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In Blue Creek Cañon

by Anna Chapin Ray · English · Gutenberg #24014 · 375,835 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: In Blue Creek Cañon

Author: Anna Chapin Ray


        
Release date: December 24, 2007 [eBook #24014]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
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        file was produced from scans of public domain material
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN BLUE CREEK CAÑON ***




Produced by David Edwards, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from scans of public domain material
produced by Microsoft for their Live Search Books site.)









                         IN BLUE CREEK CANON

                         BY ANNA CHAPIN RAY

      AUTHOR OF "HALF A DOZEN BOYS," "HALF A DOZEN GIRLS," ETC.




    NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET
    THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
    BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET

    COPYRIGHT, 1892,
    BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

    _Printed and Electrotyped by_
    ALFRED MUDGE & SON, BOSTON.




[Illustration: "A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on
skates."]




    If you've wronged him, speak him fair.
    Say you're sorry and make it square;
    If he's wronged you, wink so tight
    None of you see what's plain in sight.

    When the world goes hard and wrong,
    Lend a hand to help him along;
    When his stockings have holes to darn,
    Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Stick to each other through thick and thin;
    All the closer as age leaks in;
    Squalls will blow, and clouds will frown,
    But stay by your ship till you all go down!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.




CONTENTS.


        I. A COUNCIL ON SKATES

       II. TO WELCOME THE COMING GUEST

      III. THE EVERETT HOUSEHOLD

       IV. ON THE CROSS-HEAD

        V. THE MEETING IN THE WATERS

       VI. MARJORIE'S PARTY

      VII. JANEY'S PROPHECY

     VIII. IN THE DARK

       IX. CAMPING ON THE BEAVERHEAD

        X. UP THE GULCH

       XI. "SWEET CHARITY'S SAKE"

      XII. HOME WITHOUT A MOTHER

     XIII. AT THE NINE-HUNDRED LEVEL

      XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE OLD STORY

       XV. MR. ATHERDEN

      XVI. THE COMPLETED STORY

     XVII. THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNEXPECTED

    XVIII. UNDER ORDERS




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on skates."

"He cautiously moved away a few inches along the beam."

"His lamp extended in one hand, while with his other he held his cane,
which he was poking about in the soft, sticky mud."




IN BLUE CREEK CANON.




CHAPTER I.

A COUNCIL ON SKATES.


A strong southeast wind was blowing up the canon and driving before it
the dense yellow smoke which rolled up from the great red chimneys of
the smelter. To the east and west of the town, the mountains rose
abruptly, their steep sides bare or covered with patches of yellow pine.
At the north, the canon closed in to form a narrow gorge between the
mountains; but towards the south it opened out into a broad valley,
through which the swiftly rushing creek twisted and turned along its
willow-bordered bed. A half mile below the town the creek suddenly
broadened into a little lake that was now frozen over, forming a sheet
of dazzling ice, upon which a quartette of boys and girls were darting
about on skates.

"Ugh!" gasped one of the boys, as a sudden gust of wind, coming straight
from the east, brought the stifling cloud in their direction; "I'm glad
I'm not up in town this afternoon. It's getting ready for a storm, I
think, from the way the smoke comes down; and they must be catching it
all, up there."

"Oh, dear!" sighed the girl with whom he was skating; "if it storms
'twill be sure to be more snow, and spoil the ice. It's too bad, for we
get so little skating out here, and it's almost time to go home now.
Just see how low the sun is getting!"

"Never mind, Marjorie," said the boy, as he paused to breathe on his
cold fingers; then held out his hand to her once more. "We'll have one
more go across the pond, anyway, for there's no knowing when we'll have
another chance. You take Allie, Ned, and we'll race you, two and two,
over to that largest stump. Come on, and get into line. One! two!
_three!_"

Away they flew, the bright blades of their skates flashing in the long
slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, and their eyes and cheeks
glowing with the cold air and rapid exercise. Marjorie and her attendant
knight were the first to reach the goal, and turned, panting, to face
the others as they came up to them.

"That was just fine!" exclaimed Allie's companion, as he dropped her
hand and spun around in a narrow circle which sent the chips of ice
flying from under his heel. "Don't let's go home just yet, 't won't be
dark for an hour anyway, and we can go up in fifteen minutes. I'll race
you over to the other side and back again, Howard, while the girls are
getting their breath."

"You don't mind being left, Allie?" And the taller boy glanced at the
girls.

"All right, just for once," said Allie; "then we really ought to go up,
Howard; mamma wants us to be home in good season to-night, for dinner is
going to be early, so papa can get the train down."

"Is your father going away again?" asked Marjorie, as the girls skated
idly to and fro, waiting for the boys to join them. "I thought he came
in from camp only this morning."

"So he did," answered her friend, burying her small nose in her muff for
a moment, as she faced the cutting wind. "He's only going down to
Pocatello to-night, and out on the main line a little ways, to meet
Charlie MacGregor, our cousin that's coming."

"Yes," nodded Marjorie, in acquiescence; "I remember now; I'd forgotten
he was coming so soon. What fun you'll have with him, Allie! I wish I
had a brother, or cousin, or something."

"Perhaps I shall wish I didn't have both," said Allie, laughing. "I
don't know how he and Howard will get on. I think Howard doesn't want
him much; but I'd just as soon he'd be here."

"What's he like?" queried Marjorie curiously.

"I haven't much idea; I've never seen him," said Allie. "Papa saw him
when he was east last summer, and we have a picture of him taken ever so
long ago."

"Who's that--Charlie MacGregor?" asked Howard, skating up to them at
that moment. "He's not much to look at, Marjorie, if his picture's any
good. He has a pug nose and wears giglamps, and I've a suspicion that
he's a fearful dude. He'll be a tenderfoot, of course, but he'll get
over that; but if he's a dude, we boys will make it lively for him."

"Howard, you sha'n't!" remonstrated his sister, loyally coming to the
defence of their unknown cousin. "It must be horrid for him to lose all
his friends and have to be sent out here to relations he doesn't know
nor care anything about, just like a barrel of flour." Allie's metaphors
were becoming mixed; but she never heeded that, as she went on proudly:
"And besides, we're MacGregors as much as he is, and mamma says that no
MacGregor was ever rude to a cousin, or to anybody in trouble."

"Good for you, Allie!" shouted the younger boy, as he stopped in the
middle of a figure eight to applaud her words. "You're in the right of
it; but you needn't think you'll ever keep Howard in order. How old is
this lad, anyhow?"

"Half way between Howard and me," replied Allie, as they started to
skate slowly up the creek towards home, and Howard and Marjorie dropped
a little in the rear. "He was thirteen last summer, and papa says he's a
real, true musician. He'll bring his own piano with him; but I don't
know where he'll find room to put it, for our house is full as can be,
now. Then he sings, too,--at least, he used to,--in a boy choir. Haven't
you seen his picture, Ned? It's homely, but it looks as if he might not
be so bad."

