the mouth which he had thought
+so lovely, and it was not pleasant to behold. But a moment later he had
+forgotten it, in the excitement that followed his discovery. Dan advanced
+with glowing eyes and outstretched hand. "Jean Sawyer! How glad we are to
+have you with us. These are the youngsters, Julie and Gerald." The little
+girl made a pretty curtsy and Gerry thrust out a chubby, freckled hand,
+smiling his widest as he looked admiringly at the cowboy's costume.
+"Gee!" he confided, "I'd like awful well to have one of those rigs. Dan,
+don't you s'pose they make 'em small enough for boys?"
+
+But it was Jean who answered. "They do, indeed, and what is more, there
+is one over at the Packard ranch more typical than mine, which I am
+pretty sure will fit you. A grandson of Mr. Packard's was with us last
+summer, but he isn't coming this year and he'd be glad to have you wear
+it." Then, smiling at the older girl, he said to Dan: "Your sister, Miss
+Jane, has agreed to bring you all over to our place to spend next Sunday.
+That is a week from today." Julie, upon hearing this, was about to blurt
+out her disappointment by saying, "How can she, if she's going back East
+on Tuesday?" But a cold glance from her sister's eyes made the small girl
+turn away with quivering lips. After all Jane was going to stay and their
+summer would be spoiled. Jean Sawyer had also witnessed this by-play and
+he felt a sense of great disappointment.
+
+It was quite evident that Jane Abbott's beauty was only skin deep.
+
+When Jean Sawyer took his departure that afternoon, Dan accompanied him
+part way "cross-lots," as the former lad had called it.
+
+They crossed the brook and after climbing many a jagged boulder, began
+the descent on the side of the mountain nearest the wide valley in which
+was located the fertile Packard ranch.
+
+These two lads, so near of an age, found that they were most congenial.
+When Dan confessed that his dearest desire was to become a writer of
+purpose fiction, Jean heartily applauded. "Great! I'd give anything if I
+had the ability to do something fine for this old world of ours, but,
+just at present, I believe I will continue being Mr. Packard's foreman.
+Really, Dan, reading and studying with that man is as good as having a
+post-graduate course at college."
+
+Then apropos of nothing (or so it seemed), Jean said: "What a beautiful
+girl your sister is. What a pity that she has not had the love and
+direction of a mother. I had such a wonderful mother myself, Dan, I well
+know what girls and boys have missed when they lost their mothers while
+they were very young."
+
+Dan grew serious at once. Then he confessed:
+
+"Jean, I feel as though I had known you for a long time, and so I am
+going to tell you my greatest problem. My sister Jane is beautiful, and
+before she went away to that fashionable Highacres Seminary she was as
+sweet and lovable a girl as any you could find, but for some reason she
+learned there much that was not in the curriculum. Pride of family,
+snobbishness, and because of our father's position, many of her
+companions were so deferential to her that she has come to expect it
+from everyone. How I wish I knew how to save Jane from herself."
+
+It was just as Jean had feared. He surprised himself by saying: "If she
+would chum with Meg Heger a while, I believe it would help her to
+overcome those artificially acquired qualities, for Meg is sincerely
+natural. But your sister would have to make the advances. Meg never will.
+She keeps apart by herself, and will probably continue doing so until it
+is proven that she is not that Ute Indian's daughter. I know that you
+have met Meg, for I overheard your little sister saying that you had been
+there this morning."
+
+"Yes, we were. The children pleaded so hard that I go and see their baby
+lions."
+
+Then he told the story of the death of the mother lion to an interested
+listener. "I wondered why Meg Heger disappeared directly after having
+saved my life. Nor would she come to her home while she know that I was
+there. It is too bad that she shuts herself away from people who would
+gladly be her friends."
+
+Jean nodded. "That is just what she does. Last year, as I was telling
+Gerald, Mr. Packard's daughter, Mrs. Delbert, and her young son were with
+us. When Mrs. Delbert heard the story of Meg's devotion to her
+foster-parents and how she is trying to become a teacher that she might
+make life easier and pleasanter for them, she at once wished to make
+Meg's acquaintance. We hiked up to the Heger cabin one Saturday morning,
+and although Meg willingly showed Mrs. Delbert her botany gardens, and
+her hurt animal hospital, she was so reserved and shut away from us, that
+we realized at once that she did not wish our friendship. Mrs. Delbert
+invited Meg to spend a day with her at the ranch, but the girl never
+came, nor have I seen her since."
+
+The other lad understood.
+
+"With me she is also distant and reserved," he said, "but when she talks
+to Julie and Gerald she is very different."
+
+Then, returning to a remark made earlier, he concluded: "My sister Jane
+would be greatly helped if she could see how much more naturalness is
+admired than cultivated poses, but she will never learn from Meg Heger,
+whom she considers greatly beneath her." Then, stopping, he held out his
+hand. "Jean," he said seriously, "I hope I have not given you a wrong
+opinion of my beautiful sister. I honestly believe that the girl she used
+to be still lives beneath all this artificial veneer that she has
+acquired at the fashionable seminary and my most earnest wish is to find
+a way by which that other girl, who was my dearly loved sister-pal, can
+be returned to me. I would not have spoken of this were it not that I am
+as greatly troubled for Jane's sake as my own."
+
+"I am glad you told me, Dan. I, too, have faith in her. Goodbye till next
+Sunday."
+
+Dan walked slowly back to the cabin, pleased, indeed, with his new
+friend.
+
+Dan found his sister Jane alone with her book on the front porch of their
+cabin. She looked up with a smile of welcome. "I was agreeably surprised
+in our guest," she began at once, "and so, before you tease me for having
+described him as raw-boned and illiterate, I will make the confession
+that I never met a better looking or nicer mannered youth."
+
+"Tut! Tut!" her brother, sinking to the doorstep where earlier in the day
+Jean had sat, merrily shook a finger at his sister, "That is extreme
+praise, and I may take offense, since I consider myself good looking and
+nice mannered."
+
+The girl laughed happily. Her brother reflected that, not in many a day,
+had he seen her brow unclouded with frown or fretfulness.
+
+Suddenly he said: "Jane, have you changed your mind about going East next
+Tuesday?" He looked up inquiringly, eagerly.
+
+The girl flushed, then said with an effort at indifference: "I thought
+perhaps it is hardly fair to decide that I do not like the mountain life,
+after having been here for such a few days. Shall you mind if I postpone
+my departure until a week from Tuesday?" The lad caught the hand that
+hung near him and pressed it with sudden warmth to his cheek. "Jane," he
+said, "I'm desperately lonesome for the comrade that my sister used to
+be. Won't you give up all thought of going away and try once again to be
+that other girl?"
+
+Jane looked puzzled, then she drew her hand away, saying coldly: "You are
+evidently not satisfied with me. I suppose that you also admire a girl
+who prefers to pare potatoes and stain her hands, than you do one who
+keeps herself attractive."
+
+Dan was astonished at the outburst, but wisely made no comment, though
+his thoughts were busy. Evidently Jean Sawyer had told his sister that he
+admired a girl who could be useful as well as ornamental. What would the
+result be, he wondered. But on the following day Jane permitted the other
+three to do all of the work of the cabin while she idled hours away at
+letter writing to her many girl friends in the East; finished her book,
+and started a bit of lace making which had been the popular pastime at
+the seminary.
+
+At nine o'clock on Monday the stage drew up in front of their stone
+stairway and the discordant sound from a horn seemed to be calling them,
+and so Gerald hopped down to receive from Mr. "Sourface" Wallace a packet
+of newspapers and letters. "Oh, thanks a lot, Mr. Wallace!" the boy
+shouted, knowing that the stage driver was deaf, and then up the stairway
+he scrambled to distribute the mail. There was a letter for each of the
+Abbotts from their father and a tiny note inclosed from grandmother with
+good advice for each, not excluding Jane, whose lips took their favorite
+scornful curve when it was read.
+
+But a glance at her other two letters sent her to her own room, where she
+could read them undisturbed. One was from Merry Starr and, instead of
+containing enthusiastic descriptions of the gay life at Newport, which it
+was her good fortune to be living, the epistle was crammed full of
+longing to see the wonderful West.
+
+"Tastes are surely different!" Jane thought as she opened the second
+epistle, which was from Esther Ballard. In it she read a news item which
+pleased her exceedingly. "Jane, old dear"--was the very informal
+beginning.
+
+"Put on your remembering cap and you will recall that you told me, if
+ever I could find another string of those semi-precious cardinal gems
+that you so greatly admired, to buy them at once, notify you and you
+would send me the money. Well, the deed is done. I have found the
+necklace, and, honestly, Jane, it holds all of the glory of the sunset
+and sunrise melted into one. They will set off your dark beauty to
+perfection. But I'll have to confess that I haven't a penny. Always
+broke, as you know, and so, if you want them, you'll have to mail me
+twenty-five perfectly good dollars by return post.
+
+"Yours in great haste,
+                                                                  E. B."
+
+Jane sat looking thoughtfully out of the window. In about two weeks she
+would have a birthday, and on that occasion her aunt, after whom she was
+named, always sent her the amount needed for the gems, but in a
+postscript Esther had said that she had asked to have the chain held one
+week, feeling sure that by that time Jane would have sent the money.
+
+Taking from her purse two bills, she put them in an envelope addressed to
+Esther, added a hurried little letter, stamped it and was just wondering
+how she would get it to the post when she saw Meg Heger coming down the
+road on her pony. Although she herself would not ask a favor of the
+mountain girl, she called Julie and requested that she hail Meg and ask
+her to mail the letter. Not until it was done did Jane face her
+conscience. Had she any right to use the tax money for a necklace? She
+shrugged her shoulders. What would two weeks more or less matter?
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                         MEG AS SCHOOL-MISTRESS
+
+
+Upon arriving in Redfords, Meg Heger had at once given the letter which
+had been marked "Important! Rush!" to the innkeeper, who was about to
+start for the station to meet the eastbound train. He promised the girl
+to attend to putting the letter on the train himself, and thus assured
+that she had served her neighbors to the best of her ability, Meg went
+across the road to the school, only to find that her good friend, Teacher
+Bellows, was not to be there that day as he had been sent for by a dying
+mountaineer in his capacity as preacher, and had left word that he wished
+Meg to hear the younger children recite, and dismiss them at two, which
+was an hour earlier than usual.
+
+Nothing pleased the girl more than to have an opportunity to practice the
+art of instruction, since that was to be her chosen life work, and a very
+happy morning she had with the dozen and one pupils, queer little
+specimens of childhood, although, indeed, several of them were beyond
+that, being long, lanky boys and girls in their teens. They, one and all,
+loved Meg devotedly and considered it a rare treat to have her in charge
+of the class. This happened quite often, as, in his double capacity as
+preacher as well as teacher, the kindly old man had various calls upon
+his time; some of them taking him so far into the mountains that he was
+obliged to be gone for days at a time.
+
+Meg had a charming way, quite her own, of teaching, with story and word
+pictures. Even the master had to concede that she was more fitted by
+nature than he was to instruct the child mind. At two o'clock, when the
+young teacher dismissed her class, they flocked about her as she crossed
+the road to the inn.
+
+The tallest among her pupils, a rancher's daughter, who was indeed as old
+as Meg, put an arm lovingly about her as she said, "When yer through with
+yer schoolin', don't I hope yo'll come back to Redfords an' be our
+teacher."
+
+The mountain girl laughed. "Why, Ann Skittle!" she teased. "You will be
+married, with a home of your own, by the time that I am ready to teach.
+You are seventeen, now, aren't you?"
+
+Ann's sunburned face flushed suddenly and her unexpected embarrassment
+caused Meg to believe that she had guessed more accurately than she had
+supposed. "Yeah, I'm seventeen. But I'll be eighteen before snowfall, an'
+then Hank Griggs an' me's goin' to be married. He's pa's hired man. A new
+one from Arizony."
+
+"Then why should you care whether or not I teach the Redford school?" Meg
+turned at the lowest step of the inn porch to inquire. Her dark eyes
+seemed always to hold a kindly interest in whatever they looked upon,
+were it a hurt little animal or, as at that moment, a girl who had not
+been endowed with much natural intelligence.
+
+Ann Skittle, again visibly embarrassed, stood looking down, twisting one
+corner of her apron as she said in a low voice: "Me an' Hank is like to
+have kiddies an' I'd be wishin' you could teach 'em."
+
+Suddenly Meg leaned over and impulsively kissed the flushed face of her
+surprised companion. "Of course you'll have little ones, dear," she said,
+and in her voice there was a note of tenderness. "No greater happiness
+can come to any girl than just that; to be a mother and to have a
+mother." She turned away to hide the tears that, mist-like, always rose
+to her own eyes when she thought of the mother whom she never knew. Ann,
+calling goodbye, walked away toward the corral back of the school where
+her pony had been for hours awaiting her.
+
+When Meg entered the front room of the inn, her smile was as bright as
+ever. Mrs. Bently often said that it didn't matter how gloomy the day
+might be, when Meg appeared with "that lighten' up" smile of hers,
+somehow it seemed as though the sun had burst through, and even if things
+had been going wrong, they began to go right then and there. "Mrs.
+Bently," the girl said, "Pa Heger told me not to come home today without
+the County Weekly News. It's days overdue."
+
+The comely woman's face brightened.
+
+"Wall, I've found that newspaper at last," she announced. "That man of
+mine didn't have on his specks when he was sortin' the mail, I reckon.
+Anyhow he stuck that paper o' yer pa's 'way over into Mr. Peters' box.
+'Twas fetched clear out to his ranch and fetched back agin."
+
+"Thanks." Meg said brightly, as she took the paper. "It won't matter any.
+I don't suppose there's any startling news in it."
+
+Half way up the mountain road Meg drew rein and listened. There was not a
+breath of wind stirring. The sun beat down relentlessly and heat
+shimmered from the red-gold dust of the road ahead. The only sounds were
+the humming, buzzing and wing-whirring of the multitudinous insects all
+about her. Then again she heard the sound which had first attracted her
+attention. A pitiful little gasping cry. Leaping from her pony, she
+commanded: "Pal, stand still for a moment. One of our little brothers is
+calling for help."
+
+Although the faint cry had instantly ceased, Meg remembered the direction
+from which it had come and climbed agilely down the rocks to find that
+one, having been dislodged, had caught a Douglas squirrel's tail and had
+held it captive so long that the creature was nearly starved.
+
+"You poor little mite," Meg said with tender sympathy as she stooped,
+and, after removing the heavy stone, lifted the small creature in her
+hands. She held it, unresisting, for a moment against her cheek, then put
+it into one of her saddle bags. Peering in, she said assuringly, "Don't
+be frightened. I'm going to take you to the hospital, but as soon as you
+are stronger, you shall have your freedom." The bead-like eyes that
+looked up out of the dark depths of the bag seemed to be more
+appreciative than fearful. There was a quality in Meg's voice when she
+spoke to the sad and wounded that soothed and comforted even though the
+words were not understood. "I'll take the newspaper out," she thought;
+"then his bed will be more comfortable." And, as she did so, she chanced
+to see a name which attracted her attention. It was a name which had
+come, within the last three days, to mean much of possible comradeship to
+her. It was "Daniel Abbott." Opening the paper, the girl expected merely
+to read an article telling of the arrival of the Abbott family at their
+cabin on Redfords Peak, but, to her dismay, the story that newspaper
+contained was of an entirely different nature. It was a list of the
+properties in the county that were tax delinquents. Meg learned from the
+short paragraph that the ten acres and "cabin thereon" belonging to one
+Daniel Abbott, having been for three weeks advertised as delinquent, was
+to be sold for taxes on August the tenth at five o'clock unless the
+aforesaid taxes, amounting to the sum of twenty-five dollars, should be
+paid before that hour.
+
+The girl stared at the printed page, unable at first to comprehend its
+meaning. Then she glanced at the sun. It was at least two-thirty. But
+what could it mean? Surely the young man with whom she was talking but
+yesterday, when the children had brought him to see the baby lions,
+surely he had known of this and had paid the taxes. Refolding the paper,
+Meg started leisurely up the mountain road, but something seemed to be
+urging her to at least tell Dan Abbott what she had seen. Perhaps he had
+not paid the back taxes, and, if not, she might be instrumental in saving
+his cabin home for him, and yet, even as she thought of it, she was
+assailed with doubt. It would be impossible to reach Scarsburg, the
+county seat, before five unless one rode at top speed, and the Abbotts
+had neither car nor horse.
+
+Meg had reached the stairway hewn in the rocks, leading to the cabin,
+which, for so many minutes had been uppermost in her thoughts, and she
+drew rein, yodeling to a tall, graceful girl whom she saw standing by a
+pine gazing out over the valley. Jane Abbott turned and looked down,
+amazed that the mountain girl should have the effrontery to yodel to
+_her_. "Just because she mailed a letter for me does not entitle her to
+_my_ friendship as an equal!" Abruptly Jane turned her back and walked
+away toward the cabin. Meg's face flushed and her inclination was to ride
+on to her own home, but she recalled the clinging of little Julie's arms
+and the sweet, yearning expression in the small girl's face when she had
+said, "Meg, I like you. I wish you were my sister instead of Jane. You'd
+love me, wouldn't you?"
+
+Leaping from her pony, she bade him wait for her, and, taking the paper,
+the girl sprang, nimble as a mountain goat, up the rocky steps. Jane had
+seated herself in the comfortable chair on the porch, and was reading
+when she heard hurrying footsteps. She looked up, an angry color
+suffusing her cheeks. This halfbreed was evidently going to force her
+acquaintance upon her. Well, she would soon regret it. But the proud,
+scornful words were never spoken.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                          MEG AS BENEFACTRESS
+
+
+Dan and the children had gone on a hike, and Jane, being quite alone,
+rose and confronted the mountain girl with a cold stare that would have
+caused Meg at another time to have whirled about and departed, but for
+the sake of the other three she was willing to be treated unkindly.
+
+"Miss Abbott," she said, holding out the newspaper, and pretending not to
+notice the unfriendly expression, "there is news in here which may be of
+great importance to you. May I show it to your brother?"
+
+Suddenly Jane found herself trembling from some unnamed fear. Instantly
+she had thought of the taxes. Perhaps, without really being conscious of
+it, she had read the word somewhere on that outheld paper.
+
+She sank back into her chair, saying, almost breathlessly, "Dan isn't
+here. What is it, Miss Heger? Is something wrong?"
+
+The mountain girl pointed to the paragraph and was amazed at the effect
+the reading of it had upon the proud girl. There was an expression of
+terror in the dark eyes that were lifted.
+
+"Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?" she implored helplessly. "Our
+father gave us the money. He told us the taxes must be paid, but I
+thought another two weeks would do as well as now. Dan did not know the
+need of haste."
+
+Meg, seeing that the girl, unused to deciding matters of importance, was
+more helpless than even Julie would have been, felt a sudden compassion
+for her and so she said: "If you can get the money to the county seat
+before five o'clock you will not lose your property."
+
+A dull flush suffused the dark face. "I--I haven't the money! I--I
+borrowed it for something I wanted. It was in that letter that Julie gave
+you this morning to mail."
+
+Then looking up eagerly, hopefully, "Miss Heger, perhaps you forgot to
+post it. Oh, how I hope that you did!"
+
+But the mountain girl shook her head. "I sent it by Mr. Bently to the
+eastbound train, which was due about noon. He said that he himself would
+put it in the mail car."
+
+"Then there is nothing that I can do!" The proud girl burst into sudden
+tears. "Father has lost everything but our home in the East, and now, now
+I have been the cause of his losing the cabin he so loved." Lifting a
+tear-stained face to the girl who was watching her, troubled and
+thoughtful, she implored: "Oh, isn't there something I can do? If I tell
+them I will pay it in two weeks, when my birthday money comes, won't that
+do as well as now?"
+
+Meg shook her head. "No," she said. "This is final. They notified your
+father some time ago."
+
+Jane nodded hopelessly. "Oh, if only brother were here! But the worry
+would start him to coughing."
+
+Again the girl, who scorned tears in others, began to sob helplessly. How
+vain and foolish she had been to want that necklace, hoping that it would
+make her appear more beautiful in the eyes of Jean Sawyer.
+
+Meg stood for one moment deep in thought. Then she said: "Miss Abbott,
+find your papers. Have them ready for me when I return. I'll try to save
+your place."
+
+With that she turned and ran back to her pony, leaped upon it and
+galloped out of sight up around the bend.
+
+"What does she mean?" Jane sat, almost as one stunned, for a moment, then
+as the command of the mountain girl recalled itself to her, she arose and
+went indoors to locate the papers their father had given Dan.
+
+These being fastened with a rubber band into a neat packet, she held
+closely while she ran out to the brook calling Dan's name frantically,
+but there was no response. Soon she heard the musical yodeling which had
+so filled her heart with wrath a short half hour before. Now it was to
+her a sound sweeter than any she had ever heard. It brought a faint hope
+that her father's cabin might yet be saved. Down the stone steps she
+went, holding out the papers. Then and for the first time she thought of
+something: "But the money--I haven't any to give you."
+
+Meg's answer was: "I am loaning you twenty-five dollars from my savings,
+but don't hope too much. It will be very hard for me to make Scarsburg by
+five o'clock, but for Julie's sake I'll do my best."
+
+"For Julie's sake!" The words drifted back to Jane as she stood watching
+the pony hurtling itself down the mountain road until the cloud of dust
+hid it from view. She, Jane, had never done anything for Julie's sake,
+and why, pray, should this mountain girl loan her own money to strangers
+who might never repay her, and risk her life and that of her pony, as it
+was evident she was doing?
+
+Jane looked out into the heat-shimmering valley. Many times the mountain
+road reappeared to her as it zigzagged down to Redfords. Again and again
+a rushing cloud of dust assured her that Meg was still racing with time.
+
+Returning to the porch, Jane sank down in the deep chair, keenly
+conscious of her own uselessness.
+
+"Oh, what a vain, worthless creature I am! I don't see why Dan cares for
+me so much; why he risked his health that I might finish my course in
+that seminary where everyone, everything, conspired to make me more proud
+and helpless."
+
+Then before her arose a mental picture. Meg, clear-eyed, eager to be of
+service in an hour of need, and more than that, capable of being, and
+she, Jane, had snubbed her, but for Julie's sake the mountain girl had
+persevered in her desire to be neighborly.
+
+Unable to sit still, Jane went again to the brook to call, but the
+children, with Dan, had climbed higher than usual and had found so much
+to interest them that they had failed to note the passage of time.
