Kitabı oku: «Meg of Mystery Mountain», sayfa 5
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?”