"Where's he coming from?" asked Ned.

"New York. He's lived there always; but, you know, his father died two
years ago, and his mother last month. He hasn't any relations but just
us, so he is to live here for a while. You and Howard will stand by
him, won't you, Ned?" she added persuasively, laying her mittened hand
on his. "I'm afraid the other boys will run on him and make fun of him.
Don't tell Howard I said so, but I don't expect to like him much myself,
only I'm sort of sorry for him; and then he's our cousin, so I suppose
we must make sure he has a good time."

"I won't be hard on him, Allie," her companion answered her, laughing a
little at the unwonted seriousness of her tone; "as long as he doesn't
put on airs and talk big about New York and 'the way _we_ do East,' and
all that poppycock, I'll stand by him. But if he's coming out here to
show us how to do it, the sooner it's taken out of him the better."

"Wait till the train comes in, day after to-morrow morning, Ned," said
Howard, as, with a few quick strokes, he and Marjorie overtook them once
more. "We'll take a look at him and see what he's like, before we make
too many promises. Now, then, ma'am," he added, as he and Marjorie
paused at a great stone on the bank of the creek; "if you'll be good
enough to sit down, I'll have your skates off instanter."

Marjorie laughed, as she dropped down on the stone and put one little
foot on Howard's knee, while Ned performed a similar service for Allie.

"I'm crazy to see your cousin, Allie," she said. "I know he's going to
be great fun, only I'm afraid he'll think we are hopeless tomboys.
Probably he's been used to girls that sit in the parlor and sew
embroidery, instead of skating and riding bronchos bareback, and playing
hare and hounds with the boys."

"Don't care if he has!" And Allie made a little grimace of defiance as
she scrambled to her feet. "I'm not going to give up all my good times
and take to fancy work, when it's as much as I can do to sew on my own
buttons. He can stay in the house, and sing songs and sew patchwork all
day long, if he wants to, but I'm not going to give up all my frolics;
need I, boys?" she concluded, in a mutinous outburst, quite at variance
with her recent plea for their expected guest.

Howard laughed teasingly.

"Catch Allie turning the fine young lady! If you shut her up in a
parlor, she'd jump over the chairs and play tag with herself around the
table; and Marjorie is about as bad."

"Perhaps I am," she assented placidly; "but you boys could never get
along without us. I've heard you say, over and over again, that we can
catch a ball as well as half the boys in town, and I can outrun you any
day. Want to try?"

"Not much," returned Howard, laughing, though there rankled in his mind
the memory of recent races in which he had not been the winner. "You
only beat me because you've been used to this air longer than I have.
Besides, it would hurry us home too much, and I've an idea that this may
be the last time that we four chums will be off together, for one while.
I shall have to trot round with that fellow, for the next week, and show
him the ways of the country, so he won't make too great a jay of
himself. But, I say, if it doesn't storm to-morrow, we'll come down here
again in the afternoon, and have an hour or two on the ice before it's
spoiled."

With their skates strapped together and slung over their shoulders,
their collars turned up around their ears, and their hands plunged deep
into pockets and muffs, they turned northward along the bank of the
creek for a short distance, and then struck off across the level, open
ground till they came into one of the streets of the little town, which
they followed until they reached the main business street. There they
parted, Ned and Marjorie turning to the west, while Howard and Allie
kept straight on towards the north, and finally stopped at a small brick
house, a low, one-story affair, yet much more elaborate than the average
dwelling of the town, where the architecture was largely of the
log-house species, though often covered with a layer of boards to
disguise the primitive nature of the materials.

The front door opened directly into the little parlor, and into this
cosy room Howard and Allie plunged, laughing and breathless after their
quick walk in the cold. A bright-faced little woman sat sewing by the
front window, holding up her work to catch the last fading light, and a
rosy boy, two years old, was tumbling about on the carpet, rolling over
and over the great dog, who was dozing as peacefully as if such
demonstrations were quite to his liking.

"Hullo, mammy! Hullo, Vic! Dinner ready?" exclaimed Howard, casting his
skates into the nearest chair, and moving up to the stove to warm his
chilled fingers.

"How was the skating?" asked his mother, looking up from her work to
smile at Allie, as she pulled off her coat and hat, and then caught up
the child from the floor.

"Fine; but we're 'most starved--at least, I am," returned Howard, as he
wriggled himself out of his coat and handed it to Allie, who received it
quite as a matter of course, and went away to hang it in its usual
place.

"Well, dinner is all ready, and papa will be here in a minute; so you
can go and tell Janey to take it up. Do you know," she added, with a
laugh which took all the sting from the reproof; "I think it is time my
boy learned to take his sister's coat for her, instead of expecting her
to wait on him."

"All right," answered Howard, by no means abashed by the rebuke. "Here,
sis, if you'll just bring back your coat and put it on again, I'll see
what can be done about it." And he bent over to stroke his mother's hair
with a boyish affection which filled her heart with gratitude for having
such a son, even while it sent her off to her toilet table to repair the
damages which his fingers had wrought. Then he marched out to the
kitchen to tease Janey, until she threatened to pour the soup over his
favorite pudding, unless he left her to take up the dinner in peace.

Mr. Burnam, Howard's father, was a successful civil engineer, who, in
the line of his professional life, had been ordered up and down the
West according to the demands of the great railroad corporation by whom
he was employed. The life of a locating engineer is much like that of
the soldier, in its need for strict obedience to orders, and for
eighteen years Mr. Burnam had been stationed, now here, now there,--on
the rolling prairies of Iowa, in the Dakota bad lands, in the alkali
deserts of Wyoming, and among the canons and passes of the Colorado
Rockies. Six months before this time he had been ordered to western
Montana, to lay out a possible railway across the mountains, which
should give the Pacific-coast cities a more direct connection with their
eastern neighbors. The survey for this line would occupy him for a year
or more, and in order to have his family near him during this time, he
had made his headquarters in the little mining camp, which the first
prospectors along the canon, some four years before, had christened
"Blue Creek," from the clear, bright waters of the mountain stream. Here
he established his family in the most comfortable house that the town
afforded, and here he had his office, which served as headquarters for
his corps of men, whenever they came in town for a few days. By virtue
of his position as chief of the party, Mr. Burnam often spent weeks at
a time at home, working up his estimates and maps, and only driving out
to camp now and then, for a day or two, to see that all was well in his
absence. Then, just as his family were settling down to the full
enjoyment of his society, he would be sent for, to oversee some
difficult bit of work, and Mrs. Burnam and Allie would be left to the
protection of Howard, and of Ben, the great Siberian bloodhound, who was
as gentle as a kitten until molested, when all his old savage instincts
sprang into life.