+
+As there was no answer to her calling, Jane went back to the house, and,
+because she had to do something (she had entirely lost interest in her
+book), she wandered out into the kitchen. She saw on the table a pan of
+potatoes with the paring knife near.
+
+Hardly knowing what she was about, Jane took the pan to the porch, and,
+seating herself on the step, she began most awkwardly to pare. She had
+heard her grandmother say that the peeling should be as thin as possible
+as the goodness was next to the skin. It took a very long time for Jane
+to pare the half dozen potatoes and she had almost resolved not to tell
+Dan about the taxes until she knew the worst or the best, when she heard
+him hallooing from the brook. Placing the pan on the step, she ran to
+meet him. One glance at her white, startled face assured him more than
+words could have done that something of an unusual nature had occurred
+during their absence. Catching her in his arms, he felt her body tremble.
+He led her back to the porch before he asked, "Jane, tell me. What has
+happened? Has that Slinking Coyote frightened you?"
+
+Julie and Gerald, wide-eyed and wondering, crowded near. "Dan," Jane
+clung to him as she had not since the long ago childhood, when she had so
+often been frightened and had turned to him for protection, "please send
+the children away. I want to tell you alone."
+
+Gerald needed no second bidding. "Come on, Julie," he called. "Let's go
+and practice on our pine tree rifle range." He was carrying the small
+gun, and so away they raced. Although they were almost overcome with
+natural curiosity, they neither of them desired to stay where they were
+not wanted.
+
+When they were gone, Jane leaned against her brother and told the story
+between sobs that were almost hysterical. "Oh, brother, brother! If only
+this cabin is saved for Dad, I will never, never again be so vain and
+selfish. Oh, Dan, tell me, say that you think Meg will reach the county
+seat before five."
+
+The lad found that his heart was filled with conflicting emotions. The
+scorn his sister's pride and selfishness would have aroused in him at
+another time was crowded out by pity for her. She had suffered enough
+without his rebuke. Then there was the dread that the cabin might not be
+saved, for well he knew the sorrow its loss would bring to his father,
+but, above all, there was something in his heart he had never felt
+before, a warm glow of admiration for a girl who was not his sister. What
+he said was, "Jane, dear, quiet yourself. We can do nothing but wait."
+
+And a long, long wait they were destined to have. The hands of the clock
+moved slowly to four, then five and then six. Jane's poor efforts at
+paring the potatoes received much comment from the children alone in the
+kitchen.
+
+"Gee," Gerald confided to his small sister, "something must have happened
+if it upset Jane so she didn't know what she was doing. She surely
+didn't, or she wouldn't have tried to pare potatoes and stain those lily
+hands of hers."
+
+Try as the small boy might, he could not keep the scorn out of his voice.
+But Julie was more forgiving. "Gerry, don't be too hard on Jane. She acts
+awfully worried about something. I don't believe she saw a bear or
+anything that scared her. I think it's something in her heart that's
+troubling her. I think she's sorry about something she's done."
+
+"Well, she sure ought to be." The boy was less sympathetic. "She's been
+dirt mean to us ever since she's been home from that hifalutin' seminary,
+and what's more, she's none too good to Dan. I'd hate her, that's what,
+if she wasn't my sister, and if she didn't look just like our mother. But
+even for all of that, I'm going to let myself hate her hard if she isn't
+better to you, Jule. The way she lets you do the work, and she setting
+around reading novels to keep her hands white so's folks will admire
+them! Aren't you the same family as she is, and shouldn't your hands be
+kept just as white? Tell me that now!"
+
+The boy, who was holding the bread knife, whirled with such an indignant
+expression on his freckled face that Julie laughed merrily, which broke
+the spell.
+
+"Oh, Gerry, you do look so funny! If I had time, I'd find some riggins to
+make you into a pirate. It could be done easy, 'cause your face looks
+just like their pictures and that knife would do for a dagger."
+
+Meanwhile, on the front porch, the two who had long watched and waited,
+were getting momentarily more anxious, and often Dan walked to the top of
+the steep stairway, down which he gazed at the zig-zagging mountain road.
+At last he saw a pony climbing, oh, so slowly, as though it could hardly
+take another step; and at its side there walked a girl. Dan leaped back
+to the porch and snatched up his hat. "Jane," he said, "you and the
+children have your supper. I'm going up to the Heger cabin and get one of
+their horses. Meg's pony is worn out, and I'm not going to have that
+brave girl walk all the way up the mountain, just to serve us."
+
+Jane did not try to detain him, and the lad fairly leaped up the road to
+the Heger cabin. He found the trapper, who had just returned from a ride
+over the other side of the mountain. "Take this hoss," he said, when he
+had heard the story which fairly tumbled from Dan's mouth. "Ol'
+Bag-o'-Bones ain't a bit tired, and he's the best hoss I have on the
+place."
+
+Then the man held out a strong hand as he said: "Dan, boy, I hope my gal
+made it! She would if anyone could."
+
+Dan silently returned the clasp, then he mounted the horse, that was not
+at all what its name might suggest, but lean and wiry, as were all of the
+mustangs of the West, with hard muscles and a loping step that carried it
+down the road, sure-footed and with great rapidity. Jane heard the halloo
+when he passed, but she did not stir. She felt that she never could move
+again until she had learned the news that Meg would have for them.
+
+And Meg, far down the mountain, looked up and saw Bag-o'-Bones, her
+foster-father's favorite horse, descending with speed, and, believing it
+to be ridden by Mr. Heger, she wondered why, at that hour, he was in such
+haste. But at a lower turn of the road, she saw that the figure on the
+horse was that of the lad from the East, who as yet did not know how to
+ride as they did in the West.
+
+Then she knew why he was coming, and for the first time in her lonely,
+isolated life, there was a sudden warmth in her heart. She had a real
+friend, she knew that instinctively, and his name was Dan Abbott.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+                            MEG'S CONFIDENCE
+
+
+As soon as Dan was near enough to see Meg's face, he knew that all was
+well. Leaping from the back of the dusty gray horse, he went forward with
+both hands outheld. "Miss Heger," he cried, and his voice was tense with
+emotion, "how can I, how are we ever going to thank you for what you have
+done for us today?"
+
+The girl's radiant smile flashed up at him. "Be my friend," she said
+simply, and, as the lad stood there looking deep into those wonderful
+dark eyes, he seemed to feel that no greater privilege could be accorded
+him than to be permitted to be the friend of this courageous, rarely
+beautiful mountain girl.
+
+But she did not give him the opportunity to voice his feeling, for at
+once she said in a matter-of-fact tone: "Wasn't I lucky to reach the
+county court-house at five minutes to five? Pal and I have been
+congratulating each other all the way home."
+
+"Poor Pal!" Dan stroked the drooping head of the faithful little animal
+which had raced down the rough mountain road as he had never raced
+before. Then, quite irrelevantly, the youth asked: "Would you mind if I
+call you Margaret? It fits you better than Meg." Instantly Dan was sorry
+he had made the request, for he saw the sudden clouding of the girl's
+brow. The joyousness of the moment before was gone and when she spoke
+there was a note of sorrow in her voice. "Mr. Abbott," she began with
+sweet seriousness, "I forgot when I said that your friendship would be
+the reward I would ask, yours and Julie's and Gerald's--I forgot who I
+am, or rather that I do not know who my parents were. My real name is not
+Meg. Mammy Heger called me that after a little sister of hers who had
+died when a baby. Mammy loved that other Meg and so it meant a great deal
+to her to call me by that name." Then, sighing wistfully: "I wish I knew
+my real name," she concluded.
+
+Dan took her hand in a firm, friendly clasp as he said earnestly: "Meg
+Heger, I don't care what your name is, I don't care who your parents
+were. I care only to be your friend, your very best. Of course I would
+not wish to call you Margaret since it would be displeasing to you."
+
+The girl withdrew her hand, replying: "Call me Meg. I'm used to that and
+hearing it won't make me think. Oh, I've thought about it all so long and
+so much!"
+
+Then as they started walking side by side, leading their horses, the girl
+confided: "Next month, when I am eighteen, Teacher Bellows, Pa Heger and
+I are going to start on a long, hard trip. We're going to find, if we
+can, the tribe that was living in the deserted mining town on Crazy Creek
+the year that I was brought to the Heger cabin." How her dark face
+brightened, and Dan realized that he had never dreamed that anyone could
+be so beautiful. "If we find them, then I shall know," she concluded. For
+a few moments they walked on in silence. "If they tell me I am the
+daughter of----" The girl hesitated as though dreading to utter the name
+of Slinking Coyote, then began again, "If I am a member of their tribe, I
+shall live near them and help them. I shall be a teacher to their
+children. It will be my duty. But if, as Pa Heger and Teacher Bellows
+think, my parents were of a foreign race, my future will be different."
+
+Dan, knowing how deeply humiliating the conversation must be for the girl
+and wishing to change the subject, exclaimed: "How stupid of me! I
+brought Bag-o'-Bones down for you to ride. You must be very tired after
+your wild race to Scarsburg."
+
+The girl smiled gratefully. "I believe I am very, very tired," she
+confessed, "which happens but seldom. I had thought that I was tireless."
+
+They soon reached the road in front of the Abbotts' cabin and Meg bade
+Dan take from the pony's saddle bags the papers and receipts. Although he
+pleaded to be permitted to accompany her to her home, she shook her head.
+"You haven't had your supper and it is very late." Then impulsively she
+reached down her brown hand as she said with an almost tremulous smile:
+"Good-night, my friend."
+
+It was early dusk when Jane, still sitting on the porch of their cabin
+intently listening, heard voices and the clattering of slow-moving horses
+along the mountain road below the bend. She leaped to her feet, her
+breath came with nervous quickness, she pressed her hand to her heart.
+Oh, what if Meg had been too late. Before she could decide what she ought
+to do, she heard Dan's voice calling to the mountain girl, who was
+evidently not stopping. Jane ran to the top of the stone stairway. How
+ungrateful it must have seemed for her not to have been there to thank
+Meg for the effort she had made, whether or not it was successful. But
+Dan was leaping up the steps, two at a time, his face radiant.
+
+Jane thought that all of his joyousness was caused by the message he was
+shouting to her: "Sister, that wonderful girl reached there on time! Our
+cabin is saved for us! How can we ever thank her?"
+
+Jane, who had never been so upset by anything before in her protected
+life, clung to her brother almost hysterically. "Oh, Dan, Dan, I am so
+thankful! Do you think Meg Heger will ever forgive me? I was so rude to
+her when she first came."
+
+The lad was serious at once. "I do not know that she will," he replied as
+he recalled that the mountain girl had said the reward she requested was
+the friendship of all the Abbotts except Jane.
+
+It was hard not to rebuke his sister for her foolish pride, but she was
+trembling as she clung to him, and so he encircled her with his arm as he
+said hopefully: "Meg is too fine a girl to hold a grudge when she finds
+out that your heart has changed."
+
+Jane said nothing, but she suddenly wondered if, in reality, her heart
+had changed. Now that the taxes were paid and the hours of anxiety were
+over, she was not sure that she cared to begin an intimate friendship
+with a "halfbreed," merely to show her gratitude, but even as she was
+conscious of this shrinking, the voice of her soul told her that she was
+despicable.
+
+The children, who had been on the kitchen porch, hearing Dan's voice,
+rushed out, but Jane delayed him long enough to whisper: "They know
+nothing of what has happened. Please do not tell them."
+
+Gerald was the first to reach them, and he cried, rebukingly: "Dan, why
+did you go horseback riding without taking me. I saw you go by an hour
+ago. I'm just wild to learn to ride that Bag-o'-Bones. Do you think Mr.
+Heger will let me?"
+
+Dan realized that the younger members of their family thought he had
+merely been for a horseback ride, and so he made no further explanation,
+replying gayly: "Indeed I do! But I think you would better take your
+first lesson on the level. Wait until we go down to the Packard ranch.
+You remember that good friend of ours told us that he had forty horses
+and many of them were broken to the saddle."
+
+Julie clapped her hands as she hopped up and down gleefully. "Me, too!"
+she cried ungrammatically. "Mr. Packard said he had a little spotted
+horse, just the right size for me. When are we going down there, Dan?"
+
+The older lad glanced at his sister. "Did you say that we are to go next
+Sunday?" The girl nodded, but the boy looked perplexed. "But how?" he
+queried. "If we went to Redfords by the stage, how are we to get to the
+Packard ranch? And we couldn't possibly return on the same day."
+
+Jane thought for a moment, then she looked up brightly. "I recall now.
+Jean Sawyer said that we would hear from Mr. Packard during the week."
+Then she smilingly confessed: "I was so pleased to find the foreman
+different--I mean--one of our own class--that----"
+
+Gerald, noting the blushes, pointed a chubby finger at his sister as he
+sing-songed: "Jane likes Jean Sawyer extra-special."
+
+It was Julie, knowing that her sister did not like to be teased, who came
+to the rescue by saying emphatically: "So do I like Jean Sawyer
+extra-special; and I know what girl you like best, Gerald Abbott. It's
+Meg Heger; so now."
+
+The small boy grinned his agreement. "Bet you I do," he confessed.
+
+Dan said nothing, but by the warm glow in his heart at the mention of the
+mountain girl's name, he knew that he also liked Meg Heger extra-special.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII.
+                            JANE HUMILIATED
+
+
+The next morning Jane arose early with the determination to walk up the
+mountain road and meet Meg Heger on her way to the Redfords school. And
+so, directly after breakfast, she started away alone. She asked Dan to
+detain the children in the kitchen that they might not see her go and
+perhaps wish to accompany her.
+
+The older lad, recalling the incident of the mountain lion, wondered if
+he ought to permit her to go alone, but the trapper had assured him that
+the occurrence had been a most unusual one, that the lions, and other
+wild creatures usually remained far from the haunts of man, and that in
+the ten years that Meg had ridden up and down that mountain road to the
+Redfords school, she had never encountered a dangerous animal of any
+kind.
+
+The sun, even at that early hour, was so warm Jane was glad that most of
+the mile she was to climb was in the shadow. She found herself scanning
+the roadside with great interest, stopping to watch a scaly lizard that
+was lying on a rock gazing at her intently with small black eyes,
+believing himself to be unseen because his coat was the color of his
+surroundings. He had not stirred, even when she started away.
+
+It was a still morning and out of many a cool green covert a bird-song
+pealed. Again and again Jane paused to listen to some clear rising
+cadence. She wondered why she had never before heard the singing of
+birds. Of course, she must have heard them many, many times. They had
+often awakened her in her home, and at Highacres, but she had felt
+disturbed rather than pleased. She never before had listened to a single
+song, like the one which some hidden bird was singing. It would be
+interesting to know what kind of a bird it was. She would ask Meg Heger.
+Surely the mountain girl would know. Jane Abbott had not been in so
+susceptible a mood, at least not since her long ago childhood, and it was
+with a sense of eager anticipation that she at last drew to one side of
+the road to await the coming of the small horse and rider that she could
+hear approaching.
+
+Meg Heger was indeed surprised to see the sister of Dan Abbott in the
+road so evidently awaiting her, but she experienced no pleasure from the
+meeting. She well knew that the city girl, who had snubbed her on the day
+before, would again do so, if it were not that she considered it her duty
+to express gratitude for what Meg had done.
+
+She drew rein, merely because Jane Abbott had stepped forward and had
+held up her hand. The expression in the dusky eyes of the mountain girl
+was at that moment as proud and cold as had been the expression in the
+eyes of Jane on the day previous. Before the girl in the road could
+speak, Meg said: "Miss Abbott, I know that you have come to thank me for
+having ridden to Scarsburg, but let me assure you at once that I did not
+do it for your sake. I did it for Julie and Gerald, chiefly, because they
+are my friends. You owe me nothing. Good morning!"
+
+The pony, feeling the urging of his mistress' heel, started away so
+suddenly that Jane found herself standing in a whirl of dust. Her face
+grew crimson as her anger rose. She, Jane Abbott, had actually been
+snubbed by a halfbreed. It had been only natural that she, a city girl of
+family and culture, should have snubbed Meg Heger. But she had supposed
+that the mountain girl would be pleased, indeed, when she condescended to
+be friendly. As she walked slowly back toward their cabin, she did not
+hear the song of the birds, nor see the beauty that lay all about her.
+She was wrathfully deciding that she would pack at once and leave a place
+where it was possible for her to be snubbed by a halfbreed Indian.
+
+Then that persistent voice, deep within her, asked: "Didn't you deserve
+it, Jane? Would you admire a girl who would fall upon your neck after you
+had been rude to her?"
+
+And Jane had to acknowledge that the soul-voice was right.
+
+But, though Jane had seemed to have a change of heart toward Meg Heger,
+she still felt most irritable toward Julie. Nothing that small girl could
+do pleased her. She had at once retired to her room, wishing to be alone.
+True, she had decided to try to win the friendship of the mountain girl,
+but after the first few hours she found herself questioning if she really
+wanted it. Of course she did not. She wanted only friends of her own
+kind. She flung herself down on her bed and in her heart was a growing
+anger at herself and at everyone. Dan had gone for the daily climb which
+he believed would aid the recovery of his strength, as indeed everything
+seemed to be doing in a most miraculous manner. Julie and Gerald were
+cleaning house and were dragging the heavy pieces of furniture about in
+the living-room with shouts and laughter. Jane sprang up and threw open
+her door.
+
+"I do wish you children would try to keep quiet," she blazed at them.
+Gerald faced her defiantly. "Come and do the cleaning yourself if you
+want it done different. There's no reason why we should do it at all,
+only Julie said, being as it hadn't been done right since we came, we'd
+ought to get at it."
+
+"You're just hateful, both of you! I wish you would clear out of my sight
+and never come back!" With this angry remark, Jane closed her door with a
+bang.
+
+With a dark glance in that direction, Gerald caught Julie by the hand.
+"Come on, sis," he said. "You'n I'll clear out and we'll stay away till
+that Jane Abbott goes back East, that's what we'll do." The boy snatched
+up his small gun and put the cartridges in his pocket. He took his cap
+and handed Julie her hat and then led her out of the door.
+
+"Why, Gerald Abbott, where are we going?" the small girl held back,
+feeling sure that they ought not to leave their cabin home in this
+manner.
+
+"First off we're going to find Dan and tell him just what happened. Then,
+second off, I don't 'zactly know what we will do, but I just won't stay
+here and have that horrid old Jane saying mean things to you all the time
+and us waiting on her and doing the work she ought to be doing. That's
+what."
+
+The boy led his small sister along so rapidly that she tripped and would
+have fallen had he not turned and caught her. "Gee, I guess we'll have to
+go slower," he confessed as they started to climb the steep rocks that
+formed the outer edge of the mountain brook which tumbled in a series of
+little waterfalls, now and then tossing a mist of spray over them.
+
+Julie began to glow with the pleasurable sense of adventure, supposing,
+of course, that Gerald knew where Dan had gone. At last she inquired.
+
+"I sort o' think we'll find him up at the rim-rock," Gerald said stoutly.
+"I'm pretty sure we will. He told me that's where he goes for his
+constitootional. That means a hike to make him get strong,
+constitootional does."
+
+The girl's freckled face was aglow. "Oh, goodie!" she cried. "I'd love to
+climb 'way up there." Then she asked, a little anxiously: "Aren't you
+skeered we might meet a wildcat or a lion or a bear?"
+
+Her small brother's courage was reassuring. "I hope we will. That's what!
+I'm a sharpshooter, I am, and the wildcat that meets us will wish he
+hadn't." Julie clung to his hand with a secure feeling that she was well
+protected. "Oh, look-it, will you?"
+
+Gerry pointed ahead and above. "There's a tree that has fallen right
+across our brook. That's a nice bridge and if we can get up there we can
+go across on it."
+
+"Is the rim-rock on the other side of our brook?" Julie inquired. Now
+Gerald had never climbed that high on their mountain before, and so he
+had no real knowledge of the exact location of the rock about which Dan
+had told them, but since it was on the very top, the small boy knew that
+if they kept on climbing, in time they would surely reach it.
+
+The fallen tree was lying across the brook at a very steep ascent and it
+was with great difficulty that Gerald boosted his sister to the narrow
+ledge on which it rested. "Don't be scared," he said. "I'll get you
+across all right and then we'll begin calling for Dan."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIV.
+                         JULIE AND GERALD LOST
+
+
+It was nearly noon when Dan returned to the cabin. He gave a long whistle
+of astonishment when he saw the disordered living-room and heard no one
+about. Jane at once appeared in her doorway. Her face still showed
+evidence of her anger. "Dan," she said coldly, "my trunks are all packed.
+Please put out a flag or whatever you should do to stop the stage. It
+passes about one, does it not, on the way to Redfords?"
+
+The lad went to the girl with outstretched hands. "Jane, dear, what has
+happened? Have you and the children had more trouble? Is it so hard for
+you to love them and be patient with their playfulness? You know it is
+nothing more." The girl's lips curled scornfully. "Love them?" she
+repeated coldly. "I feel far more as if I hated them. I don't believe
+love is possible to me. I even hate myself! Dan, there's something all
+wrong with me, and I'm going back East to Merry, who is about the only
+person living who can understand me."
+
+There was an expression of tender rebuke in the gray eyes that were
+gazing at her. "You are wrong," the lad said seriously. "Father and I
+love you dearly, not only because we know that you are different from
+what you seem to be, but for Mother's sake." Then, turning and glancing
+again at the confusion, the lad said, "Tell me just what happened."
+
+Jane did so, adding petulantly: "My head was beginning to ache. I had had
+an unpleasant encounter with your Meg Heger." Dan felt a sudden leaping
+of his heart. How strange, he thought, that for the first time in his
+life the name of a girl should so affect him. He had heard of love at
+first sight, but he had never believed in it. With an effort he again
+listened to Jane's indignant outpouring of words. "Don't say I deserved
+just such treatment," she protested. "No one knows it better than I do. I
+acknowledge that I am despicable and I hate myself. Honestly, Dan, I do,
+but I don't know how to change. I don't seem to really want to be
+different."
+
+"That's just it, Jane." The boy had grown very serious. "Just as soon as
+you desire to be different you will at once begin to change. We are the
+sculptors of our own characters. We can set before ourselves a model of
+what we would like to be and carve accordingly." Then, as the clock was
+striking twelve, the lad suddenly inquired, "Jane, when did all this
+trouble with the children occur? I left at nine. You think it was about
+an hour after that?"
