Kitabı oku: «Meg of Mystery Mountain», sayfa 10

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.”