One of the early graduates from Cornell, Mr. Burnam had gone West when a
mere boy, fresh from college; and now, at forty, he had made himself a
brilliant reputation in his profession. The chief, as they called him,
was adored by all his men, who knew, from long experience, that however
great the danger and hardship might be, he was always ready to share it
with them, and that he made it a part of his creed never to ask a
subordinate to take a risk which he himself would shun. Quick-tempered
and outspoken in the presence of any suspicion of shirking or deceit, he
was yet a just, honorable man in dealing with his "boys," who loved and
respected him accordingly. At home, he was a different man; for he
threw aside his professional dignity, to tease his wife, or romp with
his children, lavishing upon them all the love of which his great,
generous nature was capable.

For the sake of her husband, Mrs. Burnam had willingly cut herself
adrift from her family and friends in New York, and for sixteen years
she had patiently followed him here and there through the West; now
living in camp for a summer, now boarding at tiny country hotels, in
order to be within driving distance of his party; now left for months at
a time in the busy solitude of a great city hotel, while Mr. Burnam was
far away in unexplored forests, and often, as now, settled near him for
a few months of housekeeping which should give her children at least a
slight knowledge of home life and its charms.

Two years after her marriage, a little son had come to her, and, soon
after that, a daughter had helped to fill out the family circle. It
seemed to Mrs. Burnam but a few months since then; but Howard was
fourteen now, and Allie twelve, while, two years before this time, a
third child had come to brighten the home with his baby prattle and
pranks. For weeks, his name had been a subject of almost constant
discussion, until, one day, Howard had solved the problem in a most
unexpected fashion.

"I'll tell you what," he said suddenly; "name him Victor, for my new
bicycle." And the name was decided upon accordingly.

Howard, himself, was a worthy son of the handsome, brown-bearded man
whom he called papa. Tall, slender, and yellow haired, he was as bonnie
a laddie as ever filled a mother's heart with pride; a healthy, happy
boy, affectionate and generous, and full of a rollicking fun which made
him at once the delight and terror of his sister, who never knew in what
direction his next outbreak would come. In spite of his merciless
teasing, the brother and sister were close friends and constantly
together. Girls were scarce in the town, and Allie and her one friend,
Marjorie Fisher, would have been largely left to their own devices, had
it not been for Howard and Ned Everett, through whose influence they
were received on equal terms among the boys, and had a share in most of
their good times. It was no uncommon thing to hear them speak of "Allie
and Marjorie and the other boys," and neither Mrs. Burnam nor Mrs.
Fisher felt any desire to have it otherwise. They were too sensible
mothers to force their little daughters towards womanhood, and much
preferred the tone of free-and-easy companionship to the childish
flirtations so commonly indulged in. They could trust to their influence
over their children to keep them gentle and womanly, and the boys were
all gentlemen, largely sons of Eastern men whom business had brought to
the town. So the girls walked and rode, skated and romped with the lads,
unconsciously teaching them many a pretty lesson in chivalry, while in
return the boys gave them a training which made them enduring and
courageous, and hardy as a pair of little Indians. For six months, this
had been their life, and by this time there had formed one
well-recognized set whose members were constantly together, and, though
they mingled more or less with the other young people, yet kept
themselves distinct from their companions. Four of this number were the
little group of skaters, the fifth was Ned's younger brother, Grant, who
was usually the central figure in their frolics.

The one other member of the Burnam household, who is as yet in the
background, deserves at least a passing remark. This was Janey, the
young negro maid who ruled their kitchen. What had ever brought her
from the warm South into the midst of Rocky Mountain snows, it would be
hard to tell; but, two months before, she had answered to Mrs. Burnam's
advertisement for a servant, and was promptly installed in her kitchen,
where she convulsed the family with her pranks, and averted many a
well-merited lecture by some sudden, artless remark, which sent Mrs.
Burnam hurrying out of the room, in search of a corner where she could
laugh unseen. Surely, since the days of Topsy, the immortal, there was
never such an imp as Janey. Mrs. Burnam declared that she was as good as
a tonic, and Mr. Burnam made no secret of his enjoyment of her antics,
which were always as original as they were unexpected.

"My name's Edmonia Jackson," she had said, in answer to Mrs. Burnam's
question; "but dey mos'ly calls me Janey. But laws, Mis', ef you 'll
on'y let me stay yere, you all can call me what you want. Names is
nothin', but I don' want to work in one o' them log-cabins; they 's too
much like what our po' w'ites lives in. Give me brick or nothin'!"




CHAPTER II.

TO WELCOME THE COMING GUEST.


"Only ten minutes more!" said Allie, excitedly prancing up and down the
platform. "I do so hope the train won't be late."

"Allie's getting in a hurry to see the cousin," remarked Grant Everett
teasingly. "You and Howard'll have to step out of the way when he comes,
Ned. You needn't think you're going to stand any chance against this new
attraction."

"Maybe so," said Howard scornfully, while he flattened his nose against
the ticket-office window, in a vain endeavor to see the clock. "Girls
always like a new face, and Allie's just like all the rest of them."

"No," said Allie judicially, as she pulled the collar of her fur jacket
more closely about her ears. "Of course I like you boys best, but I'm
sort of curious about Charlie, as long as he's going to live with us for
a year or so. If he's nice, it will be like having another brother; but
if he's horrid, it will spoil all our good times. It's a very
dependable circumstance, as Janey says, that's all."

It was the second morning after their skating party, and Howard, Allie,
and the two Everett boys were pacing up and down the platform, while
they waited for the coming of the train which should bring them their
new companion. They formed an attractive little group as they moved to
and fro, talking and laughing, or pausing now and again to turn and gaze
down the track, which stretched far away before them in two shining rows
of steel. With the instinct of the true hostess, Allie had arrayed
herself in her state and festival suit, and sallied forth to meet her
father and cousin, and extend to their guest a prompt welcome to his new
home. Half-way to the station she was surprised at being overtaken by
the three boys, who came rushing after her, shouting her name as they
ran.

"'Where are you going, my pretty maid?'" panted Ned, dropping into step
at one side, while Howard took the other, and Grant capered along the
sidewalk in front of them, now backwards, now sideways, and now
forwards, as the conversation demanded his entire attention, or became
uninteresting once more.

"'I'm going to meet Cousin Charlie, she said,'" answered Allie,
laughing.

"So that's the why of all these fine feathers," commented Ned; while
Howard added,--

"All right; we'll go with you."

"But I thought you just told mamma that you wouldn't go, anyway,"
responded Allie, astonished at this sudden change of plan.

"Well, I'm here," answered Howard calmly. "I'm not going to welcome him
with open arms, though; and you needn't think I am. We fellows are just
going to take a look at him on the sly, and then we can tell better how
to treat him."

"But, Howard, you mustn't; he'll see you," remonstrated Allie,
scandalized at the suggestion. "If papa knows it he won't like it a
bit."

"Oh, that's all right, Allie," said Ned reassuringly. "All we 're going
to do is to hide behind that pile of freight boxes over there, and get a
good look at him without his knowing it. Then we'll light out for home,
and Howard will be there ahead of you, see if he isn't; so, if you don't
give it away, there'll be no harm done."