+
+The girl nodded, then, glancing out of the wide front door, she
+exclaimed: "I wonder why they don't come back. I supposed, of course,
+that they had gone to find you. Gerald knew where you were going, didn't
+he?"
+
+Dan shook his head. "He could not have known, for I did not myself.
+Yesterday and the day before I climbed up to the rim-rock and planned
+doing it every morning as a strength restorative measure, but today,
+after we had been wondering how we were to get to the Packard ranch, I
+thought I would cross the mountain to the other side and look down into
+the valley, and see if I could, how much nearer was the trail which Jean
+Sawyer took on Sunday. But I found that it would be much too rough and
+hard for you, and so we will wait until we receive directions from Mr.
+Packard. If you will prepare the lunch, I will go out and put up a white
+flag. Surely Mr. Wallace will know that I wish to speak to him. Then I
+will call the children to come home. They may be close, but since you
+told them that you wished you would never see them again, they are
+probably hiding, hoping that you are to go on the afternoon stage."
+
+Jane was indeed miserable. Her flaring anger had often caused her to say
+things that afterwards she deeply repented. "Perhaps if I would go with
+you and call they would know that I did not mean all that I said," she
+ventured. But Dan was insistent that she, at least, prepare a lunch for
+herself.
+
+"You must not start for the East without having a good hearty noon meal,"
+he told her. As he spoke he was fastening an old pillow case to a pole.
+Leaving the house, he placed it at the top of the stairway.
+
+Then going to the brook, he began a series of halloos, but a hollow,
+distant echo was all that responded.
+
+Dan, after a fruitless effort to call to the children, returned to the
+cabin, his face an ashen white. "Jane," he said, and his voice was almost
+harsh, "you will have to attend to stopping the stage if it comes soon.
+Mr. Wallace can carry your baggage down without my assistance. I am going
+to hunt for those poor little youngsters who felt that they were turned
+out of their home. Goodbye."
+
+Jane, with a low cry of agony, leaped forward with arms outstretched, but
+Dan had not given her another look, and by the time she reached the brook
+he was out of sight. The girl sank down on a boulder and sobbed bitterly.
+
+"If they're lost I shall never forgive myself. Oh, how selfish, how
+unkind I have been, thinking only of Jane Abbott and her comfort. I can't
+go away now, and not know what has become of Julie and Gerald."
+
+Then another thought caused her to rise and go slowly to the cabin. "They
+want me to go, all of them, even Dan. Perhaps it would be the best thing
+for me to do, and when they come back they will be glad to find that I
+have gone."
+
+Almost unconsciously Jane began to put the living-room in order. She
+smoothed rugs and dragged the heavy furniture into the places it had
+formerly occupied. Then she went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. If
+Julie and Gerald had been climbing the mountains all the morning they
+would be starved, as she well knew. Again Jane Abbott pared potatoes and
+after studying upon the subject for some moments she made a fire in the
+stove and put on a kettle of water. In the midst of these preparations
+she was startled by the shrill blast of the horn carried by the stage
+driver. Oh, she could not go just then. She was nowhere near ready. Jane
+snatched up a letter that she had that morning written to Merry and
+hurried down the stone steps. The surly driver took it with a grunt which
+seemed to express displeasure, although, as Jane knew, taking the mail to
+town was one of his duties.
+
+When the big creaking stage had rocked around the corner, Jane suddenly
+felt as though a great load had been lifted from her heart. She had not
+really wanted to go at all. She wanted to be sure that all was well with
+the children, and more than that, she did so want to see Jean Sawyer
+again. But her pleasure was short lived, for, with a sense of oppression,
+she again recalled that they would all be disappointed to find her there,
+even Dan.
+
+As the water in the tea kettle had not yet started to boil, Jane went to
+her room to change her dress to one more suitable for the work she had
+undertaken. Upon opening her trunk she saw, lying on top, a miniature
+picture delicately colored in a dainty frame of silver filigree. The girl
+lifted it and looked long into the truly beautiful face. Then with a
+half-sob she said aloud, "My mother!"
+
+Instantly she recalled what Dan had said: "We are each of us sculptors of
+our own characters. We can choose a model and carve ourselves like it."
+The girl sank on her knees, the picture held close to her cheek.
+
+"Oh, mother, mother!" she sobbed, "I choose you for my model. Help me; I
+am sure you can help me to be more like you."
+
+A strange sense of strength came to her as she arose. She had been
+struggling without a definite goal. She had known, the small voice within
+had often told her, that she was despicable, but she had not found a way
+to change, but surely Dan's suggestion would help her. She clearly
+remembered her mother, gentle, courageous and always loving.
+
+With infinite tenderness Jane again addressed the miniature:
+
+"Oh, mother, if you had only lived, you would have helped me carve a
+character more lovely, but alone I have made of it an ugly thing, but
+now, dearest one, I'll begin all over."
+
+But even as the girl spoke she feared that it might be too late to ask
+Julie and Gerald to forgive her and try to love her.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV.
+                             JANE'S RESOLVE
+
+
+The lunch was prepared, the potatoes had cooked quite to pieces, but
+still the children did not return. Jane was becoming terrorized. She was
+startled when there came a sharp rapping at the front door. Running into
+the living-room, her hand pressed to her heart, she saw standing there a
+tall, uncouth-looking mountaineer. She believed, and rightly, that it was
+the trapper who lived near them.
+
+He began at once: "Dan Abbott came to our place nigh an hour ago sayin'
+the young 'uns was lost. Meg and me wasn't to home, but my woman said
+she'd tell whichever of us come fust and we'd help hunt. Ben't they back
+yet?"
+
+Jane shook her head. "Oh, Mr. Heger," she cried, "what do you suppose has
+happened to them? Do you suppose they have been harmed?"
+
+It was unusual for the kind face of the man to look hard, but at that
+moment it did so. His voice was stern. "Dan Abbott said 'twas you as let
+them young 'uns go to hunt for him, not knowin' whar he was. Wall, Miss,
+I'll tell ye this: If 'tis they ever come back alive, yo'd better keep
+them young 'uns a little closer to home. Thar's no harm if they stay on
+the road. Nothin's likely to happen thar, but 'way off in the wilderness
+places, wall, thar's no tellin' what may have happened. I'll bid you good
+day."
+
+Here was still another of her fellow men who scorned her. Of course, Dan
+had not told him the whole truth, that she had said she hoped she never
+again would see the children. Oh, why had she said it? She knew, even in
+her anger, that she had not meant it.
+
+She sank down on the porch and buried her face in her hands. Would this
+torture never end? The odor of something burning reached her and, leaping
+to her feet, she ran to the kitchen and pushed back the kettle of
+potatoes that had started to scorch. There was no one to eat the lunch
+she had spread on the table and at two o'clock she began to mechanically
+put things back in their places, when she heard a step on the porch.
+Running into the living-room, hardly able to breath in her great anxiety,
+she saw her brother stagger in and fall as one spent from a long race on
+the cot-bed they were using as a day lounge. For a moment he lay white
+and still, his eyes closed. Jane knelt at his side and held his limp
+hand. "Brother. Brother Dan," she sobbed, "you are worn out. Oh, won't
+you stay here and let me be the one to hunt? I would give my life to save
+the children. Dan, brother, open your eyes and tell me that you forgive
+me and believe me." A tightening of the clasp of the limp hand was the
+only answer she received. Jane, rising, brought water, cold from the
+brook, and when she returned the lad was sitting up, his elbows on his
+knees, his face bent on the palms of his hands.
+
+He looked at her as she handed him the goblet of water and when he saw
+the lines of suffering in her face, his heart, that had been like
+adamant, softened.
+
+"Sister," he took her hand as he spoke, "I well know we none of us mean
+what we say in anger, and yet the results are often just as disastrous. I
+have sent word to the Packard ranch for them to be on the lookout for our
+little ones. Luckily, high on the mountain, I came upon the cabin of a
+forest ranger where there was a telephone to Redfords and Mrs. Bently
+said she would relay the message to Mr. Packard." Then he rose, coughing
+in the same racking way that he had on the train. "Now I am rested, I
+must start out again."
+
+Jane clung to him, trying to detain him. "Oh, brother, please eat
+something. I had lunch all ready. Even yet it is warm." The lad smiled at
+her wanly, but shook his head. "I couldn't swallow food, and there are
+springs wherever I go."
+
+Then turning back in the doorway and noting that Jane had flung herself
+despairingly on the lounge, he said kindly: "Jane, dear, we often are
+taught much-needed lessons through great suffering. You and I will each
+have learned one of these if our little ones are found." Then, holding to
+a staff for support, he again started away.
+
+For another two long hours Jane sat in the porch chair as one stunned.
+She had lost hope. She was sure Julie and Gerald, of their own free will,
+would not stay away so long. They must have been attacked by wild animals
+or kidnapped by that Ute Indian.
+
+When the clock struck four, Jane leaped to her feet. She could no longer
+stand the inactivity. She simply must do something. Going to her room,
+she again unpacked her trunk and took from it a riding habit of dark blue
+tweed. She donned the neat fitting trousers that laced to the ankles, her
+high riding boots, the long skirted coat and a small visored cap. None of
+her costumes was more becoming, but not once did Jane glance in the
+mirror. She had but one desire and that was to help find the children.
+She was about to write a note to tell Dan that she also had gone in
+search of Julie and Gerald when she again heard a step on the porch, a
+light, quick footfall which she had not heard before. In the open doorway
+stood Meg Heger. Without a word of greeting she said: "The children, have
+they been found?"
+
+"No, no!" Jane cried. "Dan was here two hours ago, and, oh, Miss Heger,
+he is all worn out. I am as troubled about him, or nearly, as I am about
+Julie and Gerald. He told me to stay here for the children might return,
+but it is so long now. They left at nine this morning. I am sure they
+will not come back alone and I, also, must go in search of them."
+
+The mountain girl's dusky eyes had been closely watching the speaker and
+she seemed to sense that the proud girl was in no way considering
+herself. "Jane Abbott," she said seriously, "it would be foolhardy for
+you, an Easterner, unused to our wilderness ways, to start out alone. You
+would better heed your brother's wishes and remain here."
+
+But the girl to whom she spoke was beyond the power to reason. "No! No!"
+she cried. "Oh, Meg Heger, if you are going, I beg of you let me go with
+you."
+
+The mountain girl thought for a moment, then she said: "I will leave word
+for whoever may return." Taking from her pocket the notebook and pencil
+she always carried, she tore out a page and wrote upon it:
+
+"Jane Abbott and Meg Heger are going to the Crazy Creek Camp in search of
+the children. The hour is now 4:30. If we think best, we will remain
+there all night."
+
+The Eastern girl shuddered when she read the note, but made no comment.
+"Let us tack it on the door after we have closed it," she suggested.
+
+This was done, and taking the stout staff Dan had cut for her, Jane
+followed her companion, whom she was glad to see carried a gun.
+
+Silently they climbed the natural stairway of rocks that ascended by the
+brook until they reached the pine which, having fallen across the stream,
+formed a bridge. Meg uttered an exclamation and turning back she said:
+"We are on the right trail, Jane Abbott. There is a torn bit of your
+sister's red gingham dress on the tree. She evidently feared to walk
+across and so she jumped over."
+
+Jane's eyes glowed with hope. "How happy I would be if we were the ones
+to find them, although, of course, the important thing is that they shall
+be found."
+
+Meg often broke through dense undergrowth, holding open a place for Jane
+to pass, then again she took the lead, beating ahead with her staff to
+startle serpent or wild creature that might be in hiding.
+
+Jane, though greatly frightened, followed quietly, but now and then, when
+back of Meg, she pressed her hand to her heart to still its too rapid
+beating. They came to a wall of almost perpendicular rocks which the
+mountain girl said would save them many minutes if they could scale. How
+Meg climbed them alone and unaided was indeed a mystery to the watcher
+below. The toe of her boot fitted into a crevice so small that it did not
+seem possible that it could be used as a stair, but with little apparent
+effort the ascent was made, and then, kneeling on the top, Meg leaned far
+down and pulled Jane to a place at her side.
+
+At last they came to what appeared to be a grove of poles so straight and
+tall were the pines. They were on a wide, slowly ascending mountainside.
+The ground was soft with the drying needles and it was easier to walk.
+Jane commented on the grove-like aspect of the place, and Meg at once
+told her that they were called lodge-pole trees because Indians had used
+them as the main poles in their wigwams. "It is the Tamarack Pine," the
+mountain girl said, and then, as the ground was level for a considerable
+distance, she walked more rapidly, and neither spoke for some time. Jane
+was wretchedly unhappy and she well knew that she never again would be
+happy unless the children were found.
+
+"Redfords Peak is one of the lowest in the range," Meg turned to say when
+they had left the pole-pine grove and were climbing over rugged bare
+rocks which in the distance had looked to Jane unscaleable, but Meg, in
+each instance, found a way. At last they stood on a large flat rock which
+formed a small plateau. "This is the left shoulder of the peak," Meg
+paused to say, "and it is here that we begin the descent to Crazy Creek
+mine. See, far down there beyond the foothills is the Packard ranch. The
+buildings are large, but they do not appear so from here." Jane, sitting
+on a rock to rest, at Meg's suggestion, looked about her, eager to find
+some trace of the lost children. From time to time they had both shouted,
+but there had been no answer save the startled cry of birds, or the
+scolding of squirrels, who greatly objected to intruders.
+
+Suddenly the Eastern girl uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Why, there
+is the stage road not very far below us. Wouldn't it have been easier for
+us to follow that?"
+
+Meg nodded. "Much easier, but I had been told that the children started
+away along the brook, so if they were to be found we would have to hunt
+in the way they had gone."
+
+"Of course, and we did find that torn bit of Julie's dress."
+
+Meg looked at her companion eagerly. "Are you rested enough now to start
+down? It is an easy descent to the road and we will follow it directly
+into the camp." As she spoke she glanced anxiously at the sun. "It is
+dropping rapidly to the horizon," Jane, having followed the glance of the
+other, commented.
+
+Silently they began the descent. Jane found it much easier than she had
+supposed and before long they were on the stage road which zigzagged
+downward. They had not gone far when Jane said: "What a queer color the
+sunlight is becoming." She turned to look toward the west and uttered an
+exclamation. "Meg!" she cried, unconsciously using the mountain girl's
+Christian name, "the sun looks like a ball of orange fire and the
+mountain range is being hidden by a yellow haze. What can it mean?"
+
+"It means that a summer storm is brewing. Let us make haste. We will soon
+be under the shelter of the pines and just below them is the Crazy Creek
+camp. We will keep dry in one of the old cabins. These sudden storms,
+though often cloudbursts, are of short duration."
+
+There was a weird light under the great old pines, but in the spaces
+between they saw that clouds were rapidly gathering close above them.
+Then a vivid flash of lightning almost blinded them. Instantly it was
+followed by a crash of thunder which seemed to make the very mountain
+rock. Big drops of rain could be heard pelting among the trees, though
+few of them could be felt because of the densely interwoven branches. Meg
+drew her companion close to one of the great old trunks.
+
+"It isn't safe under trees, is it?" Jane's face was white with fear. Her
+companion's matter-of-fact voice calmed her. "As safe as it is anywhere,"
+she commented. "It won't last five minutes and we won't be much wet."
+
+The flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder were incessant and the
+road out of which they had scrambled became for a moment a raging
+torrent. "I've been struck," Jane cried out. "I know I have! I feel the
+electricity pulling at my hair."
+
+Again the calm voice: "You are all right. That is because we are so near
+the cloud. The air is charged with electricity."
+
+The storm was gone as quickly as it had come, but there was a roaring,
+rushing noise near. "That's the Crazy Creek. It floods for a few moments
+after every cloudburst. Quick now, let's make for the shelter of a cabin.
+The camp is just below here." Meg fairly dragged Jane out from under the
+pines. The light was brighter and the Eastern girl saw beneath her a
+scene of desolation, but before she could clearly define it, Meg had
+dragged her into an old log cabin. There was a joyous cry from within. It
+was Gerald shouting, "Meg, you've come. I knew you would."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVI.
+                            A RECONCILIATION
+
+
+The small boy, ignoring Jane, sprang toward the mountain girl and dragged
+her into the cabin. On the floor lay Julie, her cheeks wet with tears,
+her eyes dulled with suffering.
+
+With a glad cry Jane leaped into the darkened room and was about to take
+the small girl in her arms, but Julie turned away and held her hands out
+toward Meg, when to their surprise Jane sank down in a worn-out heap on
+the floor and began to sob bitterly.
+
+"Oh, mother, mother!" she cried, as though addressing someone she knew
+must be present, "help me to take your place with Julie and Gerald. Tell
+them to forgive me."
+
+Meg feared that Jane's long day of anguish had temporarily unbalanced her
+mind, but Julie, hearing that cry, reached out a comforting hand.
+
+"Jane," she said weakly, "don't feel so badly. I guess we were awfully
+trying, me and Gerald."
+
+Passionately Jane caught the child in her arms and held her close. She
+kissed her forehead and her tumbled hair. Then she reached out a hand to
+the boy, who had drawn near amazed to see his usually cold, hard sister
+so affected.
+
+"Give me another chance, Gerald!" she cried, tears streaming unheeded
+down her cheeks. "Don't hate me yet. I'm going to begin all over. I'm
+going to try to be like mother."
+
+A cry of pain from the small girl then caught her attention.
+
+"Julie, what is it, dear? Are you hurt? What has happened?"
+
+Gerald spoke up: "That's why we came in here. We were headin' down the
+mountain for the Packard ranch when Julie fell. I guess her ankle is
+hurt."
+
+Meg at once was on her knees unbuttoning the high shoe. The ankle was
+swollen, but there were no bones broken.
+
+"It is a bad sprain," she said.
+
+Then, swinging the knapsack which she always carried when on a mountain
+hike from her back, she took out her emergency kit. She washed the angry
+looking place with soothing liniment and then wound tightly about it
+strips of clean white cloth.
+
+"Now," she said, "we will have some refreshments."
+
+This amazed her listeners and greatly pleased at least one of them.
+
+"Gee-golly!" Gerald cried. "I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess
+I'm starving to death more'n likely."
+
+Meg smiled as she produced a box of raisins. "This may not seem much of a
+menu, but it is all one needs for several days to sustain life."
+
+The small boy took a generous handful and gobbled it with speed. Then the
+mountain girl brought out a canteen.
+
+"Bring us some water from the creek," she told him. Jane held out a
+detaining hand.
+
+"Oh, Meg," she implored, "don't send Gerry to that raging torrent. Don't
+you remember how we heard it roaring?"
+
+"But you don't hear it now," was the reply. "The water from the
+cloudburst has long since gone to the valley to be absorbed, much of it,
+in the coarse gravel. You'll find Crazy Creek just as it always is."
+
+"That's where Julie sprained her ankle," Gerald said. "We were trying to
+reach it to get a drink."
+
+He soon returned with the canteen full of ice-cold water. His eyes were
+wide.
+
+"Say, girls," he began, "we can't make it home tonight, can we? The sun's
+going down west of our peak right this minute."
+
+"We didn't expect to," Meg replied. "Gerald, you come with me and we will
+bring in pine branches or kinnikinick, if we can find any, for our beds."
+
+From her knapsack Meg took a folding knife as she talked.
+
+"Kinnikinick?" the boy gayly repeated. Everything that had happened now
+appeared to him in the light of a jolly adventure except, of course,
+Julie's ankle, and she no longer seemed to be in pain. "What sort of a
+thing is that?"
+
+Meg had led the way out of the cabin.
+
+"Here's some!" she shouted, and the boy raced over to find the girl whom
+he so admired bending over a dense evergreen vine.
+
+"It's prettier in winter," she told him, "for then it has red berries
+among the bright green leaves. It makes a wonderful bed. It is so soft
+and springy."
+
+After half an hour of effort branches of pine and some of the kinnikinick
+were laid on the floor, Julie was made comfortable, but Jane would not
+lie down. She sat with her back against the wall holding the small girl's
+head on her lap. Dan had been right. One could carve oneself after a
+model. Never, never again would she lose sight, she assured herself, of
+her chosen goal, which was to do in all things as her dear mother would
+have done.
+
+As soon as the sun sank it began to grow dark. Meg had at once barred the
+door, and also she had examined the floor and walls to be sure that there
+was no yawning knothole large enough to admit a snake.
+
+The children slept from sheer exhaustion, but Jane and Meg stayed awake
+through the seemingly endless hours, while night prowlers howled many
+times close to their cabin.
+
+At the first gray streak of dawn, Julie stirred uneasily and began to cry
+softly. Meg begged Jane to change positions with her, and, completely
+worn out, Jane did lie down on the pine boughs which had been so placed
+that they were springy and comfortable. Almost at once she fell asleep.
+
+Meg removed the bandages that were hot from the little girl's hurt ankle
+and again applied the cooling liniment. Other fresh strips of cloth were
+used and then, with the small head pillowed on Meg's lap, Julie again
+fell asleep. Gerald had not wakened through the night, not even when a
+curious wolf had sniffed at their doorsill and had then lifted his head
+to wail out his displeasure.
+
+The sun was high above the peak when Jane leaped up, startled, from her
+restless slumber. "What was that? I thought I heard a gun shot."
+
+"You did." Nothing seemed to stir Meg from her undisturbed calm. "Someone
+is coming. Julie, will you sit up against the wall, dear, and I will open
+the door."
+
+Gerald, half awake, but sensing some excitement, leaped out of the cabin,
+his small gun held in readiness. "Do you 'spect it's the Utes?" he asked,
+almost hoping that the answer would be in the affirmative. But Meg
+laughed. "No," she said. "It is probably someone searching for you." Then
+she fired in answer. From not far above them came two gun shots in rapid
+succession.
+
+"Oh, boy!" Gerald leaped to a position where he could see the road as it
+wound under the pines. "There are two horsemen. Gee! One of 'em is Dan."
+
+"And the other is Jean Sawyer!" his companion told him.
+
+Julie had wanted to see what was going on, so hopping on one foot, she
+appeared in the doorway, supported by Jane. The two lads uttered whoops
+of joy when they saw the group awaiting them. Dan at once caught Gerald
+in his arms and then glanced tenderly toward the two in the doorway.
+Little did Jane guess that in that moment, white and worn as she was, she
+had never looked so beautiful to her brother. And as for Jean Sawyer, he
+saw in the face which had charmed him, a softer expression, and he knew
+that some great transformation had taken place in the soul of the girl.
