Kitabı oku: «Meg of Mystery Mountain», sayfa 6
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?”