"Unless you tell of it yourselves," said Allie doubtfully. "I don't half
like it; and if Howard won't help meet him, he ought to keep clear out
of the way. But there's one thing about it, boys, you must, you really
must, stop talking so much slang. It's bad enough with us girls, and I'm
getting to use it as much as you do; but you'll scare Charlie to pieces
if you talk so much of it."

"Does our right worshipful brother maintain himself in his usual health
and spirits?--is that the style, Allie?" asked Howard, as he took off
his cap with a flourish, and bowed low before some imaginary personage.

"I caught Allie studying the dictionary, yesterday morning," said Grant,
turning to face them once more. "She had a piece of paper in her lap,
with concatenation and peripatetic and nostalgia written on it, and I
supposed she was studying her spelling lesson, but now I see,--she was
just making up a sentence to say to him. Speak up loud, Allie, so we can
hear."

"You'd better stay here and listen," said Allie. "But there's the train,
see, just coming round the curve down the canon. Off with you, if you
really are going to be so silly!"

The boys whirled around hastily, to assure themselves that it was no
false alarm; then they left her to wait alone, while they settled
themselves behind a pile of great wooden boxes which half filled the
upper end of the platform. Allie watched them arrange themselves at
their ease; then, when they were quite hidden from view, she turned back
to look at the train as it rushed up the valley towards her, sending
along the rails before it a fierce throbbing which kept time to her own
leaping pulse.

In spite of her light talk and laughter, Allie was conscious of a keen
sense of excitement, as she stood waiting to receive her cousin. He was
the only child of Mrs. Burnam's only brother; and now, at thirteen, he
was left alone in the world, doubly orphaned, and with no near relatives
save this one aunt, to whose care his dying mother had intrusted her
boy. All that Allie knew had only served to interest her in the young
stranger; his love for music and his unusual talent for it, his former
life spent in a luxurious city home, even his present loneliness had
touched her girlish heart with pity, and made her resolve to render his
new life pleasant to him, in spite of the possible teasing he might have
to undergo from the boys. And then, while she was determined to become
his champion at any cost, there was always the delightful possibility
that he might be a pleasant addition to their little circle, and
contribute his share to the frolics which were continually taking place
at either the Burnams' or the Everetts'. Far into the hours of the
previous night she had lain awake, picturing her cousin as he would
probably appear to them, and going over and over in her own mind the
details of their first meeting. She was sorry that he had lost his
mother; but she found herself fervently hoping that he would not be so
very dismal, and even that he might laugh a little occasionally, when
anything particularly amusing should occur.

"Well, daught, how goes it?" And Allie found herself in her father's
arms, and then released, as Mr. Burnam added, "Here, Charlie, this is
your Cousin Alice."

With a sudden shyness, Allie put her hand into the one before her, as
she glanced up at the boyish face which was looking down into her own.
Something she read there, in the half-anxious expression of the brown
eyes, made her forget her more formal salutation, and say cordially,--

"Are you the new brother that's come to live at our house? It's going to
be splendid to have you there." And with a little confiding, sisterly
gesture, she pulled his hand through her arm, in an unspoken welcome
which was inexpressibly grateful to the lad, tired with his three
thousand miles of lonely journeying, and dreading to meet these strange
cousins into whose home life he had been so abruptly forced. Now, as he
looked at Allie's slight, girlish figure, and at her bright, happy face
which not even her irregular features could render plain, he felt a
sudden sense of relief, and secretly wished that all the family might be
as attractive as his genial uncle and the pleasant cousin who had given
him so sisterly a greeting.

"Come," she added, as her father beckoned to them; "we'll go over and
get into that carriage, while papa hunts up your trunks." And she led
the way across the platform with an apparent unconsciousness of the
three heads which precipitately bobbed down out of sight at their
approach, while the owners of the heads coiled themselves up in the
narrowest of corners, with much scraping of shoes on the boards, in the
process.

"This old station is just full of rats," she continued, in a tone of
careless explanation, as they passed the hiding-place of her brother and
his friends. "I heard the ticket-man say, just before your train came
in, that he was coming out with his gun to shoot some of them, as soon
as the engine had backed down out of the way."

A long-drawn squeak, as of an animal in pain, answered to her words,
and they went on, while Allie threw one triumphant glance over her
shoulder at the three heads which had promptly reappeared as soon as her
back was turned.

Once seated opposite her cousin in the carriage, while they waited for
Mr. Burnam to join them, Allie could study his face at her ease, as she
chattered away to him, in the hope of making him feel at home. He had
attracted her at the first glance; and the more she looked at him the
stronger became her impression that here was a cousin worth having. He
was large of his age, finely formed, and taller than Howard, and had a
frank, boyish face, which just now looked a little tired after his long
journey, and a little troubled and nervous at coming among new friends.
For the rest, he had a mass of soft, reddish-brown hair, a freckled
face, firm red lips which parted, now and then, to show two rows of
small, even teeth, and two deep dimples that came and went in his
cheeks, and a pair of near-sighted brown eyes that looked very steadily
into Allie's, as if trying to read his new kinswoman, and find out from
her into what hands he was likely to fall.

And, indeed, he would have looked far that day without finding a more
attractive cousin, for Allie, in her desire to play the hostess well,
had dropped her usual rollicking manner, and assumed a sweet, childish
dignity which became her as well as her more wonted gayety. Charlie's
face cleared a little, as he looked into her great blue eyes and watched
the changing expressions of her fresh young face, so pretty and bright
in its soft, warm setting of fur.

"Why didn't Howard come down with you, daught?" asked Mr. Burnam, as he
took his place beside them, and the carriage, turning from the station,
drove away up the street towards the house.

For an instant, Allie's gaze was fixed on a distant opening between the
buildings, where three boyish figures were scurrying along as fast as
their feet could carry them. Then she roused herself, and turned to the
lad before her, as if she had not heard her father's question.

"Didn't you have a good time on the way out here, Cousin Charlie?" she
inquired hastily. "Howard and I have been envying you your journey."

"Can't say I enjoyed it," Charlie answered. "I'd never even travelled
all night before, and it was no end lonesome, riding along, day in and
day out, without a soul to speak to. An old friend of mother's met me in
Chicago, and put me on the train for Council Bluffs, and 'twas easy
enough changing there, so I didn't have any trouble; but you'd better
believe I was glad to see Uncle Ralph when he walked into the sleeper
yesterday afternoon."

"I believe I'd be willing to go round the world alone, if I could only
go," said Allie. "I'm a real railroad man's daughter, and like to
travel; don't I, poppy?" And she nestled closer to her father's side,
while with amused eyes she watched their guest's expression change,
first to astonishment, then to disgust, as he looked at the main street,
with its low buildings, some few of brick, little one-story structures,
whose fronts were run up in a thin, flat wall, with sham window blinds
at a second-story level, to present the appearance of more pretentious
buildings.