+Leaping forward, he said with deep solicitude: "Oh, Miss Jane, how you
+have suffered!"
+
+Dan lifted Julie most carefully to the back of his horse as he said:
+"Meg, can you ride in front of this little miss and I will walk at your
+side?" Then he smiled, and Jane, glancing at him anxiously, rejoiced to
+note he was not ill as she had feared he would be, though he did look
+very tired. The lad continued: "You see, Jean and I expected to find you
+all here. Intuitive knowledge, if you wish to call it that, and so we
+planned what we would do. Jane is to ride on Silver, which Mr. Packard
+loaned us, and Jean will lead the way."
+
+"But where are we going?" his older sister inquired.
+
+"Down to the ranch," Jean replied. "I had strict orders to bring you back
+with me, all of you, for that visit that you were to have paid at the
+weekend."
+
+Meg was about to demur, but the lad hastened to say: "I told your father
+that I would telephone the forest ranger as soon as you all were located.
+He is waiting there for a message, and I cannot until I get you to the
+ranch."
+
+Still Meg thought she ought to climb back to her own home, but Jane
+implored: "Oh, don't leave me! I do _so_ want you to go with us." That
+settled it and though the girl from the East little dreamed it, there was
+a warm glow of joy in the heart of the mountain girl who had so wanted a
+friend of her own age.
+
+Jane shuddered as they rode down the old trail of the deserted mining
+camp. Shacks in all degrees of ruin stood about, machinery was rusting
+where it had been left. The beauty of the mountain had been marred by
+dark tunnels, outside of which stood heaps of orange and blue-gray
+refuse. Even in the more substantial log huts, made of aspen poles,
+windows were broken and doors hung on one hinge. "The desolation of the
+place will haunt my dreams forever," the girl from the East said.
+
+"And all this," Jean made a wide sweep with his arm, "because the paying
+vein they had been so frantically following was lost. It might have been
+found, Mr. Packard told me, but another rich strike was made on Eagle
+Head Mountain and the inhabitants of this camp, to a man, deserted it and
+flocked to that new mine, and from there they probably followed other
+lures, ending, I suppose, as poor, or poorer, than when they began."
+
+Dan was interested. "Then the lost vein may still be here, who knows?" he
+commented with a backward glance at the deserted camp they had left. And
+yet, was it deserted? As soon as the young people were gone a stealthy
+figure appeared, slinking out of one of the huts. It was the old Ute
+Indian and since he carried a pick and shovel, it was quite evident that
+he had started out to dig. Was it the lost vein or some other treasure
+that he sought?
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII.
+                         THE GREEN HILLS RANCH
+
+
+Shielded from the fury of the storms by gently sloping foothills, the
+rambling Packard ranch house presented a very inviting appearance to the
+young people as the two big horses carefully picked their way down the
+last steep trail.
+
+"O, how beautiful!" was Jane's involuntary exclamation when the level
+road, having been reached, she felt freer to look about and admire the
+scene.
+
+"I had no idea that a mere ranch could be so attractive." A great change
+was evident in the Eastern girl, and Jean Sawyer had been quick to notice
+it. Not once that morning had she seemed to be posing that she might
+appear more charming to him. She was just sweetly, sincerely natural. The
+reason, perhaps, was that Jane had suffered so much since his last visit
+that she had changed her estimate of real values. She was so happy, so at
+peace deep in her heart. She had learned that her mother's little ones
+were dearer to her than all else, and so the impression she might make
+had dwindled in importance. If Jean had thought her beautiful on the day
+of their first meeting, he thought her more lovely now, although her face
+showed evidence of a great weariness and the hours of anxiety through
+which she had passed. He smiled up at her as he walked at her side, one
+hand resting on the horse's bridle. "Mr. Packard and I have tried out
+many schemes to make our home more beautiful," he told her. "That little
+artificial lake surrounded by cottonwood trees and willows we made quite
+by ourselves. A mountain stream flows into it. Indeed, there are many
+springs in these foothills and that is why they have such a soft,
+velvety-green appearance when the desert and mountains are so dry." They
+were passing through a vegetable garden where a beaming Chinaman, hoe in
+hand, nodded to them.
+
+Then came the flower gardens and Meg's enthusiasm, though expressed in
+her usual quiet way, was very evident. "How you do love flowers," Dan
+said, smiling up at her.
+
+"Indeed I do!" Meg replied. "They seem like live things to me, and so I
+was not surprised to read recently that a scientist, with some very
+delicate instrument, has learned that many plants are sentient, though
+not acutely so. Since then I have never torn a plant ruthlessly. That
+scientist advised cutting flowers rather than breaking them."
+
+It was indeed Meg's much-loved subject and her eyes glowed as she gazed
+at the banks of scarlet salvia, at the masses of golden glow, and
+many-hued asters.
+
+"Someone else must love flowers," she commented, turning to look back at
+Jean. He nodded. "It is my best friend, Mr. Packard. You two ought to be
+great cronies. I sometimes tell him that I think it is the color effect,
+rather than the individual flower, that he so greatly admires, but here
+he comes now."
+
+They were riding up to the circling drive which passed under a
+vine-covered portico. Mr. Packard leaped down the steps with an agility
+which seemed to dispute the years his graying hair attributed to him.
+
+"Welcome!" he cried, with a wide sweep of his sombrero. "This is indeed a
+pleasant surprise, although I can hardly call it that as I have been
+watching for just such a cavalcade to come riding down my foothills ever
+since the dawn broke." He held out his strong arms to lift little Julie,
+whose face, still tear-stained and white with pain, appealed to him. He
+held her close as he listened sympathetically while Gerald told what had
+happened to the poor little foot. Then, after giving a word of greeting
+to each of the guests, he bade them follow him indoors to the breakfast
+that had long been awaiting them.
+
+The girls found that a wing, containing two rooms and a bath, and
+overlooking the little lake, had been prepared for their comfort. Gerald,
+with the two older boys, sought quarters elsewhere in the rambling ranch
+house, which had room for the accommodation of many guests.
+
+"When you girls have prinked enough," Mr. Packard said merrily, "follow
+the scent of the coffee and you will find the rest of us." When the door
+had closed and the three girls were alone, Jane held out a hand to Meg,
+saying: "Will you forgive me for everything, and let me try to be a real
+friend?" An expression of gladness in the mountain girl's dusky eyes was
+her most eloquent reply.
+
+Directly after breakfast in the dining-room, which seemed to be all
+windows and where they were served by a silently moving Chinaman, the
+girls were told that they were to go to their wing and rest until noon.
+
+This was in no way a displeasing suggestion and in a very short while
+Julie and Jane in one room and Meg in the other were deep in slumber.
+Gerald was also advised to rest, but he declared that he would rather
+stay awake and see what was going to happen. Dan laughed as he said that
+Gerald seemed always to believe that an adventure might begin at any
+moment.
+
+"What boy does not?" Mr. Packard smiled understandingly down at the
+stocky little fellow whose clear blue eyes and freckled face beamed good
+nature. Then, quite as though he could read the small boy's thought, the
+man exclaimed: "Gerald, you ought to wear my grandson's cowboy outfit.
+He'd be glad to loan it to you." That this suggestion met with the
+youngster's entire approval was quite evident by the wild dance which he
+executed then and there.
+
+Jean led the little fellow away and before long Gerald reappeared,
+clothed in a costume of the most approved style, a fringed buckskin suit,
+a red bandana handkerchief loosely knotted about his neck, while in one
+hand he held a wide felt hat on which to his great joy a dried
+rattlesnake skin served as band. His own small gun was never out of his
+possession.
+
+"Great!" Dan said with brotherly pride. "I wish our dad and dear old
+grandmother might see you now, Gerry. You do indeed look ready to start
+on an adventure."
+
+"Where'll we go to look for it?" The small boy gazed eagerly, hopefully
+up at their genial host.
+
+"Well, sonny, what kind of an adventure would you prefer?" the amused man
+asked as though he were willing, at least, to attempt to provide whatever
+adventure his small guest might desire.
+
+"I'd like an Indian raid best, or a hold-up." The boy was thinking of the
+most exciting things he could recall in his set of Wild-West books, but
+Mr. Packard shook his head. "Sorry to disappoint you, sonny, but the Utes
+are a friendly tribe: peaceable, anyway, and they are no longer our near
+neighbors. They have moved their camp deeper into the mountains. And, as
+for hold-ups, since we are neither on a stage or a train we cannot
+provide that, but if you boys are not too weary I am going to suggest
+that you ride with me to the old stage road. I've been losing some calves
+lately and Jean believes that they might have been driven into an
+abandoned corral over in the foothills at night, and later were spirited
+away." He hesitated. "It's a hard ride, though. Perhaps you boys would
+rather not undertake it until tomorrow."
+
+But they were glad to go, and Gerald would not agree to being left
+behind. He was given a small horse that was gentle and used to boys, as
+the grandson had claimed it as his own, and so they rode away, having
+left word for the girls that they would return as soon as possible.
+
+In the mid-morning they reached the old abandoned stage road. "No one
+uses it now, that is, for legitimate purposes, as it is very dangerous.
+There are washouts and cutways that make it almost impassable for stage
+or for auto travel." Then, pointing to the place where the road circled a
+high hill, Mr. Packard concluded: "Jean, can you see where yesterday's
+cloudburst washed out the road? It has started a new canon that will have
+to be bridged, for now and then a tenderfoot autoist does get started on
+that old road, thinking that it leads to Redfords. Time and again we have
+put up signs on the main highway, but they are hurled down in the storms,
+I suppose."
+
+Dan had been intently tracing the old road until it was lost from sight.
+Suddenly he urged his horse forward to Mr. Packard's side. "May I take
+the field glasses? I feel sure that I see a dark object moving along that
+old road and coming this way. You look first, though. Your eyes are
+better trained to these distances than mine." Mr. Packard gazed long,
+then he turned to Jean. "Boy," he said, "it looks like an auto moving
+slowly this way. If it ever starts on that down grade toward the washout
+there is going to be a tragedy."
+
+Jean was eagerly alert. "What shall we do, Mr. Packard? How can it be
+averted?"
+
+The automobile had disappeared as the road circled behind a hill, but the
+watchers well knew that if it did not meet with disaster it would soon
+reappear above the washout and then be unable to stop because of the
+steep descent.
+
+"Follow me!" Mr. Packard gave the brief order, and, urging his horse to
+its utmost speed, he led the way at what seemed to Gerald a breakneck
+pace. The small boy clung to his wiry little pony, which kept close
+behind the racing mustangs. It was evident to the boys that Mr. Packard
+was hoping to round the foot of the hill in time to shout a warning to
+the autoists before they began the descent which would prove fatal. It
+seemed a very long distance to Dan and he could not see how they possibly
+could make it. He kept his eyes constantly on the crest of the hill road,
+dreading the moment when the car would appear, there to plunge down to
+certain destruction. Mr. Packard rounded the foot of the hill first,
+whirled in his saddle, beckoned the boys to make haste, then disappeared,
+leaving his horse standing riderless. "What can _that_ mean?" Dan asked,
+but Jean merely shook his head. In another moment they would know. When
+they, also, had rounded the hill, they saw that "ill fortune," as
+autoists usually consider a blow-out, had befriended the travelers. The
+car had been stopped just as it had begun the ascent of the hill, on the
+other side of which sure death had awaited them.
+
+Mr. Packard was seen breaking a trail through the underbrush. From time
+to time he hallooed, and the boys saw that at last he had been heard.
+
+"It will be needless for us to make the climb," Jean said, "since Mr.
+Packard will warn them," and so the three boys awaited the man's return.
+
+"Who were they?" Jean inquired. Mr. Packard, removing his Stetson to wipe
+his brow, shook his head. "I do not know. Some family from the East
+trying to cross the Rockies. They could have done it easily enough if
+they had not taken the wrong road. The woman in the party is so utterly
+exhausted that I invited them to come to our place to rest. I showed them
+the road from the foot of the hill back of them. It certainly isn't in
+good condition, but, being on the level, it at least will not be
+dangerous. The woman fainted when she heard how near death lurked ahead
+of them, but they'll be all right now. We'll inspect that old foothill
+corral some other day, Jean. These strangers have need of our friendly
+services." Mr. Packard turned his horse's head toward the ranch as he
+spoke and they all galloped back at a moderate speed.
+
+"That was sort of an adventure, wasn't it?" Gerald inquired hopefully.
+
+Mr. Packard laughed heartily. "I certainly think it could be so
+classified," he agreed. "I shudder to think what it would have been,
+however, if that tire had not halted them. We could not have reached them
+in time."
+
+Although it was not quite noon, the girls were up and dressed when the
+equestrians returned and were greatly interested in all that had
+happened. Gerald waxed eloquent as he told Julie the details, and that
+little girl, who hungered for adventure quite as much as her brother,
+hoped that if anything exciting happened again, she might be in the thick
+of it.
+
+Mr. Packard retired to the kitchen to advise Sing Long, the cook, that
+four other guests were to arrive for lunch. Although that Chinaman's
+reply was merely "Ally lite" the American interpretation of his pleased
+smile would be, "the more the merrier." Guests were his joy that he might
+display the art at which he excelled.
+
+An hour later a big, luxurious closed car limped into the ranch
+door-yard. Mr. Packard went out to greet the strangers in the same
+hospitable manner that he had greeted his friends. The girls on the wide
+porch saw a fine looking man with a Van Dyke beard assisting a simply
+though richly gowned woman from the car, then the front door was flung
+open! There was a joyful cry from a girl who leaped out and fairly raced
+up the front steps with arms out-held. "O Jane, Jane! How wonderful to
+find you here! We were looking for your cabin and that's how we came to
+lose our way."
+
+"Marion Starr, of all things! I thought that you were in Newport!"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVIII.
+                              OLD FRIENDS
+
+
+Jean, Dan and Gerald had gone at once to the corral with the four horses
+they had ridden and were still there (for Jean had much to show his
+guests) when the car arrived, and so the excitement was quite over when
+they at last sauntered around one corner of the porch.
+
+There were four in the party of autoists, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Starr,
+Marion, and Bob, her young brother.
+
+Jane at once took Merry to her room, while Julie accepted Meg's
+invitation to wander about the gardens and make the acquaintance of the
+flowers. Mr. Packard had just returned from showing Mr. and Mrs. Starr to
+the guest room when the boys appeared. Bob Starr had lingered to look
+over the car, which was the pride of his heart, and so it was that he
+first met Jean, Dan and Gerald. Jean proved himself an expert mechanic,
+as was also Mr. Packard, and they promised the lad that directly after
+lunch they would assist him in putting his car in the best of shape.
+
+Meanwhile Jane and Merry were telling each other all that had happened
+since last they had met.
+
+"I simply can't understand it in the least," Jane declared for the tenth
+time. "To think that you deliberately gave up the opportunity to spend a
+whole summer in Newport to undergo the hardships of a cross-country motor
+trip."
+
+Merry dropped down in a deep easy chair and laughed happily. "Oh, I've
+loved it! Every hour of the trip has been fascinating. Of course I'm
+mighty glad Mr. Packard saved our lives, but even that was exciting."
+
+"But wasn't your Aunt Belle terribly disappointed?"
+
+"Why, no; not at all. There are steens of us in the Starr family. She
+just invited some other girl cousins. Aunt Belle is never so happy as
+when she is surrounded with gay young girls. Then, moreover, Esther
+Ballard couldn't go. Her artist father had planned a tramping trip
+through Switzerland as a surprise for her and Barbara Morris decided to
+accompany them; so you and I would have been quite alone at Newport. But
+do tell me who is the girl to whom you introduced me when I first
+arrived? She is beautiful, isn't she?"
+
+Jane surely had changed in the past week, for her reply was sincere and
+even enthusiastic. "Merry, that girl is more than beautiful. She is
+wonderful! I want you to know her better. She has saved me from myself."
+Then she laughingly arose, holding out both hands to assist her friend to
+her feet. "If you are rested, dear, come out on the porch. I want you to
+meet the nicest, well, almost the nicest boy I have ever known."
+
+Merry glanced up roguishly. "Are congratulations in order?"
+
+Jane flushed prettily, though she protested: "You know they are not,
+Marion Starr! Romance is as far from my thoughts today as it ever was,
+but next to Dan, I do like Jean best."
+
+"Well, I certainly am curious to meet this paragon of a youth." Merry
+gave her friend's waist a little affectionate hug, then said: "I have a
+pretty nice brother of my own. He ought to be ready by now to be
+presented to my best friend." Together they went toward the front door.
+"I know Bob must be nice," Jane agreed, "since he is your twin."
+
+The girls appeared on the porch just as the boys had completed an
+inspection of the machine and so Jane's "paragon," with a smudge of
+grease on one cheek and smeared hands, laughingly begged Merry to pardon
+his inability to remove his hat. Before Marion could reply, her brother
+led her aside and talked rapidly and in a low voice, then returning he
+said in his pleasing manner: "Miss Abbott, you will pardon any seeming
+lack of courtesy on my part when I tell you there was something very
+important which I wished to say to my sister, and there is no time like
+the present, you know."
+
+Merry laughingly interrupted: "And now that you have made that long
+speech to Jane, it would be sort of an anti-climax, would it not, for me
+to formally introduce you? However, Jane, this is my wayward young
+brother Bob, whom I am endeavoring to bring up the way that he should
+go." Jane held out a slim white hand, but, although she said just the
+right thing, her thoughts were busy. Something had happened that she did
+not understand.
+
+Mrs. Starr rested that afternoon in one of the comfortable reclining
+chairs on the wide front porch. Mr. Starr was most interested in all that
+Mr. Packard had to show him, while the young people went for a horseback
+ride in merry cavalcade. Bob Starr was eager to see the washout, and
+decide for himself what chance of escape they might have had. Julie was
+overjoyed that this time she also might accompany the riders. A small
+spotted pony was chosen for her, as it was a most reliable little
+creature--sure-footed and gentle.
+
+For a while Jane and Merry rode side by side, then Bob and Jean Sawyer,
+who for some time had ridden far back of the others, galloped up and rode
+alongside of the two girls, Bob next to Jane and Jean close to Merry.
+
+There was a pang in the dark girl's heart. She had noticed several times
+at lunch that Jean had glanced across at Marion Starr and had smiled at
+her when their eyes met. But the trail soon became too rough to permit
+four to ride abreast, and so Jean called: "Miss Starr, suppose you and I
+ride ahead and set the pace."
+
+Marion smiled at her friend. "That will give you and Bob a chance to
+become better acquainted," she said, then urged her horse to a gallop,
+and away they went, Jean and Merry, laughing happily, and yet when they
+had quite outdistanced the rest, Jane noted that they rode more slowly
+and close together, as though in serious converse.
+
+"They surely are becoming acquainted very rapidly," the girl thought
+miserably. She had not realized until now how very much Jean Sawyer's
+admiration had meant to her. Suddenly she felt so alone and looked back
+to find the brother who had always cared so much for her, but he also was
+completely engrossed in another girl, for Meg had dismounted to examine
+some growth by the trail, and Dan, standing at her side, was listening,
+as he gazed into her dusky eyes, with great evident interest. Jane
+sighed.
+
+"I deserve it all," she thought. "I have not been lovable, and so why
+should I expect to be loved?"
+
+"Jean Sawyer seems to be a mighty fine chap," her companion was saying.
+"Is he overseer of this cattle ranch?"
+
+"Yes, I understand that is the position he fills," Jane said, feeling
+suddenly very weary, and wishing that she could ride back to the ranch
+house. A fortnight before she would have done so, but now a thought for
+the happiness of others came to prevent such a selfish decision, for, of
+course, if Jane turned back, some of the others would also, for the lads
+were too chivalrous to permit her to ride alone. Bob, glancing at her,
+decided that she was not interested in his companionship, but for Merry's
+sake he made one more effort at friendly conversation.
+
+"I do not suppose, though, that so fine a chap and one so capable will
+remain forever in the position of an employee," he ventured. "Do you know
+where he hails from?"
+
+"No, I do not," Jane replied. Then wishing to change the subject, she
+pointed toward a hill over which one lone vulture was swinging in wide
+circles. "There is the washout!" Merry and Jean were galloping back
+toward them.
+
+The girl rode up to Jane as she said with a shudder: "Oh, I don't want to
+go any closer! When I saw that wicked looking vulture and heard why he is
+circling there I could picture all too plainly what _would_ have happened
+if we had been killed and----"
+
+It was seldom that Merry was so overcome. "Jane, do you mind riding back
+with me?" she pleaded. "I want to go to my mother."
+
+And so the two girls turned back toward the ranch house. They assured the
+others that they did not mind going alone. Jane noticed that Merry said
+nothing of the conversation that she had had with Jean Sawyer; in fact,
+she did not mention his name and neither did Jane. When they reached the
+ranch house Merry ran up the steps, and kneeling, she held her mother
+close. That sweet-faced woman smoothed the sunny hair of the girl she so
+loved, marveling at the unusual emotion, but when her daughter told her
+how much more vividly she could picture their escape, after she had seen
+the washout, and the vulture, the older woman understood. Jane, watching
+her friend, felt that something more than a view of the road where there
+might have been a tragedy was affecting her dearest friend, nor was she
+wrong.
+
+Mr. Packard prevailed upon Mrs. and Mr. Starr to remain as his guests for
+at least another day, that the mother of Merry and Bob might become
+thoroughly rested before the return journey to the East, which was to be
+made by train, the automobile to be shipped back.
+
+"O, Mrs. Starr, how I do wish you would permit Merry and Bob to visit us
+in our cabin on Redfords Peak," Jane said when this decision had been
+reached. "Couldn't they stay until we return East next month?"
+
+Mrs. Starr looked inquiringly at her husband, but it was Merry who
+replied. "Not quite that long, dear," she said, slipping an arm about her
+friend. "I very much want to be in New York on September the first."
+
+Just why she glanced quickly up at Jean Sawyer, a pretty flush tinting
+her cheeks, Jane could not understand. There was an actual pain in her
+heart, and she caught her breath quickly before she could reply in a
+voice that sounded natural: "Well, then, at least you and Bob can remain
+with us for two weeks and that will be better than not at all."
+
+The selfish side of Jane's nature was saying to her: "Why urge Merry to
+remain, when, if she were to go, you could have Jean Sawyer's
+companionship all to yourself?" But Jane had indeed changed, for she put
+the thought away from her as unworthy, and gave her friend a little
+affectionate hug when Mrs. Starr said that the plan was quite agreeable
+to her.
+
+"Good! That's great!" Dan declared warmly. Then he excused himself, for
+he saw Meg Heger returning with Julie from a "botany expedition" in the
+foothills.
+
+The mountain girl smiled up at him in her frank way when he ran down the
+garden path toward them. "Have you news to tell us?" she inquired.
+"You're looking wonderfully well these days, Daniel Abbott. I do not
+believe that your lungs were affected, after all."
+
+"Indeed, they were not!" The boy whirled to walk at Meg's side, and as
+she smiled up at him in her good comradeship way, he was almost impelled
+to add, "But my heart is." Instead, he laughed boyishly, and took the
+basket of specimens that the girl carried. Peeping under the cover, he
+exclaimed: "Why, if you haven't taken them up, root and all."
+
+Meg nodded joyfully. "Wasn't it nice of Mr. Packard to tell me that I
+might transplant them to my own botany gardens. Aren't they the most
+exquisite star-like flowers and the most delicate pinks and blues?" Then,
+when the cover had been replaced, Meg lifted long-lashed, dusky eyes that
+were more serious. "Dan, do you suppose Jane would mind if I went home
+this afternoon? Think of it, in another fortnight I will be going to
+Scarsburg to take the entrance examinations for the normal, and kind old
+Teacher Bellows is giving me some special review work which I cannot
+afford to miss."
+
+"If you return, I will also," the lad said; then, when he saw that his
+companion was about to protest, he hurriedly added: "Not because you need
+my protection, but because I _wish_ to be with you."
+
+Meg gave no outward sign of having understood the deep underlying meaning
+of the words that she had heard, but the warmth in her heart assured her
+that she was glad, glad that Dan wanted to accompany her.
+
+Gerald came bounding toward them, dressed still in his fringed cowboy
+suit. "Say, kids," he shouted inelegantly, then looked rather sheepishly
+at Julie, as though he expected one of her grandmotherly rebukes, but
+hearing none, he blurted on: "We're going to have a corn and potato roast
+for supper tonight. Won't that be high jinks, though? Mr. Packard has a
+barbecue pit on the other side of the little lake. Oh. boy!" he
+continued, rubbing the spot where the feast would eventually be. "You bet
+you I'll be there with bells!" Then, catching Julie by the hand, he raced
+with her to the corral, where they liked to look over the log fence at
+the horses and colts in the enclosure.
+
+Dan smiled down at his companion. "Let us wait until morning and start at
+sunrise, shall we?" he suggested. "If we go this afternoon, our host
+might think that we do not appreciate his plans for our entertainment."
+
+Meg agreed willingly, little dreaming that so slight an incident was to
+make a vital change in her hitherto uneventful life.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIX.
+                              THE BARBEQUE
+
+
+Julie and Gerald were hilariously excited as the hour of the roast
+approached. Mr. Packard had selected them as his aides, had made them a
+committee on arrangement. They took wood to the pit and then went with
+the ever-beaming Chinese gardener to the field where the corn grew, and
+they carried back between them a heavily laden basket. Then the long
+table near the lake that was sheltered by cottonwood trees was set with
+the plate and dishes found on every cattle ranch in reserve for round-ups
+and similar occasions when many are to be fed.
+
+In the center Julie placed a huge bouquet of scarlet salvia and golden
+glow to make the table "extra-pretty," and she put Meg's name nearest the
+flowers, but, with the innocence of childhood, she put Dan's name at the
+place directly opposite. When the guests were finally summoned, Julie's
+big brother protested that he didn't want to sit directly behind that
+huge bouquet because he couldn't "see anything." Julie looked perplexed.
+"Why, yes, you can so! You can see the foothills, and just lots of
+things."
+
+Then Gerald blurted out, "Silly, he can't see Meg Heger, can he, when
+you've put her right across from the bouquet?"
+
+How they all laughed, even Meg, and Mrs. Starr, glancing at the mountain
+girl, marveled at her beauty, and thought it quite natural that any lad
+would rather look at her than at a scarlet and gold bouquet.
+
+Mr. Packard settled the matter by removing the huge centerpiece to a side
+table. "There, that's heaps better!" Jean said as he smiled across at
+Marion. "Now I also have a better view of the foothills," he added
+mischievously.
+
+It was hard, cruelly hard for Jane, even though Bob Starr, who was seated
+next to her, tried his utmost to be entertaining. Bob was indeed puzzled.
+He was not at all conceited, but, up to the present, he had found even
+very attractive girls seeking, rather than spurning, his companionship.
+
+"Icebergs aren't in my line," he decided, and turned toward little Julie,
+who was on his other side, and whose fresh enthusiasm was interesting,
+even to a lad several years her senior.
+
+Merry noticed that her best friend did not eat with the same zest that
+was very apparent in the appetites of all the others, and, after a time,
+she suggested to Bob that he change seats with her. The table had just
+been cleared and Gerald had darted away with the Chinaman to bring on the
+generous slices of watermelon, and so the change was made very easily.
+Merry slipped a hand under the table and held Jane's in a close, loving
+clasp. "Dear," she said very softly, "you aren't feeling well, are you?
+Shall we go back to the ranch house? I do not mind missing the
+watermelon."
+
+"No, thank you, Marion," Jane's voice, try as she might to make it sound
+natural, had in it a note of reserve that was almost cold. For the first
+time in the years that they had been so intimate, Jane had used the
+formal Marion. The friends who loved her always called her Merry.
+Something was wrong, radically wrong. Merry ate her slice of melon,
+wondering what it could possibly be, and finally decided that if Jane's
+manner remained unchanged throughout the evening, she would accompany her
+mother to the East on the following day.
+
+"There is going to be a wonderful moon tonight," Mr. Packard said, "Why
+don't you young people climb the foothill trail and watch it rise?"
+
+"That's a good suggestion!" Jean Sawyer at once offered to lead the
+expedition. Then, as everyone had arisen, he went to the two girls, who
+were seated together, and said with a smile which included them both,
+"Shall we three go ahead?"
+
+But Jane replied, "You and Merry may go. I have one of my sick headaches.
+I shall go to bed at once." Jean Sawyer looked at the girl almost sadly.
+Then he said quietly, "I am sorry, Jane. May I walk back to the house
+with you?"
+
+"I thank you, no!" The girl's haughty manner was in evidence. Then going
+to Mr. Packard, she asked to be excused and walked quickly around the
+little lake. Merry watched her thoughtfully, then turning to her
+companion, she said, "Jean, I think I understand. May I tell her our
+secret now--tonight?"
+
+The boy assented eagerly. "I shall be glad to have Jane know," he said.
+Then Merry also excused herself and followed her friend.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX.
+                          JEAN SAWYER'S SECRET
+
+
+Jane, going to the deserted ranch house, threw herself down on her bed
+and sobbed heart-brokenly. She did not hear the tap on the door, nor was
+she conscious that Merry had entered until she heard her voice: "Jane,
+dear, have I done anything to hurt you, to make you unhappy?" The
+tenderness in the tone of her best friend was unmistakable. All at once
+Jane felt ashamed of herself. Holding out a fevered hand, she said:
+"Indeed not, dear girl. It isn't your fault at all. Any boy would like
+you better than me. You are so sweet and unselfish and lovable." Merry's
+eyes widened, for she was indeed perplexed, "Jane, I don't understand,"
+she said. "What boy likes me better than he does you?" Then, slowly a
+light dawned. Taking both hot hands in her own, she cried, her blue eyes
+glowing, "Oh, Jane, dearest Jane, _did_ you think that Jean Sawyer cared
+for me? Did you think for one moment that I, knowing how much you liked
+him, would even want him to care for me? Indeed not, Janey! But now that
+I think about it, I realize that you might misunderstand. Dear, it's a
+long story. Let's go out on the veranda in the moonlight. There is no one
+around. They all went up the foothill trail and will be gone for an
+hour."
+
+Jane permitted herself to be led to a vine-sheltered corner of the
+veranda, where they sat close together in a hammock swing. Merry piled
+the soft cushions behind her friend, whose flushed face assured her that
+the head was really aching. Jane sighed as she sank back among them, but
+it was a sigh of relief. How wrong it had been to doubt for one moment
+the loyalty of this, her very best friend. But Merry was beginning the
+story. "Dear," she said, placing a cool hand on the hot one near her,
+"when you first introduced me to Jean Sawyer, did you notice that my
+brother Bob drew me away to whisper something to me before I could
+acknowledge the introduction?"
+
+Jane nodded, both curious and interested. "Why did Bob do that? I
+wondered at the time." Merry continued: "I was just about to exclaim,
+'Why, Jean Sawyer Willoughby, so this is where you disappeared to when
+you left home last February!' but I did not, for Bob gave me no time.
+What he whispered was, 'Don't let on you know Jean. He wants his identity
+kept in the dark. He is using his mother's maiden name. Get the cue?'
+
+"Of course I got it, but as soon as I could I asked Jean to go for a
+canter with me that I might tell him how heart-broken his family was
+because he had disappeared as he did." Jane was no longer reclining among
+the cushions. She sat up, listening intently.
+
+"You and Bob know Jean's family?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, both his father and older brother Ken. We met them every
+summer on the coast of Maine, where our parents had cottages next to each
+other."
+
+"Jean told me of that cottage where he went that summer, alone with his
+mother," Jane said. "I mean the summer she died."
+
+"Poor boy! He never was happy in his home life after that," Merry
+replied. "Ken, his brother, is a commissioned officer on one of the war
+boats. He had little shore leave and that left Jean and his father quite
+alone in their big house in New York. They never had been congenial in
+their interests, but the final break came when the father entered into
+some oil deal which Jean considered dishonorable. He told his father
+exactly how he felt about it. He said that he refused to inherit money
+that was taken from the poor who had invested their savings in the
+wildcat scheme, believing the firm to be honest. Of course his father was
+angry, and Jean, refusing to take one penny of what he called 'tainted'
+money, left home to make his own way in the world.
+
+"The father did not seem to care at first, for he had always loved Ken
+more than he did Jean, but when Ken came home on a leave he took Jean's
+part, and also denounced his father's dishonorable business methods."
+
+Jane was sitting very erect and her breath came hard. At last she
+interrupted. "Merry," she said in a voice she could hardly recognize as
+her own, "Jean's father, Mr. Willoughby, was my father's partner." Then
+she burst into unexpected tears. "Jean was nobler than I! Oh, Merry, I
+never can be his friend again. I am not worthy of him. I want you to be
+his best friend. You are so good. I am sure that in his heart of hearts
+he must love you." Merry leaned over and kissed her friend tenderly. "I
+hope Jean does love me," she said simply. "He is to be my brother, for I
+am engaged to Ken Willoughby. His three years in the navy are nearly
+over. Ken is coming home for good on September first."
+
+Jane's heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She was indeed happy
+when she heard the wonderful secret which Merry assured her she would
+have told her at once but Ken had wanted her to wait until he had given
+her the ring which he had bought for her in Paris. "But I just had to
+tell you, dear girl, when I realized that my friendship with Jean might
+lead you to believe that we cared for each other." Then, slipping an arm
+affectionately about her companion, Merry continued: "And now there is
+just one thing for which I am going to wish until it comes true, and that
+is that you and Jean may care for each other in the way Ken and I care.
+Then, Jane, I will be your sister. Think what that would mean, for we
+would share all of the joy that the future holds."
+
+But Jane, tears brimming her eyes, said sadly: "That can never be! If
+Jean knew the truth; if he knew that I wanted father to cheat those poor
+people who had trusted him, he would scorn me, even as I now scorn
+myself. I never knew father's partners except by name. We lived so very
+far apart and Dad always wanted to just rest when he reached our village
+home, and so, even when I was with him, which was seldom, we had no
+social life." Then, turning with a startled expression, Jane inquired,
+"Oh, do you suppose that Jean knows? Do you suppose he recognized our
+name as being the same as his father's partner?"
+
+Merry replied thoughtfully: "There are a good many Abbotts in the world,
+dear, and just at first Jean did not suspect that your father was the one
+who had withdrawn from the firm, and who, by so doing, had incurred the
+hatred and wrath of Mr. Willoughby, but, when I happened to mention why
+your father had lost everything, as Dan had told him, Jean's face
+brightened. 'I am glad,' he said, 'that the father of Jane had the
+courage to do the honorable thing.' I noticed at the time that he said
+'the father of Jane' and not of Dan. That means, dear, that you are often
+in his thoughts."
+
+But Jane had again burst into tears, and rising, she hurried to her own
+room and begged Merry, who had followed her with tender solicitude, to
+leave her alone. "I never, never can be Jean's friend again, but don't
+tell him how dishonorable I have been, Merry. Promise me that you will
+not tell him."
+
+"Of course I will not tell, but, oh, Jane, you are over-imaginative
+tonight. I am sure that you never wished your father to rob the poor that
+you might have luxury. But there, please don't answer me, dear. You are
+all worn out and your poor head is throbbing cruelly. Let me help you
+undress. Tomorrow morning when you awake you will see everything in a
+different light."
+
+But Merry was wrong. Because of Jane, the young people did not start at
+sunrise as they had planned, but delayed until after Mr. and Mrs. Starr
+had been driven away to the Redfords station. Mr. Packard accompanied
+them. Bob was pleased indeed that he and his sister were to remain in the
+Rockies for another fortnight, and Merry was glad to be with Jane, who,
+more than ever, seemed to need her friendship.
+
+When the young people were gathered at the corral, preparing to start,
+Jean glanced across at Jane and noting how pale and weary she looked, he
+strode over to her, saying: "Aren't you afraid the ride will be too hard
+for you? Suppose we let the others start now, if Meg feels that she must
+get home. You and I could follow them more leisurely, starting later,
+when you are rested."
+
+There was a sad expression in the dark eyes that were lifted to his, but
+the girl's reply was: "Thank you, Jean, I would rather go now, with the
+others." Merry felt Jane's clasp tighten about her hand, and well knew
+that she was suffering cruelly, and that it was a mental, not a physical
+torture.
+
+Jean assisted both of the girls to mount and then the string of horses
+started toward the mountain trail, for Bob was eager to visit the old
+deserted Crazy Creek mine. Jean Sawyer glanced often at the pale,
+beautiful face of the girl who seemed purposely to avoid him.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXI.
+                         AN UNCANNY EXPERIENCE
+
+
+At the foot of the trail that led up the mountain, Dan, who had been in
+the lead with Meg, called: "Jean, we're waiting for you to go ahead,
+since you have so often ridden this trail."
+
+The boy, who had been silently riding at Jane's side whenever it had been
+possible, turned to ask: "Will you ride on ahead with me?"
+
+The girl tried to smile at him, but her lips quivered. "No, thank you,
+Jean. I think I will stay with Merry."
+
+A boyish voice called, "Ask me and hear what I'll say." It was Bob, and
+before Jean could express a desire for his companionship, the black horse
+which the younger lad rode was scrambling up the rocky trail following
+the leader. Julie and Gerald, on their agile ponies, were next; Meg and
+Dan followed, while Jane and Merry rode more slowly, each putting her
+entire trust in the horse on which she was mounted. "We do not need to
+try to guide them," Merry had said. "Jean told me that the horses climb
+best without direction. Just pull up on the rein if it should happen to
+stumble."
+
+Bob's enthusiasm over all he saw was given such constant expression that
+Jane's silence was not so noticeable. Dan, now and then, glanced back
+anxiously. He also had noted Jean's apparent devotion to Merry on the two
+days previous, and he wondered if it had saddened Jane, and yet she had
+never said that she really cared for Jean.
+
+When they reached a wide rock plateau their guide whirled in his saddle
+to ask if any of the riders were tired and wished to rest for a while,
+but they all preferred to keep on. A few moments later they were passing
+through the deserted mining camp. There was not a breath of wind stirring
+and the only sounds they heard were the humming of insects and now and
+then a bird song.
+
+The cabins, many of them falling into ruins, looked as though they might
+be haunted with ghosts of the men who had given their lives trying to
+find gold. "Say, boy!" Bob drew rein to look about him. "This places
+gives one the shivers, all right! At any minute I expect to hear a ghost
+groan or----"
+
+"Hark! What was that?" Merry interrupted. "I _did_ hear a groan! I am
+positive that I did." They all listened and there was no mistaking the
+fact that a groaning noise was coming from a cabin that stood near a deep
+pit beside which was a pile of red and yellow ore.
+
+"What do you suppose it is, since we know there is no such thing as a
+ghost?" Dan turned toward Meg to inquire. Surely the mountain girl would
+know.
+
+But it was Jean who replied: "Don't you believe that some wounded animal
+may have dragged itself into the cabin to die? They always _do_ try to
+hide away when they are hurt, don't they, Meg?"
+
+The girl nodded, her sweet face serious as she said: "I will ride over
+and see what it is. A moan like that always means that some creature
+needs help."
+
+"You must not go alone," Dan told her. "I will ride over there with you."
+
+Meg turned to the others. "Please wait here," she said. "If it is a hurt
+animal, so many of us would frighten it."
+
+In silence the group waited, watching the two who rode toward the yawning
+pit. When they were near the place, Meg dismounted and Dan did likewise.
+Together they approached the door of the isolated cabin. Dan swung his
+gun from his shoulder and held it in readiness if harm were to threaten
+them. Meg glanced at the door, then turning, motioned the lad to put up
+his gun. Wondering what the girl had seen, the boy hastened to her side.
+
+Meg entered the old cabin and Dan, standing at the door, saw on the
+rotting floor the twisted form of the old Ute Indian.
+
+His wrinkled, leathery face showed how cruelly he was suffering, but when
+he saw Meg, who at once knelt at his side, his expression changed to one
+of eagerness, almost of gladness. He tried to reach out his shriveled
+arm, but groaned instead.
+
+Dan stepped inside and looked down pityingly. Meg, glancing up with tears
+in her wonderful eyes, said, "Poor old Ute. He has had another stroke,
+and this one is his last." They both knew that the old Indian was making
+a great effort to speak, and the lad bent to whisper, "Perhaps he is
+trying to tell you something."
+
+"Oh, if he only would! If he only could." Meg was rubbing the poor limp
+hand that was crusted with dirt in her own. Then, close to his ear, she
+asked clearly: "Could you tell me about my father?"
+
+Again there was a lightening of the eyes that were beginning to dim.
+"Fadder he die--hid box----. Dig, dig, no find box. _You_ find box, then
+you know----" The old Ute could say no more, for another contortion had
+seized him and it was the last.
+
+Meg was trembling so that Dan had to assist her to rise. The others,
+having been eager to know what had happened, had approached the cabin and
+dismounted. Jane saw that, for the first time in their acquaintance, the
+mountain girl was nearly overcome with emotion, and going to her, she
+slipped an arm about her, saying sincerely, "Meg, dear, what is it? Can
+we help you?" But almost at once Meg regained at least outward composure.
+"It is the old Ute Indian who has died," she told them. "How thankful I
+am that we came this way, for he has told me about my father. Perhaps I
+shall know more, but that much is enough."
+
+Turning back, she looked thoughtfully at the cabin, then said, "Dan, will
+you help me bar the door that no wild creature can get in? The windows
+were long ago boarded up. The old Ute shall have it for his tomb."
+
+When this was done, a solemn group of young people rode away. Meg said
+little, and Dan, riding at her side, understood her thoughtfulness. When
+the Abbott cabin was reached, Meg said goodbye to the friends who were to
+remain there, but Dan insisted upon accompanying her to her home.
+
+When they were quite alone the lad rode close to her, and placed a hand
+on hers as he said, "Meg, dear, how much, how very much this means to
+you."
+
+Such a wonderful light there was in the dusky eyes that were lifted to
+his. "O, Dan, _now_ I can feel that I have a right to accept your
+friendship; yours and Jane's." But with sincere feeling the lad replied:
+"It is for your sake only that I am glad. Your parentage mattered not at
+all to me, nor, of late, has it to Jane." Then, although Dan had not
+planned on speaking so soon, he heard himself saying: "Meg, you are all
+to me that my most idealistic dreams could picture for the girl I would
+wish to marry. Do you think that some day you might care for me if I
+regain my health and am able to make a home for you?"
+
+There was infinite tenderness in the dark eyes, but the girl shook her
+head. "Your companionship means very much to me, Dan, but I must teach. I
+want to care for the two old people who took me in out of the storm and
+who have given me all that I have had."
+
+"You shall, dearest girl. That is, _we_ shall, if you will let me help
+you."
+
+Then before Meg could refuse, Dan implored, "Don't answer me yet. I can
+wait if you will _try_ to love me." They had reached the cabin and saw Ma
+Heger, wiping sudsy hands on her apron, hurrying out to greet them. Dan
+detained the girl. "Promise me that you will try to care," he pleaded. "I
+won't have to try," she said, then turned to greet the angular woman who
+had been the only mother she had ever known.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII.
+                          HUNTING FOR THE BOX
+
+
+Jean Sawyer, troubled indeed, because Jane Abbott continued to avoid him,
+changed his plan and decided not to remain at the cabin until late
+afternoon; and so, bidding them goodbye, he went down the road toward
+Redfords, leading the string of horses. The other young people climbed
+the stone stairway.
+
+"Oh, Jane, what a perfectly adorable place," Merry exclaimed when the
+door had been unlocked and the young people had entered the long rustic
+living-room. "I like it so much better than those elaborately furnished
+cottages at Newport. They are too much like our own homes, but this cabin
+savors of camping out. It's a wonderful spot for a real vacation."
+
+"It surely is different," Jane agreed as she led her friend into the
+comfortable front bedroom which they were to share. Then she confessed:
+"I do like it much more than I had supposed that I would when I first
+came. Honestly, Merry, I feel differently inside. When I believed that
+those poor little children had been driven out of their home by my
+temper, and might never be found, something inside of me snapped;
+something that had been holding me tense, I can't explain it, and I felt
+as though I had been set free from--well, free from myself. Self, that is
+it," she continued bitterly, "planning for oneself, living for oneself,
+living for one's selfish pleasure and comfort, slowly but surely deadens
+sympathy and love and understanding." Then taking from the table near the
+wide window a delicate miniature, Jane handed it to her companion. "That
+is my mother's portrait."
+
+"How beautiful she must have been." Merry glanced from the sweet pictured
+face to that of the girl at her side. "You are so alike. It is only the
+expression that is different. I am sure that anyone in sorrow would have
+gone to your mother for comfort."
+
+Jane nodded. "I am not like that--yet; but Dan thinks that if we choose a
+model and keep it ever in thought, we will grow to be like that person or
+ideal, and I have chosen my mother."