Fresh as he was from the closely-packed streets of the great city, with
their unbroken rows of towering business blocks and apartment houses,
Charlie was conscious of vague wonder at the rough little mining camp
before him. Then he turned and looked up at the mountain, and, boy that
he was, he forgot all else, all the crudeness of the buildings and all
the roughness of the surroundings, as he saw the full grandeur of the
snow-clad Rockies shining and glistening in the morning sunshine, which
lay caressingly over their giants slopes. He bent forward to look at
them once more, while his face grew very thoughtful and intent; then he
dropped back into his old corner, saying, in an awed, hushed tone, as if
to himself,--

"Jove! It's worth it all, to have a chance to look at those."

"I'm glad you like them," said Allie heartily, though she smiled at his
"Jove," when she recalled her recent charge to Howard to avoid all
slang. "The town must seem queer to you; but the mountains make up for
it. Now lean 'way forward, and look out this side. That little brick
house is ours; and there's mamma in the door, and Howard just back of
her, waiting to give you greeting."

"Now, honestly, Allie, how did you like him?" Howard asked, as soon as
his mother had taken Charlie to his room and the door closed behind
them.

"I think I do like him," said Allie slowly. "He didn't talk much coming
up; but I don't know as I wonder, when we're all strangers to him. He
has sort of a good face; of course he isn't handsome, like Ned and
Grant, but he looks as if he'd have some fun in him."

"I shouldn't think he did look like Ned," returned Howard disdainfully;
"you don't often see anybody that does. This fellow has red hair, too,
and I don't like that kind. He's dressed himself up regardless, in his
derby hat and long-tailed ulster. Does he wear knickerbockers, Allie, or
does he think he's too old for them?"

"How should I know?" answered Allie. "He's pretty long, and I began at
the top, so I didn't get down so far; but when we are used to his
freckles and his glasses, I don't think he'll seem so bad to us."

"You almost gave us away, with your rat speech," said Howard, laughing
at the recollection. "Grant giggled till I was afraid Charlie'd hear
him, so I squeaked to cover up the noise. You had us cornered there; and
I didn't want to get caught, for I knew mammy wouldn't like it. She's
been so anxious to have Charlie get here and have a good time with us,
that I didn't want to spoil it all."

"How long have you been home?" asked his sister, as she turned away to
go to her room and take off her jacket and hat.

"I had just time to drop off my coat, as I came in through the kitchen,
and get to the front door, when you turned the corner. I believe mammy
has spent the last hour between the door and window. I wonder what
they're doing in there; I wish they'd hurry up, for I want some lunch.
Charlie ought to be hungry, too, for he had breakfast at Argenta.
Remember those elk steaks we had there last fall, sis?"

Allie made a wry face at the memory.

"Poor Charlie! He will think he's come into the wilderness. You should
have seen his face, Howard, when we were driving up Main Street. It was
too funny; he looked as if he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. He
stood it very well till he came to the office; then that green sham
front was too much for him, and he fairly groaned."

"I'll tell you what," Howard counselled her; "can't you get hold of him,
and tell him about some of the ways we have out here, and get him used
to it, so he won't show just what he thinks of us? Girls can do that
sort of thing better than boys, and he'll need some coaching, of course.
Just pussy-cat him a little; and then he looks as if he'd take any
amount of advice. I don't care, for you and me; but the Everetts won't
stand anything of that kind. They've been here ever since the town
started, and they think it's the only place in the world."

"'Tis one of the best," said Allie decisively. "Of course, 'tisn't
pretty, nor very fine; but I've had the best times since I came here I
ever had, and I'm not going to have anybody run it down when I'm round.
I'll give him a talking-to this very night. Now, let's just come out and
take one race to the corner and back; I've been proper as long as I can,
and I must do something to let off steam. He's all out of the way and
won't see me. Come on!" And away they went, racing down the street in
the warm noon sun.

After his quiet talk with his aunt, who had gone with him to lead the
way to his room, Charlie no longer felt any doubt of his welcome. Mrs.
Burnam was so like his father in her manner, so bright and brisk, yet so
gentle, that her nephew felt at ease with her at once. There had been
something indescribably motherly in her face, as she sat down on the
edge of the bed, and, taking his hand, drew him down at her side, while
she questioned him about his journey, and the friends he had left behind
him. Then she spoke of his mother so tenderly that the boy's lips
quivered, and two great tears rolled down his cheeks. That was more
than Mrs. Burnam's warm heart could bear. For a moment she let his fresh
sorrow have its way; then she bent forward and put her arm around him,
just as she might have done with Howard.

"I know, Charlie," she said gently, "nobody else can take her place;
but, while you are with us, remember that you are our own boy, and are
as much at home with us as Howard himself. And now come, if you're
ready, and get acquainted with your cousins, while I see about the
lunch."

As Charlie went back to the parlor once more, he was surprised to find
the room deserted and the front door slightly open. With a little shiver
of cold and loneliness, he stepped across the room to close the door,
and stood still, to gaze in astonishment at the sight before him. Up the
middle of the road came two figures, evidently engaged in some mad race.
The boy he recognized at once as being his Cousin Howard; but who was
the small Amazon who rushed along at his side, bareheaded and with her
short, thick hair flying in the wind, as she easily kept pace with the
longer strides of her brother? Surely, this could not be Allie, the
demure little maid who had met him with such easy, quiet grace! Charlie
knew little of girls and their ways; but he had always looked upon them
with a certain distrust, as being all-absorbed in their fine clothes and
their prim deportment. The few he had known in New York had done nothing
to alter his opinion, and it had never before occurred to him as a
possibility that a young girl could romp and run, and enjoy the free,
out-of-door life which is the rightful privilege of every healthy child.
This new revelation was quite to his liking, and his astonishment gave
place to interest and then to delight, as Allie gradually outstripped
her brother, and came flying up the steps far in advance of him, with a
triumphant shout of laughter, just as her cousin appeared in the open
doorway, loudly applauding her victory.

Early that evening Allie and her cousin were alone in the parlor, for
Mrs. Burnam was putting Victor to bed, Mr. Burnam had gone down to his
office for an hour, and Howard had gone out on an errand with the
Everett boys. The afternoon had been devoted to helping Charlie to
unpack and settle himself in his new quarters; and over this informal
occupation their acquaintance had made rapid strides, so it was with a
sense of duty well-performed that Allie curled herself up in the great
easy-chair before the pine knots blazing on the andirons, and turned to
look at the boy, pacing up and down the room. Divested of his long
ulster, which had called forth Howard's criticism, her cousin stood
before her, dressed, like many another boy, in the light brown suit of
the period, but with a grace of position and pride of carriage which had
made him a noticeable lad, even in the great city school, where he had
only been one of scores of well-dressed, well-trained boys. Allie
studied him for a moment in silence; then she gave a little contented
nod to herself, as she said interrogatively,--

"Well, Charlie?"

"Well?" he responded, as he came to a halt at her chair, and, folding
his arms on the back, stood looking down at her while she raised her
face to his.

"What were you thinking about?" she demanded. "Were you homesick or
tired, that made you look so sober?"

"I was thinking about New York," he answered candidly; "wondering about
some of the fellows in our school. They were a jolly set, and I'd like
to see them; but I'm not homesick a bit. I think I'm going to like it
here, when I get used to it."

"I suppose it does seem very strange to you," mused Allie, as if to
herself, while she watched the face above her, looking so thoughtful in
the flickering light. Then she added abruptly, "Come round where I can
talk to you, Charlie; I've something very important to say to you."

"Yes, ma'am," he answered, but without stirring from his place.

"Come," she insisted, patting the broad arm of her chair with an
inviting gesture. "I want to give you your first lesson in Western life;
and I can't talk to you half so well, when you're just back of me. If I
can't watch you, I sha'n't know when you're getting vexed and wishing
I'd stop."

"All right; fire ahead." And Charlie moved around to her side, where he
clasped his hands and brought his spectacles to bear upon her with an
owlish solemnity.

"That's a very good boy," said his cousin approvingly. Then she
continued, in a tone of elderly counsel, "Now, my dear child, I am about
to say a few words to you which shall be for your own good."

"Oh, I say," remonstrated Charlie, his dignity breaking down all at
once; "how old are you, Allie,--sixty, or seventy-five?"

"You shouldn't laugh," returned Allie, shaking her head at him
reproachfully. "That's just the way Mrs. Pennypoker talks to Ned and
Grant; I've heard her, lots of times. But now, truly, I wish you'd be
good and listen to me, for I do want to tell you something that will be
a help to you. The people out here are different from those you've seen,
and the ways aren't like those farther east. I don't know why 'tis, but
they hate to be reminded of it, and, when we came here, papa told us
never to say anything bad about the town, as if we didn't like it, for
we'd get everybody down on us. We did like it, though, so we didn't have
to fib. But now you're here you'd better just keep still about anything
that strikes you funny, when you're off with the boys. Then you can come
back and talk it over with me, when they aren't round, if you want to; I
don't mind; only don't let Howard hear you, for he'd tell the Everetts.
See? That's all; but I thought I'd warn you."

"You're a trump, Allie; and I'll try not to disgrace you," said Charlie
gratefully. "Of course, it seems awfully queer to me; but I won't give
it away, if I can help it. What's the matter now?" he demanded, as Allie
leaned back in her chair and burst into a peal of laughter.

"I was just thinking how funny 'twas," she answered; "only this morning
I was telling the boys that their slang would shock you, and they must
drop it; but here you are, every bit as bad as they. I don't believe
there's so much difference between Montana and New York, after all."

"'Tisn't the place, it's boys," responded Charlie sagely. "They're
pretty much the same, wherever you take them. I think the difference is
in the girls, and, if you please, I believe I prefer the Western ones."

Allie flushed rosy red at the unexpected compliment, but before she had
time to enjoy it, or to reply, there came a sudden knock at the
dining-room door, and Janey's black face peered in at the crack.

"Miss Allie, honey," she said in a wheedling tone, as she rolled up her
great eyes at her little mistress, "cyarn you get time to write a letter
for me, bymeby?"

"I'll come out as soon as Mr. Howard gets home, Janey," she answered;
then, as the head vanished and the door closed, she added to her cousin,
"Janey can't read nor write, so I have to do all her letters for her.
She's engaged to marry a man in Washington, and she says he's 'in de
guv'ment.' His name is Hamilton Lincoln Cornwallis; but he lives at
number seven and a half Goat Alley, so I don't believe he's President
yet. You've no idea how funny his letters are. Maybe she'll get you to
read one, some day."




CHAPTER III.

THE EVERETT HOUSEHOLD.


Mrs. Euphemia Pennypoker belonged to that unpleasant type of individuals
whose members, for lack of specific excellence, are commonly spoken of
by their friends as "thoroughly estimable women." She possessed all the
virtues, but none of the graces which make virtue attractive to the
youthful mind; and she regulated her daily life by a cast-iron code that
was as unvarying and heartless as the smile which sixty years of habit
had stamped upon her thin, bloodless lips. Mrs. Pennypoker was said to
have been handsome in her day, handsome with an austere, cold beauty;
but her day was long past, and the only remaining trace of her good
looks lay in her piercing gray eyes, and her long, straight Greek nose.
The eyes were undimmed by time; but the crow's-feet had gathered thick
about them, and the Greek nose was surmounted by a pair of large, round
eye-glasses, which only served to intensify the sternness of the eyes
behind them. To the children around her, there was something
awe-inspiring in those eye-glasses, and in the broad black ribbon which
held them suspended about her neck. In times of peace, they had the
appearance of being on the watch for some hidden sin; but when occasion
for punishment arose, there was something positively terrifying in their
glare, and the culprit longed for his last hour to come, that he might
escape from their power.

Dame Nature had been in a generous mood when she had endowed Mrs.
Pennypoker, for she had given her a massive frame and constitution of
bronze, which made her thoroughly intolerant of those unfortunates who
were not similarly blessed. But, impressive as Mrs. Pennypoker was in
most respects, there was yet one undignified peculiarity which marred
the otherwise perfect majesty of her appearance. Like Samson, her
vulnerable point lay in her hair; or, more properly speaking, in her
lack of it. The ravages of time had removed a part of her dark brown
locks, and left an oval bald spot, closely resembling the tonsure of a
Romish priest. This defect was usually covered with an elaborate pile of
braids and puffs; but occasionally the slippery surface of her bald
crown and the power of gravitation proved too much for her hair-pins,
and the whole structure slipped backward, to reveal a shining expanse of
milk-white skin, gleaming forth from the dark tresses surrounding it.
Moreover, rumor had been known to whisper that there was something
peculiar about the rich brown hue of Mrs. Pennypoker's hair; that it was
remarkable for a person of her age to be so free from the silver threads
common among far younger women; and that, strangest of all, she was
subject to periodical variations of color, her hair turning gray at the
ends and then resuming its original tint, while, incredible as it might
seem, the change always appeared at the ends nearest her scalp, though
the tips of her hairs retained all their wonted lustre.

Coming from far-away New England, Mrs. Pennypoker was true to the blood
of her Puritan ancestry. She had in her composition much of the stuff of
which martyrs are made. She could have gone to the stake for her
opinions; but she could just as cheerfully have turned the tables, and
piled the fagots high about the misguided heretics who ventured to
disagree with her own peculiar doctrines. Ever on the alert to find out
the path of duty and to walk in it, she had promptly accepted the
proposition of her distant cousin, Mr. Everett, to become his
housekeeper, after the death of his wife; and, forsaking all her old
associations, she had girded herself and her trunks, and, with her
parrot as her sole companion, she had retired to the wilderness to
subdue the dragons of anarchy and chaos which had probably entered into
the Everett household.