+
+Silently Merry kissed her friend and then replaced the miniature on the
+table. Jane had indeed changed that she could talk, even with her best
+friend, of these things of the soul.
+
+A moment later there came a jolly rapping on their closed door, and Bob
+called: "Come and see where I am going to hang out, or hang up rather."
+
+Merry and Jane went out on the front porch with the lad, who was brimming
+with enthusiasm. "Oh, aren't you afraid a bear will devour you in the
+night?" his sister inquired, when she saw a hammock hung between two
+pines.
+
+"Hope one will," Bob replied jubilantly. "What a yarn that would be to
+tell when I get back to college."
+
+Practical Julie was wide-eyed. "Why, Bob Starr," she exclaimed, "how
+could you tell about it after you were all eaten up?"
+
+"Which reminds me," Bob said irrelevantly, "of a story about the South
+Sea Islanders. A missionary was teaching them that they must take great
+care of their bodies, as they were to rise on the last day, and one
+native asked what would become of his poor brother who had been eaten by
+a tiger."
+
+"Bob, dear," Merry rebuked, "you ought not to joke about such things. It
+does not matter what we believe ourselves, or how outlandish we consider
+the beliefs of others, we ought to treat them with respect."
+
+"Yes'm," Bob pretended to be quite contrite. "I'm willing to change the
+subject if the next subject is something to eat."
+
+"I'll get the lunch." Julie, leaning on the staff Dan had cut for her,
+limped toward the kitchen, but her sister caught her and put her on the
+porch cot and piled pillows under her head. "Indeed not, little lady."
+Jane kissed her affectionately. "It's your turn now to pretend you are a
+princess and I will be your maid of waiting."
+
+Impulsively Julie threw her arms about her sister's neck and clung to her
+as she whispered: "Oh, Janey, I love you so!" And Jane, when she arose,
+felt in her heart a greater happiness than had ever been there when she
+had received the adulation of the admiring girls at Highacres.
+
+"And I will be your aide!" Merry, who had gone to the top of the stone
+stairway to look down at the road, skipped back to say, and, then, arm in
+arm, these two friends went, and from their merry laughter it was quite
+evident that Jane's efforts as head cook were being mirthfully regarded
+by both of them. However, when the others were called to the back porch,
+where the table was set, they found as appetizing a lunch as could be
+desired. But underneath all her apparent pleasure Jane was sorrowing. She
+never again could be Jean Sawyer's friend. He would not want her
+friendship if he knew how she had felt about her father's sacrifice, but
+he must never, never know.
+
+Jane glanced often at Dan during the lunch. Never had she seen him look
+so wonderfully happy. He had expressed his regret that Jean had departed
+before his return and exclaimed: "But the horse I rode also belongs to
+Mr. Packard. I wonder why he did not wait for it."
+
+"Mr. Packard told him to leave one horse with us," his sister explained,
+"and more if we wished, but I thought one would be all you would want to
+care for." Dan was pleased.
+
+He said: "We have made good friends since we came here. It is hard to
+realize that it is not yet a fortnight ago." Julie chimed in with: "Yep,
+haven't we?" Then, beginning with one small thumb to count, "First
+there's Meg Heger. Next to Janey, she's the nicest girl I guess there
+is." Merry pretended to be quite offended. "Little one, you surely are
+honest. You ought always to say present company excepted."
+
+"Oh, I do like you, Merry, awful much. You can be third. Will that be all
+right?" The golden haired girl laughed gaily: "Of course, I was only
+teasing, dear. Now who comes next?"
+
+"Jean Sawyer and Mr. Packard and then the little spotted pony, and then
+my mountain lion baby." The small girl put down her hand as she
+concluded. "I guess that's all the new friends I've made here in the
+mountains."
+
+Bob suddenly thought of something. "Say, Dan, there is a sort of mystery
+about that trapper's daughter, isn't there? I understand that at first
+the old Ute Indian pretended he was her father in order to get the girl
+to give him money, and that this morning when he was dying he confessed
+that he was not."
+
+Dan nodded. Then turning to Jane, he said: "I am sure that Meg would not
+wish it kept a secret from any of us and so I will tell you what the old
+Indian said. His speech was almost incoherent, but we understood him to
+say that Meg's father had died long ago. He must have told the squaw in
+Slinking Coyote's hearing that he had hidden a box which he wished given
+to his little girl when she was older, but he must have died before he
+could tell where he had placed the box."
+
+"How I wish it could be found," Jane said earnestly, "for without doubt
+it would contain identification papers. Although it is a great joy to Meg
+to know that she is not that old Ute's daughter, she will have to seek
+out the squaw who took her to the Heger cabin before she can know who her
+father really was."
+
+"And even then I doubt if she would discover much," Dan remarked. "My
+theory is that Meg's father was a miner who had brought the
+three-year-old little girl to Crazy Creek Camp and had remained there for
+a time, even after the exodus. In fact, he must have stayed until the
+Indian tribe took possession of the otherwise deserted camp. Perhaps just
+after they came he was seized with a fatal illness and left his little
+one with the kindly old squaw, probably telling her to give the child to
+a white family, since that is what she did."
+
+"I believe you are right," Jane agreed. "It all sounds very reasonable to
+me. But why do you suppose Meg's father remained at the camp after
+everyone else had left? Do you think he had some clue to the whereabouts
+of the lost vein?"
+
+"That we cannot tell," Dan said. "He may have remained to hunt for it."
+Then, rising, he smiled around at the group. "What shall we do this
+afternoon, or do you want to just rest?"
+
+"Nary for me!" was energetic Bob's reply. "I want to hunt for Meg Heger's
+hidden box. Who will go with me and where shall we begin the search?"
+
+Bob's enthusiasm was contagious. "I believe that I now understand the
+real reason why the Ute Indian hung around the Crazy Creek Camp," Dan
+told them. "He knew that the miner had hidden a box, an iron one, of
+course it must be, and he has been searching for it, probably believing
+it to contain whatever money Meg's father had."
+
+"Of course," Bob agreed. "That's as clear as daylight. We have clues
+enough, but the thing is to try to reason out _where_ would be a likely
+place for the miner to have hidden it."
+
+Gerald, not wishing to be left out of so interesting a discussion, wisely
+contributed, "Maybe under the floor-boards in the cabin where he lived,
+or some place like that."
+
+Dan smiled down into the chubby freckled face of his small brother as he
+replied: "One naturally might suppose so, but I do believe, Gerry, that
+the old Ute suspected the same thing and has been ransacking those cabins
+all these years. I would be more inclined to look in some of the dug-outs
+or tunnels where, if he were a miner, Meg's father may have been
+searching for the lost vein."
+
+While the boys talked Jane and Merry had been washing and wiping the
+lunch dishes. When they joined the excited group on the front porch, Bob
+stood up, saying, "Shall we start now?"
+
+Jane also arose, but, happening to glance down at Julie, she saw tears
+brimming the small girl's eyes and that her lips were quivering.
+Instantly the older girl sat on the cot beside her, and, putting her arms
+about her little sister, she said compassionately: "Is your ankle hurting
+again, dearie? Since you cannot go, I will stay here with you and read to
+you. Don't feel badly, Julie. Your foot will soon be well; long before
+they find the box, I am sure of that."
+
+The small girl leaned happily against her sister and looked up at her
+with adoration in her dark violet eyes. Then Merry announced: "This is a
+boys' adventure anyway. We girls will sit on the porch and have the best
+kind of a time all together."
+
+And so the boys departed, armed with stout staffs and guns and calling
+that they would surely be back by supper time.
+
+But when at last they did return, they had discovered nothing, and Bob
+was eager to start at dawn the next day and search everywhere around the
+Crazy Creek Camp.
+
+Merry shuddered. "Goodness, don't!" she ejaculated. "It was ghostly
+enough before, but now that we know that old Ute is entombed in one of
+those cabins, you couldn't get me within a mile of the place."
+
+Bob retorted: "Well, we hadn't invited you girls, had we? So you need not
+refuse with such gusto! We're going to take the horse, so that Dan can
+ride most of the way." But that lad interrupted: "You mean that we will
+take turns riding. Although I have been in the Rockies so short a time my
+cold is entirely cured, and, as my lungs had not really been affected, I
+am soon to be as husky as you, Bob."
+
+"Of course you are, old man," Bob put a hand on his friend's shoulder,
+"but soon isn't now. I won't go unless you will ride, when I think it is
+the best for you to do so."
+
+"All righto! Anything to be agreeable." Dan sank down on the porch step
+as though he were rather tired after the climb they had just completed.
+
+Bob then turned to the girls. "You maidens fair need not awaken. We'll be
+as quiet as--as----" Dan smilingly offered: "How would Santa Claus do? He
+steals around very softly, or so tradition has it." Bob laughed. "I was
+going to say as a thief in the night, but I don't like to use a simile
+which suggests an unpleasant picture, and it's the wrong time of the year
+for Santa Claus."
+
+"A mouse is awful quiet," Julie put in.
+
+"Or a cat. They have cushions on their feet," Gerald added.
+
+"We'll be as quiet as all of them," Bob said, "and tomorrow, young
+ladies, we are going to bring home the box."
+
+When the boys returned from Crazy Creek Camp they were weary and
+disappointed, but not discouraged, or so Bob assured the girls. It was
+quite evident that they were much excited, however, but what had caused
+it they would not reveal. When Merry asked if their search had taken them
+close to the tomb of the old Ute Indian, Bob had looked over at Dan and
+had asked, "Shall we tell?"
+
+The older boy nodded. "Why, yes, we might as well. Sooner or later they
+are likely to find it out."
+
+The young people were seated about the hearth in the living-room of the
+cabin resting and visiting before they retired for the night. Gerald's
+eyes glowed with excitement. "Julie won't sleep a wink if she knows about
+it. She'll be skeered as anything, Julie will."
+
+The small girl nestled closer to Jane and looked up at her inquiringly.
+"What does Gerry mean, Janey?" she asked. "Are they trying to tease us?"
+
+But Dan replied seriously, "No, it is the truth that something has
+occurred since we were last at the Crazy Creek Camp, and the discovery of
+it did startle us. Although we planned to give the tomb-cabin a wide
+berth, we at once went to a position where we could look at it. You girls
+can imagine our surprise, and I'll confess it, horror, when we saw the
+front door standing wide open."
+
+"Oh-oo, how dreadful!" Jane shuddered. "What did it mean? Had someone
+opened the door out of curiosity, do you suppose, and what a shock it
+must have been when they found that dead Indian on the floor."
+
+Dan and Bob exchanged curious glances. Then the latter spoke up: "It is
+just possible that the old Ute was not really dead and that he revived
+and left the cabin."
+
+"But how could he?" Merry looked thoughtfully into the fire. "As I
+remember, the door was barred on the outside."
+
+"True!" her brother replied, "but we also found a loose board on the
+floor, which had been lifted, leaving a hole large enough for the Ute to
+have crawled through. After that he may have opened the door to procure
+his pick-ax and shovel, as both were gone."
+
+Julie glanced fearfully at the dark windows of the room, and Gerald said,
+almost gloatingly: "There, I told you so! Julie is skeered. She thinks
+the old Ute may be prowling around our cabin this very minute."
+
+"Mr. Heger ought to be told about this," Dan had started to say, when
+Gerry grabbed his arm. "What's that noise?" he whispered. "Someone is
+outside. I hear 'em coming."
+
+Dan and Bob were on their feet at once. There was indeed the sound of
+footsteps outside the cabin, then there came a rap on the door. Julie
+implored: "O Dan, don't! don't open it! Get your gun first!"
+
+The older boy hesitated for a moment, but in that brief time his own
+fears were set at rest, for a familiar voice called, "Daniel Abbott, may
+I speak with ye?"
+
+The boy's tenseness relaxed and he threw open the door with a welcoming
+smile. "Mr. Heger, we're mighty glad to see you! Come in, won't you?"
+
+The mountaineer glanced at the group about the fire, but shook his head.
+"No, I thank ye. I jest came down to ask if a big brown mare I found
+whinnyin' around my corral is the one Mr. Packard loaned ye? I would have
+asked Meg hed she been to home, but she went, sudden-like, to Scarsburg,
+along of some school-work, and she'll put up at the inn there for several
+days."
+
+Dan thanked the mountaineer for the trouble he had taken, adding, "There
+really is no place here to keep the horse. I suppose that is why it
+wandered up to you. As soon as Jean Sawyer comes again, I will send it
+back."
+
+The mountaineer assured the boy: "No need to do that, Danny, if you'd
+like to keep it. I'll jest let it into my corral along of Bag-o'-Bones.
+They seem to be actin' friendly enough." The man was about to leave, when
+Dan said, "Mr. Heger, we boys have been over to Crazy Creek Camp today
+and we are rather puzzled about something."
+
+He then told what they had seen, ending with, "We're afraid that old Ute
+came to life, and that he will continue to blackmail Meg."
+
+The mountaineer shook his head, saying: "No, Danny, Slinkin' Coyote'll
+never more be seen in these parts, lest be it's his ghost. Arter Meg tol'
+me what had happened, I went down to put the sheriff wise. He reckoned
+'twouldn't do, no-how, to leave the body unburied, and that the county'd
+have to tend to it."
+
+The girls uttered sighs of relief. Jane rose, when the mountaineer had
+departed, saying, "Well, now, I guess we can all sleep without fear of a
+visit from Slinking Coyote."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIII.
+                            JANE'S BIRTHDAY
+
+
+For the next two days the boys searched high and low, far and near,
+without finding the box. On the morning of the third, which was Saturday,
+Jane announced at breakfast that, as it was her birthday, she wished to
+go down to the inn and get the mail. The stage would not come up that way
+until the following Monday. Instantly there was an uproar. Julie, whose
+foot was nearly well again, hopped around the table and threw her arms
+about her big sister's neck without fear of being rebuked because the
+fresh muslin collar might be crushed. The older girl slipped an arm
+lovingly about the child, who stood with her cheek pressed against the
+soft dark hair.
+
+Dan reached a hand across the table. "Jane, so it is! This is the
+wonderful day on which you are eighteen. I congratulate you!"
+
+Gerry, with a whoop, had pounced upon her, even as Julie had done,
+without fear of rebuke. The older girl had been so consistently loving
+during the past few days that, childlike, they had accepted the change as
+being natural and permanent. Dan smiled happily at the group and in his
+eyes there was a tenderness that his sister rejoiced to see. But the lad
+who had been her chum since little childhood also knew that Jane's heart
+held a sorrow which she was not sharing with him. That it had something
+to do with Jean Sawyer he surmised, but believed that it was because Jane
+still thought Mr. Packard's overseer liked Merry especially well.
+
+"Let's have a party!" Gerald shouted as he capered about the room unable,
+it would seem, to otherwise express his enthusiasm. "That would be
+sport!" Dan agreed. Julie slipped from Jane's encircling arm. Clapping
+her hands, she sang out: "Goodie! We're going to have a party and maybe
+there'll be ice-cream."
+
+"There probably isn't any to be had nearer than Scarsburg," Dan remarked.
+Then he grew thoughtful, wondering how long the girl he loved would be
+detained at the county seat, "along of school-work."
+
+As though voicing his thought, Gerald ceased his antics to say earnestly:
+"It won't be a party unless Meg is at it."
+
+"And Jean Sawyer, too!" Julie put in. "Let's ask Meg and Jean to our
+party. You want them, don't you, Janey?"
+
+The other girl smiled as she arose to clear the breakfast table; then
+turned away, but not quickly enough to hide the sudden tears from Dan.
+The boy's heart was sad. He also believed that Jean Sawyer especially
+liked Merry, and, if this were true, there was nothing for Jane to do but
+to try _not_ to care.
+
+Bob suggested that he and Dan go up to the Heger place to get the horse.
+"Then the girls can take turns walking and riding," he ended. Merry
+seemed to be very eager to go to the village, far down in the valley. "I,
+also, am expecting some mail," was all that she would tell the others.
+
+"I'm glad it's such a shiny day," Julie chirped. "Birthdays ought to be
+all gold and blue, hadn't they ought to be, Janey?"
+
+"What a tangled up sentence that is, dearie!" The older girl tried to
+hide her own sorrow that she need not depress the others who were all in
+a holiday mood. "But I _do_ believe that birthdays _ought_ to be sunny,
+for they are a chance to start life all over." Merry looked up brightly.
+"I love beginnings!" she said, as she rolled her sleeves preparing to
+wash the dishes. "Whatever the mistakes or faults of the past have been,
+I feel that on New Years and birthdays, and even on Mondays, I can clean
+off the slate, so to speak, and start all over." When the two girls were
+alone in the kitchen, Merry slipped an arm about her companion as she
+said, "Dear Jane, I wish you would act more friendly toward poor Jean
+Willoughby. I know that your seeming to avoid him the other day, hurt him
+deeply." But Jane shook her head and in her eyes there was an expression
+of suffering. "I can't! Oh, I can't!" she said miserably. "Some day he
+might find out how I had acted about father's renouncing his fortune, and
+then he would scorn me! I couldn't endure it, Merry. Oh, indeed, I
+couldn't! I'm going back East with you next week, and then I shall never
+see Jean Sawyer."
+
+An hour later the young people started down the mountain road, Julie
+riding on the horse as the other two girls, dressed in their natty hiking
+costumes, declared that they would rather walk. They had decided to have
+lunch at the inn, for Mrs. Bently was an excellent cook.
+
+Jane covered her aching heart so well that Dan believed after all he had
+been mistaken in thinking that she was sorrowing for Jean. Her loving
+devotion to her best friend plainly proved to him that she was not at all
+jealous of Merry. Deciding that he must have been wrong, he entered
+wholeheartedly into the joyousness of the occasion and a jolly procession
+it was that wended its way down the circling road toward the hamlet of
+Redfords. At every turn Dan glanced down to see if, by any chance, Meg
+Heger might be returning to her home cabin. Her foster-father had not
+known how long she would have to stay at the Normal, where Teacher
+Bellows had sent her for a time of intensive preparatory work, but the
+lad hoped and believed that, even if Meg would have to return to
+Scarsburg on the following Monday, she would visit her home over the
+week-end. Nor was he wrong, for, at the bend, just above the village,
+Gerald, who had been racing ahead, turned to shout through hands held
+trumpet-wise: "Say kids, Meg Heger's coming. Gee-golly! Now she can come
+to the party!"
+
+Luckily no one glanced at Dan, for his sudden brightening expression
+would have revealed the secret he wished to share with none but Meg. In
+another few moments the girl, riding slowly up the mountain road on her
+spotted pony, heard a chorus of shouts, and glancing up, saw the young
+people on the bend above waving caps and kerchiefs. What a warmth there
+was in the heart of the girl who, through all the years, had been without
+a companion of her own age. And when at last they met, Jane was the first
+to hurry forward with outstretched hands. "We've missed our nearest
+neighbor and we're so glad you came home today," she said in her
+friendliest manner.
+
+The beautiful girl looked from one to another of the group and seeing in
+each face a joyful expression, she asked: "What is it? Some special
+occasion?" Gerald shouted, "Yo' bet it is! It's ol' Jane's birthday!"
+Instantly he remembered the time in the orchard at home when he had
+called his sister "Ol' Jane" and how scathingly he had been rebuked, and
+he looked quickly, anxiously at the girl, but she was laughingly saying,
+"You're right, Gerald! Eighteen _is_ old! I feel as ancient as the
+hills." Then taking Meg's free hand, for Julie was clinging to the other,
+Jane said, "Won't you turn about and take lunch with us at the inn? It's
+the first of the birthday celebrations." But the mountain girl shook her
+head, smiling happily into her friend's eyes as she replied: "Ma Heger is
+expecting me this noon and will have the things baked up that I like
+best. I couldn't disappoint her nor dear old Pap, either."
+
+"But you'll come later. We'll be home by two o'clock and then the real
+celebration is to begin," Jane begged, while Gerald said informingly,
+"We're going to do stunts. I mean something extra-different. We don't
+know what yet, but it'll be something awful jolly."
+
+Meg beamed down at the eager freckled face. "I wouldn't miss it for
+worlds. Of course I will be there." Dan, who had been standing silently
+at her side said: "I will come up to your cabin for you. Then you will
+know when we are back and ready to begin the frolic, whatever it is to
+be."
+
+"Is Jean Sawyer coming?" Meg glanced at Jane to inquire. The mountain
+girl noted the sudden clouding of her new friend's eyes and although the
+reply was lightly given in the negative, Meg knew that something was
+wrong. She had been so sure that Jane and Jean liked each other
+especially well.
+
+Glancing at the sun, which was nearing the zenith, she exclaimed: "I must
+go now; my pony has had a long walk today and I do not want him to climb
+too rapidly." Then with a direct glance out of her dusky, long-lashed
+eyes at Dan, she said: "I'll be ready and waiting for you when you come."
+
+Mrs. Bently was indeed pleased when she heard that she was to have so
+many hungry guests for lunch and asked if she might have one hour for
+preparation.
+
+The young people were disappointed when they learned that the mail had
+not arrived, but they had not long to wait before the stage drew up in
+front of the inn. Mr. Bently went out to get the leather bag which both
+Jane and Merry hoped might contain something of especial interest to
+them.
+
+They all crowded around the tiny window in the corner which served as
+postoffice and waited eagerly while the innkeeper sorted out the papers,
+letters and packages.
+
+"Wall, now," he beamed at them over his spectacles, "if here ain't that
+parcel ol' Granny Peters been waitin' fer so long. Yarn's in it," he
+informed his amused listeners. "Red, black and yellar. Granny sends to
+the city for a fresh batch every summer and knits things for Christmas
+presents. I've had one o' Granny Peters' mufflers every year for longer
+than I kin recollect." He reached again into the bag. "An' here's
+magazines enough to start a shop. Them's for the Packard ranch. They must
+have a powerful lot o' time for settin' around readin', them two must."
+Merry was watching eagerly, for, on the very next package she was sure
+that she saw her name. The postmaster looked at it closely. Then he held
+it far off to get a different angle, evidently hoping for enlightenment.
+Finally he shook his head and tossed it to one side. "Reckon thar's been
+a mistake as to that parcel," he said. "Thar ain't no Miss Marion Starr
+in these here parts."
+
+"I'm Marion Starr," that maiden informed him, laughingly holding out her
+hand. But before the postmaster would give up the parcel he presented the
+girl with a paper to sign. "Reckon thar's suthin' powerful valuable in
+that thar box," he said, "bein' as it's sent registered."