Her first dragon proved to be a very long-tailed one; and though he was
promptly met, he was by no means so promptly subdued. An hour after her
arrival, she had penetrated to the kitchen, where she was suddenly
confronted by Wang Kum, the shoe-button-eyed Chinaman who had been in
the service of Mrs. Everett for months before her death. In their first
interview, Mrs. Pennypoker was ignominiously routed and driven from the
field, for Wang Kum ignored her stony gaze, and cheerfully and volubly
chattered to her in a torrent of Pidgin-English which left her no
opportunity for reply; so she withdrew, resolving that her first reform
should be the removal of Wang from office. However, on this question Mr.
Everett was determined; Wang Kum had been their faithful servant, and
knew the ways of their household; moreover, he had been devoted to Mrs.
Everett during her last illness, and in that kitchen Wang Kum should
stay. Defeated in this main object, Mrs. Pennypoker next devoted herself
to the task of civilization, and waged daily warfare with the Chinaman,
in her endeavors to convert him to American ways and dress, and
Calvinistic theology.

"Old lady heap talkee; Wang Kum no care," he used to confide to Louise
Everett, after an unusually long and tedious fray. "Wang min' Miss Lou;
old lady too flesh."

Four years before this time, when the Blue Creek copper mine was opened
and the building of the great smelter had brought to the creek the first
settlers of the mining camp, Mr. Everett had been made superintendent of
the mine, and had brought his family out to be with him. Of his three
children, Louise was now in the first flush of young womanhood, a
pretty, graceful blonde of twenty, who had been educated in an Eastern
school until the sudden death of her mother had called her home to take
charge of the housekeeping, before Mrs. Pennypoker appeared upon the
scene, to relieve her of the care, and act as matron to watch over her
young cousin with an eagle eye. For the past few years, Louise had been
away from home so much of the time that the loss of her mother fell
less heavily upon her than on her young brothers, who had been the
constant companions of the bright, pretty little woman who had devoted
her life to theirs.

Mrs. Pennypoker was scarcely the person to make good their loss; and Ned
and Grant would have had a lonely life, had it not been for motherly
Mrs. Burnam, whose heart was large enough to take in all the children
with whom she came in contact. The Everetts were likable boys, too, just
the companions she would have chosen for Howard and Allie: gay and
mischievous, as every healthy boy should be, but with the high sense of
honor and firm principle which can only come from a good mother and
careful home training. Ned, the older one, at thirteen was the image of
his father, with a rich, dark beauty which made him a striking contrast
to Grant's light yellow hair and pink and white cheeks. Grant was his
mother's own boy, in all but his eyes, which were like his father's,
large and brown; and he had received his mother's maiden name, just as
he had received the features and complexion of her family.

Of all the members of the Everett household, Grant was the only one who
felt no fear of Mrs. Pennypoker. Even his father was far more in
subjection to her rule than was his little son. Grant had been the first
to discover her bald spot--which he promptly christened her storm
centre--and to call Ned's attention to it; and therein lay much of his
power over her. Now, whenever Mrs. Euphemia threatened to get the better
of him, he had only to fix his eyes steadily on the top of her head, or
abstractedly rub his hand over his own yellow pate, to cause her to
abandon her lecture and escape to her mirror, in order to assure herself
that all was as it should be.

The Everetts lived a little to the west of the Burnam's, in what was
usually spoken of as "one of the old houses," to distinguish it from the
more modern structures of brick and boards. This particular old house
was, in fact, the oldest one in the camp, for it had been built by the
superintendent for his family, when the other inhabitants of the place
were still living in tents pitched along the edge of the creek. Like
most of the other houses of the town, it was a one-story building, low
and rambling, with odd wings and projections, which had been added to
the original square structure as the needs of the family demanded. It
was built of rough-hewn logs, but the front was coated with clapboards,
in deference to the prevailing style of architecture, which literally
put its best foot forward.

Within, the walls were guiltless of lath or plaster, but were covered
with strips of cotton cloth, to which the wall-paper was pasted. At
certain seasons, this imparted a peculiar effect to the rooms, for, in
the fierce winter gales, occasional breezes would work their way through
the crannies of the wall and cause the paper and its cloth background to
sway backwards and forwards, to the horror of the stranger unused to
such modes of finish, since the sight of the walls swaying and wriggling
before his eyes could only be satisfactorily explained as the result of
intoxication, or of temporary insanity. The same stranger would have
stopped short in surprise, on entering the Everetts' clumsy log-house.
In spite of its unattractive exterior, it was a cosy, luxurious
dwelling, with furniture, draperies and pictures which would do credit
to any Eastern city house; for Mrs. Everett had loved pretty things, and
had gathered them about her in the hope of making home the spot most
enjoyable for her children.

The Everetts were gathered around the table for their late dinner, one
night in February, soon after Charlie's arrival in Blue Creek. At the
head of the table sat Mrs. Pennypoker, who never appeared so majestic
as when she was presiding over the bountifully spread board, for Mrs.
Pennypoker was what is known as a liberal provider, and had a lingering
fondness, herself, for the good things of this earth. To-night, she was
unusually benign, for Wang Kum had outdone himself, and the soup was the
perfection of flavoring, the roast done to a turn; so she could relax
her anxious scrutiny of the appointments of the table, and lend an ear
to what Mr. Everett was saying to his daughter.

"Yes, Mr. Nelson came down to the office to see me to-day. It seems he's
been talking up the matter of a boy choir, and he wants Ned and Grant,
here, to sing in it. He's going to have Howard, and he's heard that
Charlie sings; then there are about a dozen little German fellows, and
some men. I told him I'd no objection, and I'd ask the boys what they
thought."

"He said something about it to me, after service last night," answered
Louise, who acted as organist at the little Episcopal chapel. "He said
he wanted to get his plans all made as soon as he could, so we could go
to work on the vestments and begin training, to have the choir ready to
sing at Easter. I told him that both the boys sang, but I didn't know
what you'd say to it."

"I'm willing," Mr. Everett was beginning, when Mrs. Pennypoker
interrupted him.

"Do you mean," she asked with icy distinctness, as she leaned forward
over the table to add emphasis to her words, "that you are going to let
your sons sing in one of those choirs that march into church with their
night-gowns on, and singsong the answers to what the priest says?"

"Why, yes," said Mr. Everett, smiling at his cousin, in the hope of
calming her disgust. "Yes; that is, if that's what you call it. The boys
both have good voices, and it certainly won't hurt them any, for Mr.
Nelson knows how to train them well."

"Humph!" returned Mrs. Pennypoker uncompromisingly. "It's my belief that
they'd much better go to hear good old Dr. Hornblower, and let this
flummery alone. Your Nelson man is no better than a papist, with his
colored windows and his chants and all; and, now he's succeeded in
getting his new chapel, there'll be no stopping him."