+
+Then he leaned on his elbows as though planning to wait until Merry had
+opened her package before he finished distributing the mail, but to his
+quite evident disappointment, the girl slipped it into her sweater coat
+pocket. "I know what's in it," she said brightly. Jane, noting the
+radiant happiness in her friend's face, believed that she also knew, but
+her attention was attracted again to the small window near which she
+stood, for the postmaster was touching her arm with a long letter. "Miss
+Jane Abbott," he said, adding, "Wall, golly be, you're sort o' popular, I
+reckon. Here are three letters an' thar's another that come in
+yesterday."
+
+"It's Jane's birthday," Julie piped up informingly. A month before the
+older girl would have rebuked the younger for having been so familiar
+with one of a class far beneath her. As it was, she accepted smilingly
+the well meant remark. "Wall, do tell! How old be yo', Miss Jane? Not a
+day over sixteen, jedgin' by yer looks."
+
+As soon as the two girls could slip away from the others, Jane led Merry
+into the deserted parlor of the inn, where hair-cloth chairs and sofa, a
+marble-topped table, and bright-colored prints on the wall were revealed
+in the subdued light from windows hung with heavy draperies.
+
+When they were alone, Merry whirled and caught Jane's hands as she asked
+glowingly: "Can you guess what's in the box? I told mother to forward
+it."
+
+For answer Jane stooped and kissed the flushed cheek of her friend. "Of
+course, I can guess," she replied. "It's the ring Jean's brother was to
+send you from Paris."
+
+Merry soon had the small box unwrapped and a dew-drop clear diamond was
+revealed in a setting of quaint design. "Oh, Merry, how wonderfully
+beautiful it is!" Jane said with sincere admiration. Her shining-eyed
+friend slipped it on the finger for which it was intended, then, smiling
+up at her companion, she prophesied, "Some day another ring, as lovely as
+this one, will make you my sister."
+
+There was a wistful expression in the dark eyes, but Jane's quiet reply
+was, "You are wrong, Merry. Even if Jean thinks he cares for me, he would
+not, if he knew, and what is more, I have no reason to believe that he
+even likes me better than he does his other girl friends."
+
+Merry, knowing that time alone could tell whether or not she was a
+prophet, changed the subject by asking: "From whom are your letters,
+dear? How selfish I have been, opening my box first when it is _your_
+birthday." Jane glanced at the top envelope, then tore it open with
+breathless eagerness.
+
+Merry surmised, and correctly, that the letter was from Jean Sawyer. It
+was the one Mr. Bently had taken from a pigeon-hole where it had been
+since the day before. It did not take long for Jane to read it, and when
+she looked up there was an expression of happiness shining through the
+tears that had come. Then suddenly and most unexpectedly, the girl sank
+down in the stiff chair by the marble-topped table and bending her head
+on her arms, she sobbed bitterly. Merry went to her and putting an arm
+about her, she implored: "Don't, don't cry, dearie. It will make your
+eyes red and the others will wonder. Tell me what is in the letter and
+let us try to think what it is best to do. Is it from Jean?"
+
+Jane lifted her head and wiped her eyes. Then she held the letter out for
+her friend to read. There were few words in it, but they told how
+sincerely unhappy the lad was because Jane seemed not to wish for his
+friendship. Jean had written: "All I can think of is that in some way I
+have hurt you, and that I do so want to be forgiven. At least, be frank
+and tell me just why you do not wish my friendship."
+
+"Why don't you tell him, dearie? If it would be hard to talk it over with
+him, write a little letter now and leave it until someone comes for the
+Packard ranch mail. Will you do that if I get the materials?"
+
+Jane nodded miserably. "Yes, I would rather write it. Then I will go back
+with you next week and I shall never again see Jean Sawyer."
+
+Merry procured from Mr. Bently the paper and envelope, while Bob
+willingly loaned his fountain pen. A glance at the big, loud-ticking
+clock on the wall showed that there was still twenty minutes before Mrs.
+Bently would be ready for them.
+
+Merry thoughtfully left Jane alone, nor did she ask what her friend had
+written when, at last, she joined the others, who were seated in the
+cane-bottomed chairs on the front veranda of the inn.
+
+The letter Jane had given to Mr. Bently, asking him to place it with the
+rest of the mail for the Packard ranch.
+
+The boys sprang up when Jane appeared, and Bob, being nearest, offered
+his chair with a flourish. Merry glanced anxiously at her friend, but the
+beautiful face betrayed nothing. "Thank you," Jane replied with a smile
+at Bob, who had perched upon the rail near. Then, to Dan, she said:
+"Brother, I have such a nice letter from Dad and one from grandmother,
+but best of all is the check in Aunt Jane's letter, because now I can
+repay the debt that I owe our dear, wonderful Meg."
+
+Before she could say more, Mrs. Bently appeared in the doorway, her face
+rosy, her spotless blue apron wound about her hands. "The birthday lunch
+is ready to be dished up," she announced. Instantly Bob was on his feet,
+making a deep bow before Jane and holding out his arm as he inquired,
+"May I have the great pleasure of escorting the guest of honor?"
+
+Gerald, taking the cue, bowed before Merry and Julie, laughing up at Dan,
+said ungrammatically but happily: "Me'n you are all that's left." The
+tall boy caught the little girl by one hand as he joyfully replied: "Mrs.
+Tom Thumb and The Living Skeleton will end the procession."
+
+Jane, smiling over her shoulder, said rebukingly, "Don't call yourself
+that, brother. You're not nearly as thin as you were." When the
+dining-room was reached, the young people were surprised and pleased.
+"Say, boy!" was Bob's comment "Mrs. Bently, you've decked it out in grand
+style."
+
+The table to which they had been led was indeed resplendent with the best
+of everything that the good woman possessed. On a real damask table-cloth
+was glass that sparkled, while a pink rose pattern wound about plates and
+cups. "They're my wedding presents," the comely woman told them as she
+beamed her pleasure. "I never use them except for extra occasions like
+Christmas and----"
+
+"Birthdays," Gerald put in. Then, after the boys had moved the chairs out
+for the girls and all were seated, they glanced about the room. Two
+cowboys were at a table in a corner, and Jane recognized that one of them
+was from the Packard ranch. "He'll take back their mail," she thought,
+"and so this very day Jean Sawyer will know all. He will never, never
+want to see me after he reads what I have written."
+
+The menu for that birthday lunch was indeed an excellent one, but the
+children, who sat next to each other, were eagerly anticipating the
+dessert. "What do you 'spect it will be?" Gerald inquired softly, and
+Julie whispered back: "I know what I wish it was. It begins with I. C."
+
+"You might as well wish for something else," Dan, who had overheard,
+replied, but when Mrs. Bently appeared, on her tray there were six dishes
+heaped high with chocolate ice cream.
+
+"Why, Mrs. Bently, are you a miracle worker?" Jane, pleased for the
+children's sake, inquired. Laughingly the woman confessed that the
+ice-cream had been the reason she had asked for one hour in which to
+prepare. "So many folks motorin' past want ice-cream," she told them,
+"and so Pa Bently fetched a new contraption from Denver last time he was
+up there, an' it'll freeze ice-cream in one hour easy." Then she
+disappeared to soon return with a mountain of a chocolate layer cake.
+"You'll have to get along without candles, Miss Jane," the good woman
+said, "an' the frostin' ain't very hard yet, but I reckon it'll pass."
+
+The girl, who had felt scornful of these "natives," as she had called
+them only a short month before, was deeply touched and she exclaimed with
+real feeling: "Mrs. Bently, I do indeed appreciate all the trouble that
+you have taken. I have never had a nicer party."
+
+A moment later Jane saw the two cowboys leave the dining-room. Almost
+unconsciously she pressed her hand against her heart to still its rapid
+beating as her panicky thought was questioning: "Do you really want to
+send that letter to Jean Sawyer? There is yet time to get it. Do you want
+him to know just how dishonorable you were about the money?" She half
+rose, then sank down again, for through the swinging door she had seen
+Mr. Bently handing the Packard mail pouch to the cowboy. It was too late.
+Then, chancing to meet Merry's troubled glance, Jane smiled as she said
+with an effort at gaiety: "Gerald, if all of your wishes are to be
+fulfilled as magically as this one has been, you are to be a lucky boy."
+
+"There's two things we've wished for lately that don't happen, aren't
+there, Danny?" The small boy looked up at his big brother, who smiled
+down, as be replied, "I suppose you mean that we have not found Meg
+Heger's box. What is the other unmaterialized wish, Gerry?"
+
+The boy's wide eyes expressed astonishment. "Why, Dan Abbott, I do
+believe you've forgotten that we wished we might find the lost gold
+mine."
+
+The older boy laughingly confessed that was true. Dan had found a gold
+mine that he valued much more than the one to which Gerald referred. It
+was Mrs. Bently who said, "It wasn't a lost mine, exactly, dearie. The
+vein they'd been workin' petered out, although there are folks who reckon
+that vein branched off somewhars, but the miners went away hot-foot when
+the Bald Mountain Strike was made." Then she concluded: "There's not much
+use huntin' for that lost vein, how-some-ever. Time and again there's
+been wanderin' miners diggin' around in them parts, but they allays give
+up and go away."
+
+Then, as the young people rose, they each expressed some characteristic
+praise for the meal and indeed Mrs. Bently was almost as pleased about it
+as her guests had been. The bill, they found, was surprisingly small.
+Then, after bidding the two queer characters goodbye, the six merrymakers
+started up the trail with Julie again on the horse. The other girls took
+turns riding with her and so, at about two, they reached the Abbott
+cabin. Dan climbed to the back of the mare. Calling that he would soon
+return, he rode up the mountain toward Meg's home. How very many things
+had happened in the few weeks they had been in the mountains, he thought.
+If only Jane could be happy, Dan assured himself, he would be supremely
+so. But poor Jane found, as the moments passed, that she regretted more
+and more having sent the letter, but she would not confide this to Merry,
+whose suggestion it had been. Meanwhile the letter had reached its
+destination and had been read by Jean Sawyer.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXIV.
+                                SECRETS
+
+
+Merry glanced anxiously at Jane when they were alone, Bob having gone
+with the children for a hike along the brook.
+
+"Dear," she said, slipping an arm about her friend, "you are regretting
+having taken my advice, aren't you?"
+
+They were in the bedroom which they shared, removing their tams and
+sweaters when, to Merry's surprise and grief, Jane threw herself down on
+the bed and sobbed as though her heart would break. "Oh, I can't bear the
+humiliation of it all! How I wish we could leave for the East today, this
+very minute. While I am here, I may meet Jean Sawyer, and if he looks at
+me scornfully, as of course he will, I would rather be dead, honestly I
+would!"
+
+Merry indeed regretted that she had asked Jane to send the letter which
+was causing her so much unhappiness. "Try to forget about it, Janey, just
+for today," she implored, "while we are celebrating your eighteenth
+birthday." Then an inspiration came to her and she asked: "What would
+your mother have done if she had had a sorrow that would sadden others if
+they knew about it?"
+
+Jane sat up on the side of the bed, and, after glancing at the miniature
+on the table near, she turned and looked thoughtfully out of the wide
+window and into the sun-shimmering valley. Merry wondered what her reply
+would be. A moment later she knew, for Jane sprang up and after kissing
+the golden-haired girl impulsively, she caught her by the hand, saying:
+"I'm going out to the brook to wash my face in that clear, cold water,
+just as Dan and I did the first day that we came. And I'll try to wash
+away all selfish grievings and to think, if I can, only of the happiness
+of the guests at my birthday party. That's what my mother would have
+done. I am so glad that Dan told me that we can choose a model or an
+ideal and carve our own characters like it and I'm grateful to you for
+having recalled it to me, because, for the moment, I had forgotten." The
+girls took their towels and hand in hand they skipped around to the
+brook. Jane knelt by the big boulder and splashed the cold spring water
+over her tear-stained eyes. When she looked up her wet cheeks were rosy.
+And later, when they had gone back to the bedroom to complete their
+preparations for the party, Merry begged Jane to wear a wine-colored
+dress which was especially becoming to her. It was of soft, clinging
+crepe de chine and had a deep collar of Irish crochet. Then they went
+into the living-room to await the coming of their guest. Merry, whose
+dainty blue summer dress made her lovely eyes the color of a June sky,
+sat smiling admiringly at her friend. "Jane," she said, "you are
+wonderful. But there is just one more touch needed to make you look a bit
+more partified. I will get it."
+
+Springing up, Merry went into their bedroom, took from her suitcase a box
+which contained a beautiful scarlet rose with satin and velvet petals.
+This she pinned into Jane's soft, dark hair just above her left ear.
+Standing off to note the effect, Merry declared that her friend was
+certainly the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. A short month before
+Jane would have considered this praise her just due, but, so greatly had
+she changed, her reply was given in entire sincerity: "I may be the most
+beautiful to you, because you love me, but Meg Heger is really the more
+beautiful." Before Merry could reply, there was an excited shouting
+without. Both girls leaped to the open door. They saw Meg Heger riding on
+her spotted pony, while Dan on the big brown mare was at her side, but
+they were conversing quietly. The halloos came from the brook. Turning to
+look in that direction, the girls saw Julie, Bob and Gerald racing toward
+them as fast as they could over the rocky way, and it was quite evident
+that they were all very much excited. "I wonder what they have seen?"
+Jane said.
+
+Before the children and Bob could reach the cabin, Meg and Dan had
+climbed the stairway and had been greeted by the two girls.
+
+The trapper's daughter wore a simply fashioned Scotch plaid gingham dress
+in which many colors were mingled.
+
+They all turned toward the brook when the three, who were racing toward
+them, neared.
+
+"What, ho!" Dan called gayly, and Jane noted that never before had she
+seen in her brother's face an expression of such radiant happiness. "Did
+you three see a bear? It never will do for us to go back East without
+having at least sighted a grizzly."
+
+To the surprise of the four who awaited them, the newcomers became
+suddenly embarrassed, and even Bob acted as though he hardly knew what to
+say, which was quite unusual in so straightforward and impulsive a lad.
+
+"Dan," he said, "may I speak with you a moment?"
+
+The older boy walked away from the curious group of girls.
+
+"We did not know that Meg Heger had come," Bob began, "and we were just
+going to call out that we had found another place where we would like to
+look for the lost box. It's such a queer place, Dan, but it is one that
+as yet we have not investigated. Can't we get away from the girls
+somehow? Gerald and Julie and I want to show the spot to _you_ at least."
+
+"Why, I presume so," Dan agreed, and after explaining to the three older
+girls that Bob and the youngsters wished to show him something, he
+followed them back along the brook. It was the way that he had gone on
+that day when he had first visited the Heger cabin. When they reached the
+waterfall which Dan had thought so pretty, they climbed down to the red
+rock basin into which it fell. Excitedly, Gerald pointed back of the
+tumbling water.
+
+"Look-it, Dan!" he fairly shouted. "See that little cave opening in
+there! Doesn't it look to you as if it had been made with a pickaxe? Bob
+thinks it does."
+
+Dan looked through the transparent sheet of hurrying water and smilingly
+shook his head as he replied:
+
+"I don't suppose that a human being has ever been through that crevice,
+and, moreover, I don't quite see how we can investigate, do you, Bob?"
+
+Dan, noting the disappointed expression on his small brother's face,
+turned toward the older boy.
+
+"We sort of had it figured out that Gerald could stand back of the
+waterfall and then he could see better whether that is just a crevice in
+the rocks or the mouth of a cave."
+
+The youngest boy looked up eagerly. "You know, Dan, I fetched along my
+bathing suit. Mayn't I go back to the cabin and put it on? Mayn't I,
+Dan?"
+
+"Why, of course, if you wish, but perhaps you had better say nothing to
+the girls about it. I do not like to have Meg know that we are searching
+for that box, since there is no real likelihood of our finding it."
+
+Luckily the girls were not in sight, and so no questions were asked of
+the small boy, who dived into his own room, donned his bathing suit and
+raced away, without having been seen. Dan held the younger boy's hand in
+a tight clasp as Gerald went down into the clear, cold pool.
+
+"Now, hold your breath and step up on that ledge back of the waterfall,"
+the older brother advised.
+
+Julie watched wide-eyed, almost frightened.
+
+"Oh, Danny," she suddenly exclaimed, "couldn't there be something
+terrible hiding in that crack?"
+
+But before Dan could assure her that it was not likely, Gerald had leaped
+back into the rock basin, crying: "It's a cave in there! Oh, boy! Shall I
+go in it, Dan; shall I?"
+
+"Not alone!" The older boy was almost sorry that the crevice had been
+found. "Bob," he said, turning to the lad who stood meditatively looking
+at the waterfall, "I don't believe that it would be wise to permit Gerald
+to go into that cave. He might suddenly drop into a pit filled with
+water. Let's give it up, shall we, and go back to the girls?"
+
+It was plain to see that Bob was disappointed, but his reply was: "Of
+course, Gerald ought not to go into that cave, if it is one. I had no
+intention of permitting him to do more than see if it really is an
+opening. I also have a bathing suit and a flashlight. I never will be
+satisfied unless I investigate, but of course I will not take a step
+inside unless it is solid rock."
+
+Against his better judgment, Dan said, "Well, go ahead, Bob, if you want
+to."
+
+The girls had evidently sauntered away from the cabin, for Bob did not
+see them when he went there to don his bathing suit. He rejoined the
+others in a very short time. Having been an athlete in college, he swung
+himself down and back of the waterfall without aid. Then flashing the
+light into the crevice, he sang out: "There's a solid floor, all right,
+Dan, but I think Gerald had better not come."
+
+For a long five minutes the group on the outside waited, listening with
+ever-increasing anxiety. Dan thought that he would be sincerely glad when
+this foolhardy adventure was over. At last he called:
+
+"Bob, haven't you investigated enough? Come on out!"
+
+But there was no reply. Another five minutes elapsed and Dan was just
+about to have Gerald again climb back of the waterfall to look through
+the crevice, when Bob appeared, carrying a pickaxe and a shovel, rusted
+and dirt encrusted.
+
+"What do you say to that?" he exulted, as he plunged through the fall and
+waded out of the red rock pool.
+
+Dan was amazed. "Bob," he exclaimed, "you were right about one thing at
+least. The cave was made with a pick. Was it large?"
+
+"No; that is, not wide. It is a narrow tunnel which stops abruptly. I
+found these tools at the very end."
+
+Dan lifted his shovel and looked at the handle. Then he examined it more
+closely. Picking up a stone, he knocked away the dirt with which it was
+crusted. A name was carved in the handle. Letter by letter was deciphered
+and Dan wrote each in his small notebook. When they had reached the last,
+Bob asked: "Is it a message telling where the box is?"
+
+"No," Dan replied, "merely the name and address of the owner of the
+shovel and pick, I judge. A French name, Giguette. Yes, that is it, Franc
+Giguette."
+
+"But there is more to it, Danny." Gerald was trying to see the pad.
+"What's the rest?"
+
+"Where the miner lived, I suppose," Dan told him. "Cabin 10, I think it
+is."
+
+Bob leaped around wild with joy. "Talk about a clue! Why, that's the
+number of the cabin at Crazy Creek where this miner lived. Can't we go
+right over and hunt for it, Dan? Do you suppose that the girls would care
+if Gerald and I go? We aren't at all necessary to the birthday party. You
+and Julie are."
+
+"Of course, you may do as you wish," Dan acquiesced. "It's a long way to
+the camp, though."
+
+"Not if we can ride," Gerry put in. "You and Meg came down on the horses.
+Where are they?"
+
+"Back at the Heger cabin by this time," the older brother replied. "Meg
+turned her pony's head up the mountain road and said, 'Go home, Pal,' and
+the brown mare seemed to be quite content to follow. Perhaps you will
+overtake them."
+
+Bob caught hold of Gerald's hand as he said: "We'll have to hustle, old
+man, if we get back before dark."
+
+Gerry glanced at Julie to see if she were terribly disappointed, but the
+small girl smiled, though a bit waveringly. Dan, noting this, spoke for
+her: "Julie and I will stay at the cabin. It would hardly do for us all
+to leave Jane on her birthday."
+
+These two sauntered slowly along the brook, and before they reached the
+cabin they saw Bob and Gerald, fully clothed, starting to run up the
+mountain road.
+
+Dan had little expectation that they would find the box of which the old
+Indian had told Meg, but he knew that Bob would not be able to enjoy the
+quiet party when be might be out following a clue.
+
+The girls were seated on the rustic front porch when Dan and Julie
+appeared. Jane smiled a greeting to them, then asked: "Do tell us what
+has happened to Bob and Gerry. They dashed in and out again, nor would
+they stop when we called to ask where they were going?"
+
+"Boys will be boys," was Dan's evasive answer as he sank down on the
+porch step and smiled up at Meg. Then he heard his questioning thought
+asking: "Is it possible that Meg's real name is Giguette?"
+
+The five who remained at the cabin that afternoon found it difficult to
+converse idly, for the thoughts of each kept returning to a subject of
+great interest to that individual. Meg's good friend Teacher Bellows had
+told her that as soon as her examinations were completed he would
+accompany her and Pa Heger to a distant valley in the mountains where he
+had heard that the Ute tribe was then dwelling. They believed the finding
+of the box to be impossible since all through the years the old Indian
+had searched for it.
+
+Merry, who had slipped her ring back into its case before any of her
+friends, except Jane, had seen it, was wondering when would be the best
+time to put it on her finger and announce to them all that she was to
+become the wife of Jean's brother. She had wanted to wait until Jean
+Willoughby should be with them, but when that would be, she could not
+conjecture.
+
+Dan and Julie were very much excited over the discovery of the pick and
+shovel, and the lad could see by the small girl's manner that she was
+finding the secret almost more than she could keep. Every now and then,
+in childish fashion, Julie would look over at her brother, hump her
+shoulders and put a finger on her lips. Jane noted this, but was too
+miserably unhappy to wonder about little girl secrets. But she was being
+true to her resolve. She was ever keeping the memory of her mother in
+thought, and trying to be interested in what her companions were saying.
+
+It was indeed a long afternoon, tense with suppressed excitement. At
+five-thirty, when the boys had not returned, Dan began to regret that he
+had granted the permission, for, of course, Gerry would not have gone to
+Crazy Creek Camp if his older brother had thought it unwise, and Bob, in
+all probability, would not have gone alone.
+
+Jane, after glancing at her wrist watch, sprang up, announcing with
+evident gaiety: "Merry and I have a supper planned."
+
+Then, turning to the younger girl, she invited: "Julie, dear, wouldn't
+you like to set the table and make it look real partified?"
+
+"Oh, goodie!" The small girl was glad to be asked to accompany the older
+two and away she skipped. Meg and Dan were left alone, for their offers
+of assistance had been refused.
+
+"Suppose we climb to Bald Rock and watch the sunset," Dan suggested. The
+girl, smiling up at him, arose at once. As soon as they had started to
+climb along the singing brook, Meg looked at her companion inquiringly.
+"Dan," she said, "won't you share your secret with me?"
+
+"Perhaps," the lad countered, "if you will share yours with me." A merry,
+rippling laugh, as silvery as the song of the brook they were following,
+was the girl's first response. Then, "We must be mind readers," she told
+him.
+
+Dan glanced down into the dusky uplifted face and in his eyes there was
+an expression almost of adoration. "Meg," he said, "doesn't that alone
+prove that we are perfect comrades? We can sense each other's unspoken
+thought." Then, with greater seriousness: "I have hesitated about telling
+you, and moreover you have been in Scarsburg during the past week, but it
+is your right to know. Bob and Gerald and I have been searching for the
+box of which the dying Indian told you."
+
+"Why, Dan," the girl's surprise was unmistakable, "it is but wasting
+time. If the old Ute could not find it, surely it is not findable. There
+is a simpler way to learn of my parentage, and one which Pa Heger,
+Teacher Bellows and I are planning to undertake." Then she told of the
+journey into the mountains upon which they expected to start when her
+examinations were completed. While Meg talked, she realized that Dan had
+still more to tell, and so she asked: "Where did you boys search, and did
+you find anything at all?"
+
+"Yes, Meg, we did unearth something and that is why Bob and Gerry hurried
+away in so mysterious a fashion." Then the lad told about the
+dirt-crusted shovel and pick and of the carved name.
+
+"Giguette!" the girl repeated as though she were searching her memory for
+something forgotten. Then lifting a radiant face, she exclaimed: "Dan
+Abbott, that is my name. I was only a little thing, less than three, when
+someone taught me to lisp that my name was 'Lalie Giguette' when anyone
+asked. Until now, I had completely forgotten."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXV.
+                             JANE AND JEAN
+
+
+Meanwhile the three girls in the kitchen were preparing the evening meal
+with much nonsensical chatter, but Jane was finding the strain almost
+more than she could bear. She felt that she might overcome her desire to
+go to her room and sob her heart out, if only she could get away by
+herself for a few moments, and so she suddenly, exclaimed, "The one thing
+needed for our table is a bouquet. I saw a clump of the prettiest wild
+flowers yesterday, and if you girls will excuse me I'll go and get them."
+Merry at once saw through the ruse. Jane's flushed cheeks, quivering lips
+and tear-brimmed eyes told the story, and so she urged, "Do go, Jane,
+before it is dark. The cool mountain air will do you good." She did not
+offer to accompany her friend, realizing that she wanted to be alone.
+
+Jane left the cabin, and after crossing the brook, she hurried toward the
+cleft in a rock where she had seen the flowers of which she had spoken,
+but instead of gathering them, she threw herself down on a wide, flat
+boulder and sobbed bitterly. She did not hear footsteps hurrying toward
+her, but suddenly she was conscious that someone had taken her hand and
+was holding it with great tenderness. "Of course it is Dan," she thought,
+without glancing up. Dear old Dan who always understood. But in another
+second, when the someone spoke, Jane knew that it was Jean Willoughby and
+not her brother. Instantly she was on her feet, her cheeks flaming, her
+hand pressed over her pounding heart. There was a wild, frightened
+expression in her eyes and she was about to run, but she could not, for
+two strong arms caught and held her, as the lad implored, "Jane, dear,
+dear Jane, don't spurn me any longer. Don't you understand that I love
+you? The very fact that you could write that letter to me reveals the
+true nobility of your soul. I don't blame you in the least for finding it
+hard, at first, to adjust yourself to the changed conditions, but when it
+came to the testing, you would have told your father to do just what he
+did." Then, putting a hand over her quivering lips, he begged, "Don't
+let's talk about that subject now. There's something ever so much more
+interesting that I want to say. Jane, can you care enough for me to
+promise to be my wife?"
+
+The sudden change from misery to joy had been so great that the girl
+could hardly believe that it was real, and she gazed uncomprehendingly
+into the eager, handsome face of the lad. Then slowly she read in his
+glowing eyes the truth of all he had said, and she smiled tremulously. It
+was enough for Jean Willoughby. Joyfully he cried, "You _do_ care, Jane!"
+Then taking from his pocket a ring, he added (and there was infinite
+tenderness in his voice), "That last summer on the coast of Maine, when
+little mother and I were alone together, she gave me this for _you_,
+dearest girl."
+
+Again there were sudden tears in the dark eyes that were lifted to his.
+"Not for _me_, Jean. Your mother would have chosen a girl who could do
+useful things; pare potatoes, sew and darn."
+
+The lad laughed happily, and catching the slim left hand, he slipped the
+ring on the finger for which it was intended. Then he kissed each of the
+five finger tips as he confessed, "It may seem inconsistent, but I want
+these lovely hands kept stainless. We will have a Chinaman to pare and
+cook." Then slowly they walked toward the cabin.
+
+Meg and Dan had returned and with Merry and Julie were standing on the
+rustic front porch wondering where Jane had wandered, and why she
+remained away so long. When they saw the two coming toward them, hand in
+hand, their faces, even in the dusk, that had so quickly fallen,
+revealing their secret, there was joy in the hearts of Merry and Dan.
+Jane would no longer be unhappy. When they had entered the lighted
+living-room of the cabin, Merry exclaimed as she held out her left hand,
+"I also am to be congratulated. I am to be married to Jean's brother on
+the first day of September." "Let's make it a double wedding, Jane, can't
+we?" her fiance implored.
+
+"I'd like to!" The radiant girl glanced at Dan, then added, "If my big
+brother will give his consent." "Indeed you have it, Jane," that lad said
+heartily. "I know that I am voicing our father's sentiments-to-be, when I
+say that I am proud to welcome Jean Willoughby into our family."
+
+Of their own secret Meg and Dan had decided to say nothing.
+
+Then remembering the commonplaces, Jane said: "We're waiting supper for
+the boys. Where did they go and why?" She looked at both Julie and Dan.
+"You two surely know, since you were with them. It is nearly seven and
+getting dark rapidly. Aren't you anxious about them, Dan?"
+
+"I shall be if they do not soon return," the lad replied. "Perhaps we had
+better have the good supper you have prepared. There is no need to spoil
+it for all."
+
+"I'm not a bit hungry," Jane said and Merry teased: "Why, Janey, you must
+be in love."
+
+The table had been placed in the middle of the cabin living-room. Over it
+hung a drop lamp with a crimson shade and, as there was a log burning on
+the hearth, the room presented a most festive appearance. It was with
+sincere regret that the six young people seated themselves, leaving two
+chairs vacant. All during the meal, at intervals, they paused to listen,
+hoping that they would hear the halloos of the returning boys.
+
+Dan was becoming thoroughly alarmed and, at last, after a consultation
+with Meg, he turned to the others and said: "We have decided to tell you
+the mission on which the boys started out so hurriedly."
+
+Of course Jane and Merry had surmised that they had gone in quest of the
+hidden box, but they knew nothing of the finding of the pick, shovel and
+carved name, and they were much interested.
+
+At eight o'clock Jean Willoughby rose. "I had better be going," he said.
+"I have a long hike ahead of me." But Dan protested. "Indeed you shall
+not go tonight. Mr. Packard will not be worried if you remain with us,
+will he? I may need your help to locate the boys if they do not soon
+return."
+
+That settled the matter, for Jean had not wished to leave. Another hour
+passed, and Dan, who had really become very anxious, arose, but before he
+could get his coat and cap, the halloos for which they had long listened
+were heard.
+
+Leaping to the door, Dan threw it open and a welcoming light streamed out
+into the darkness.
+
+Bob and Gerry, looking almost exhausted, staggered into the room
+(although Dan well knew that it was for effect) and sank down on the
+vacant chairs. "Say, talk about a climb! We certainly had a steep one!"
+Bob gasped.
+
+The young people at once noted that neither boy was carrying a box and so
+they decided that it had not been found. "It isn't such a terrible steep
+climb to Crazy Creek Camp," Dan commented. "Half of the way is down
+grade."
+
+The two younger boys exchanged glances that were hard for the watchers to
+interpret. Then Bob sprang up, exclaiming: "Come on, kid. Let's wash and
+have some of the good grub."
+
+"You must be nearly starved," Jane said, also rising and going toward the
+kitchen. "We are keeping your share of the party warm."
+
+When they were gone, Dan said softly: "I'm inclined to believe that the
+boys have something of a surprising nature to tell us, but after Gerry's
+usual fashion he wants to keep us guessing for a time."
+
+The two mountain climbers were indeed hungry and they ate heartily,
+talking aggravatingly of everything but the matter which they knew was
+uppermost in the minds of their companions. When they declared that
+another bite could not be taken, the table was cleared, magazines and
+books again spread upon it, and then Dan, feeling it unfair to Meg to
+keep her longer in suspense, exclaimed, "Now, boys, tell us your
+adventures."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXVI.
+                         MYSTERIES HALF SOLVED
+
+
+"It didn't take us long to get to Crazy Creek Camp, I can tell you." Bob,
+glancing from one to another of the group about the fireplace, saw in
+each face an eager interest in the tale he had to tell. But in Meg's face
+there was more than interest, and suddenly Bob realized that the finding
+of the lost box was of vital importance to the mountain girl, while, to
+him, it had been merely an exciting adventure, the mystery of which had
+lured him on.
+
+After a thoughtful moment, he continued: "We found most of the cabins
+unnumbered, or, if they had once been so marked, time and storms had done
+away with the numerals. But we did find a tunnel above which the figures
+10 had been chipped out of solid stone. The opening of the small tunnel
+was closed, however, by red rocks that had fallen evidently in a
+landslide. I suggested that we lift them away one by one, but Gerry
+thought it a waste of time as the carving on the handle had been 'Cabin
+10' and not Tunnel 10. But I was not so sure, and so we went to work and
+in half an hour we had an opening large enough to enter one at a time. I
+had my flashlight with me, and stooping, I looked in. Strangely enough, I
+saw a faint gleam of daylight at the other end."
+
+Bob paused and glanced about the group to make sure that they were all
+properly curious before he continued: "The tunnel was not high enough for
+even Gerry to stand in erect and so on all fours we crept through it.
+Since the opening had been stopped up I did not fear meeting wild
+creatures, but as we neared the other end, the daylight grew brighter and
+then to our great surprise we came out upon a wide ledge which hung there
+in the most dizzying manner. On it was a rustic cabin, and back of that a
+fenced-in dooryard. Surely, we decided, this was Cabin 10. There was no
+way of reaching it except through the tunnel, as the mountain wall was
+almost perpendicular above and below the ledge.
+
+"We were greatly elated and at once tried the door and found it unlocked.
+There was only one room and it looked like the den of a student. Books
+and papers were everywhere in evidence; dust-covered and yellowed with
+the years. On the desk a bottle of dried ink was uncorked and a rusted
+pen lying there seemed to indicate that someone had suddenly stopped
+writing, and, for some reason, had never again taken up the pen. As
+further proof of this we found a letter which was lying near, with even
+the last sentence unfinished. It is addressed to 'My dear petite
+daughter--Eulalie.' We didn't stop to read it because it was getting late
+and so we started for home."
+
+Meg, no longer able to keep silent, leaned forward, asking eagerly, "Bob,
+may I see the letter that my father left for me?"
+
+"_Your father?_" Jane and Merry exclaimed almost simultaneously. Even
+then Meg's calm was not outwardly disturbed.
+
+"Yes," she said, turning her wonderful eyes toward her friends. In them
+the girls saw an expression of radiant happiness which told them more
+than words could how great was Meg's joy that she had at last learned who
+her father really was. Jane and Merry were perplexed. How did Meg know?
+Their question was answered before it was asked. "I should have told you
+girls this afternoon. When Dan spoke the name that he had found carved on
+the handle of the old shovel, instantly memory recalled to me that, as a
+very small child, I had been taught to lisp that my name was Lalie
+Giguette."
+
+"O Meg, what a beautiful name. May we begin at once to call you Eulalie?"
+The mountain girl smiled at Jane. "If you wish, dear friend." She then
+held out her hand for the letter which Bob had gone to his sweater coat
+to procure.
+
+"We found several books with your father's name on them as author," the
+boy informed her, and the girl looked up brightly to say, "O, I am so
+glad! Did you bring them?"
+
+"No," Bob replied, "we thought perhaps you would like to visit the cabin
+and find everything there just as he left it."
+
+"I would indeed!" Meg rose, and going to the center table, she spread the
+letter under the hanging lamp. After a moment's scrutiny, she turned
+toward the silently waiting group. "It is clearly written," she said. "I
+will read it aloud:
+
+"'To my dear petite daughter Eulalie,'" Meg read,
+
+"'Poor little wee lassie! Not yet three and no one to care for you. I
+shall try to get back to New York before the end comes, but there is no
+one, not even in France, where I lived as a boy. All--all are dead.
+
+"'But you will want to know much and I will be gone when you are old
+enough to question. When I was twenty-one I came to New York and married
+a girl who was as all alone as I. We were very happy, but my loved one,
+your mother, died when you were born. For a long year I grieved until my
+health was broken. For your sake, Lalie, I followed my doctor's advice
+and came to the Rocky Mountains. I was about to put you in a convent
+school, but you clung to me and would not loosen your hold. I feared I
+had not long to live and I did so want you with me, hence I brought you
+here. But if I do not get stronger soon, I will take you back to the kind
+sisters, who will make you a home.
+
+"'We reached this deserted mining camp after weeks of wandering and I
+built for us a cabin where we could be alone and unmolested. At last my
+lost ambition had returned. I wrote the book of my dreams and sent it to
+my publisher in New York. I hope, dear little daughter, that it will be a
+success for your sake, but as yet I do not know.'"
+
+Meg looked up and her dusky eyes were filled with tears. "That is all on
+the first sheet," she said. "The next was written at a later date." Then
+again she read:
+
+"'A tribe of Ute Indians has taken possession of the deserted cabins in
+the camp, but, as there is little game hereabouts, I doubt if they will
+long remain.'
+
+"Two weeks later: 'I have not been as well as I had hoped to be. I did
+very wrong to spend so many hours writing my dream book, but now that it
+is completed I will write no more until I am stronger. Every day with a
+pick and shovel I dig in different places for recreation and exercise,
+endeavoring to find the fabled gold mine, the vein of which was lost, or
+so I have been told by an occasional miner who has passed this way.
+Before starting out I take you each afternoon to the cabin of a most
+kindly squaw who understands some English and since I pay her well, she
+is willing to care for you during my absence.'"
+
+For a long moment Meg ceased reading and Dan, noting that her hands
+trembled, went to her side, saying with tender solicitude: "Dear girl,
+what is it? I fear that reading aloud this letter from your father is
+very hard for you. Wouldn't you rather read it to yourself?" The girl
+lifted tear-filled eyes. "It isn't that, Dan," she said. "I want to share
+it with my friends who are so loving and loyal, but I cannot decipher the
+rest."
+
+There was a faded blur on the paper as though the pen had fallen. Then it
+had evidently been picked up again, but the scrawled letters that
+followed were very hard to read. Slowly the girl deciphered: "Lalie, when
+you are eighteen, get box ----" Then there was another blot and the pen
+had evidently rolled across the paper.
+
+The girl held the letter up to Dan. "I fear we will never know where the
+box is," she said, "for that is all."
+
+But the lad, after scrutinizing the sheet, held it up to the light.
+
+"There is more written, but evidently a drop of ink spread over it.
+Gerry, bring the magnifying glass." The small boy, glad to be of
+assistance, leaped to get it. Dan gazed through it for a long five
+minutes. Then he began to name the letters, and Bob, who had seized a
+pencil and paper, wrote them down. "_B-a-n-k._" Dan glanced questioningly
+at Meg. "What kind of a bank do you suppose it means?" Then to Bob: "Were
+there any banks of dirt near the cabin?" That lad shook his head.
+
+Jane suggested: "Would it not be more natural to suppose it to be a New
+York bank, since that had been Mr. Giguette's home for years?"
+
+They all decided this to be true. Then Merry asked: "Meg, or may I say
+Eulalie, are you willing that I should wire my father all that we know?
+He is a lawyer in New York and be will gladly find out what he can."
+
+How the dusky face brightened. "Oh, thank you, Merry. Please do!" Then,
+rising, the mountain girl held out both hands to Jane and Merry. "I must
+go now," she said, "to the dear old couple who have been all the father
+and mother I have ever known."
+
+Dan accompanied Meg up the winding mountain road.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVII.
+                           THE MYSTERY SOLVED
+
+
+"What a glorious moonlit night it is!" Merry exclaimed when, Meg and Dan
+having gone, the others turned back toward the cabin.
+
+"I say, sis," Bob exclaimed, "why not get that telegram written and let
+me take it down to the village. You can put heaps more into a night
+letter."
+
+"Why, Bobby, it must be after nine. The innkeeper's family will be asleep
+by the time you could get there."
+
+Jean Willoughby explained: "They have two sons, and one of them is always
+on duty as night clerk. Strangers motoring through put up there at all
+hours." Then the young overseer added: "I wish now that I had ridden over
+and you could have used my horse."
+
+"We sent the two we had back to the Heger cabin," Bob said, but added, as
+he took a handspring to prove to his sister that he was not at all tired,
+"I'd just as soon walk." Then, as another thought occurred to him, he
+turned to the younger lad, asking, "If you're game, Gerry, come along
+with me. We'll put up at the inn for the night and bring back the answer
+from father as soon as it comes."
+
+Since there was no particular reason why they should not do this, Merry
+and Jane made no further remonstrances. Going indoors, a carefully
+planned night letter was prepared and in great glee the two boys started
+out, each carrying a gun, as Jean told them that they _might_ meet a
+wildcat.
+
+"Huh! I hoped you were going to say a grizzly bear."
+
+Gerry's tone seemed to imply that they were quite fearless.
+
+Soon after the boys had departed, Dan returned. Glancing at Jean, he
+questioned: "Ought we to follow them?" But the other lad replied:
+
+"They're safe enough! Moreover, I told Bob to swing a red lantern three
+times when they reach the inn. The night is so clear, we surely can see
+it."
+
+And so they waited, and an hour later the expected signal was plainly
+seen by all of them.
+
+"Now to bed, everybody!" Dan sprang up and held both hands toward his
+sister Jane. Julie had been prevailed upon to retire soon after the lads
+started out and was sound asleep.
+
+The girls had decided to be up at an early hour, but because they had
+gone to bed much later than usual they overslept.
+
+It was after noon before Meg appeared.
+
+"Ma Heger" had needed her help, was all that she said. Jane and Merry
+decided not to tell her about the night letter, for the suspense would be
+far harder for her to bear than it was for them.
+
+But after a time Meg began to wonder why, at frequent intervals, one or
+another of the young people went to the top of the stone stairs, and
+through field glasses, gazed down the mountain road. It was two o'clock
+when the old stage was seen slowly ascending.
+
+"I entirely forgot that the stage passes us on Saturday afternoon," Dan
+exclaimed. "Of course, Bob and Gerry waited to ride up."
+
+But as the lumbering vehicle neared, the passengers were seen to be all
+adults--a west valley rancher, his wife and grown daughters. Then, just
+as the watchers had given up hope, the two laughing boys dropped from the
+back of the stage and ran up the stone stairs.
+
+Paying no heed to the others, Bob leaped over to where Meg was standing,
+and making a deep bow, he handed her a yellow envelope.
+
+"But this is for Merry," the mountain girl told him.
+
+"True enough!" and Bob gave the telegram to his sister. Opening it, she
+read:
+
+  "Franc Giguette, author of 'The Star that Set.' Book was great success!
+  Publishers holding royalties, as they were uncalled for. Box in name of
+  Eulalie Giguette at the First National Bank. Contains contracts and
+  papers of value, also jewels. Await further advice."
+
+While all of the others congratulated the beautiful girl, Dan stood aside
+with sorrow in his heart. He had asked Meg to marry him when he thought
+her poor. Even then they would have had a long wait, for he had wanted to
+help his father for a time before he considered his own happiness.
+
+Meg looked over at the lad whom she so loved. "Aren't _you_ also glad for
+me, Dan?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, very glad," he said, but he was more than ever pleased that he and
+Meg had not told of their engagement, which might never be fulfilled.
+
+When the excitement had somewhat subsided, Bob recalled that he had a
+letter for Jean Willoughby, and, bringing it forth, presented it to the
+young man, who looked inquiringly at the handwriting; then with a quick,
+questioning glance at Merry, he tore it open and read its message.
+
+"Marion Starr," he cried, "you wrote my father, did you not, telling him
+where you found me?"
+
+It was evident that he was _not_ displeased.
+
+The golden haired girl nodded, then waited eagerly to hear what manner of
+message the letter contained.
+
+"Dan," said Bob, "your father and mine are again partners, for Dad has
+restored the money that had been supposedly lost. Since your father had
+recompensed the investors, the firm of Abbott & Willoughby, as
+re-established, is much richer than it was, for while holding the money,
+Dad made investments that have tripled the capital of the firm. Nor is
+that all! Father has set aside money to start my brother and me in any
+business we may choose, and your father is to do the same for each of his
+boys as the need arises."
+
+Before Dan could speak, Jean hurried on with, "Mr. Packard has offered to
+divide his ranch in three parts, and Jane and I are to have one of them.
+Dan, you love the West. It agrees with you. Won't you take the third?"
+
+"That's wonderful news!" Dan cried glowingly. "Indeed I would like to own
+a third of the Green Hills ranch."
+
+Then to the surprise of the others, he went to the mountain girl with
+hands outstretched, and said, his voice tense with feeling:
+"Meg--Eulalie--may I set the day for our wedding?"
+
+The dusky eyes of the beautiful girl were more than ever starlike as she
+nodded up at him.
+
+"Great!" he cried joyfully. "Then we will _all_ be married on the first
+of September."
+
+
+
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+--A few typographical errors were corrected without comment.
+
+--Nonstandard spellings and dialect were left as in the original.
+
+--Rearranged front matter to a more-logical order.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42014 ***