"Just watch the storm centre," whispered Grant to his brother, as Mrs.
Pennypoker ended her remark with an expressive, but ill-advised shake
of her head. "It's coming into action fast."

"I am glad you feel satisfied with the doctor," answered Mr. Everett,
looking squarely into the face of his irate relative. "He is doubtless a
good man; but my wife was a member of Mr. Nelson's church, and her
children have always been accustomed to going there, so I think they
would better continue. Another thing I started to tell you, Lou," he
went on, as he turned to his daughter again, "I hear that, at last, Blue
Creek is to have a new doctor. There's a young fellow from one of the
Eastern colleges on his way out here to settle. The Fullertons know him,
and say he's a brilliant man. It's about time we had somebody, for since
old Dr. Meacham died, nobody's dared be ill, for fear they'd die before
a doctor could get over from Butte."

"And when this one comes, we're all going to celebrate by being ill; is
that what you mean, papa?" Louise asked playfully, as she shook her head
at Grant, who was stretching up, to peer curiously at the top of Mrs.
Pennypoker's head, where a pale crescent was gradually appearing and
waxing wider. "When's he coming?"

"Not for five or six weeks," her father answered; "so you'll have to
keep well for a while longer. He's on his way; but he's going to visit
some friends in Omaha and Denver, before he gets here."

"Hullo!" exclaimed Ned suddenly.

"What's struck you?" asked Grant.

"Nothing; only I was wondering if this could be the same man Charlie Mac
was telling about. He met a young man on the train, papa, who came from
Chicago to the Bluffs with him. He had next section, so they talked
some, and he told Charlie he was from way back East, and was coming to
Blue Creek, too. He said he'd never been here, and asked Charlie all
manner of questions about the place and all."

"I don't believe he found out much," said Grant with a giggle. "Charlie
hadn't any more idea than a dead man what 'twas going to be like out
here."

"No; but he's done pretty well since he came, though," said Ned
admiringly. "He's acted as if 'twere just what he'd always been used to.
It's my belief that Allie's been coaching him; he'd never get on so well
by himself, I know."

"He came pretty near finishing himself, the second day he was here, all
the same," added Grant. "Did you hear about it, papa? Nobody'd told him
to look out a little, till he was used to this air. He started out to
run, and it used him up in no time, so he turned blue-white, and nearly
dropped. He's taking it slowly, now; and is getting into it by little
and little."

"By the way," asked Louise suddenly; "what has become of Marjorie? I
haven't seen her for a week."

"She's under punishment," replied Ned lugubriously; "and we haven't any
of us seen her since the afternoon we were out skating, just before
Charlie came. I don't know exactly what 'tis; but it must be something
pretty bad, for her mother to keep her away so long."

"Marjorie is always getting herself into trouble, it seems to me," said
Mr. Everett, laughing indulgently as he spoke, for he had a genuine
liking for this active, flyaway young girl, whose heart was as true and
kind as her impulses were hasty and rash.

"So she is," returned Ned defensively; "but she flies into everything
head first, and without thinking much about it; and then she goes into
the depths of gunny-sacks and cinders afterwards, when it's too late to
do any good."

"That isn't a very helpful kind of penitence," remarked Mrs.
Pennypoker, looking up from her plate.

"It's a very natural one, I am afraid," said Mr. Everett charitably.
"Then Marjorie hasn't seen this new friend of yours?"

"No, not yet," Grant answered. "It's a shame, too, for she was in a
hurry to get a look at him. He is a first-rate fellow, really, papa; and
doesn't seem a bad tenderfoot, even to old-timers like Ned and me. What
do you want, Wang?" he added, as Wang Kum's head appeared at the door.

"Mas' How'd, he here," announced Wang briefly. "He no come in; wan'
you." And he vanished, followed by the boys, who hurried out in search
of their friend.

In the mean time, at the Burnam's a short conversation was taking place,
which would have enlightened the boys on the subject of Charlie's easy
adaptability to his new surroundings. It was his habit to practise for
an hour after dinner each night, and Allie was usually beside him. She
loved music as well as did her cousin, and was content to settle herself
on a wide sofa drawn up beside the piano, sometimes with a book, but
more often idly leaning back against the cushions, with her eyes fixed
on her cousin's face, as he gradually lost all consciousness of her
presence in his enjoyment of the music. Young boy as he was, and a
normal, healthy boy, too, Charlie had undoubted genius in this one
direction, and added to a rare talent for music the skill gained by five
years of study under the best master that the city could afford, until,
both in subject and method, his playing was far beyond what one would
naturally expect in a lad of his years. It had been a great delight to
him to find that Allie cared for his music, and could understand the
varying moods which he tried to express in his hours of practice. The
two cousins really had their best times in these nightly visits, for
when his regular time of practice was over, Charlie would still linger
at the piano, playing in a soft, fitful undertone, while they discussed
the events of the day, or planned for the morrow's program. The week
they had been together had quickly ripened their first liking for each
other into a close friendship; and after a day of out-of-door frolics
with the other boys, Charlie had learned to look forward to the time of
talking it over with Allie, and listening to her merry, whimsical
comments on what they had done and seen. But, on this particular night,
Charlie was bound on gaining information.

"If you please, ma'am," he began, as he let his hands fall from the
keys, and turned to face his cousin.

"Oh--yes--what?" responded Allie, gradually rousing herself from her
story.

"If you please, I'd like to ask a question," he said meekly. "I'm in
want of a few pointers."

"Well?" and Allie was all attention, as she smiled up at her cousin's
perplexed face.

"In the first place, how much is a bit?" demanded Charlie.

"Twelve and a half cents," she answered promptly. "Why?"

"I don't know as I dare tell," Charlie replied, with a shamefaced laugh.

"Go on," urged Allie curiously. "I'm sure it's something funny, and you
know I never tell tales."

"Well, if you'll promise, true blue. You see, I wanted some new rubbers,
for mine were all full of holes, and I was tired of going round with wet
feet; so I went down town this morning and tried to buy some. The clerk
said they were six bits, but I didn't know how much that was, and didn't
want to say so, so I told him that I didn't quite like the kind, and
went off."

"You've a great mind, Charlie," said Allie approvingly. "Everybody here
counts by bits; two make a quarter; and then, you know, we don't have
any pennies here, nothing smaller than a five-cent piece. Remember that,
and don't offer anybody a penny, even if it's a beggar. Go on; what
next?"

"That's about all, for this time," he answered. "Oh, no; there's one
thing more. What's that queer place down south of here, all fenced in,
and with little bits of log cabins scattered around as if they'd just
been dropped out of a pepper-box?"

"That's Chinatown," said Allie, laughing at the accuracy of the
description. "We must get papa to take us there, some day. But now I
want to tell you something. You know Marjorie Fisher?"

"Can't say I do," returned Charlie flippantly.

"Yes, I know what you mean," interrupted Allie; "but you know who she
is, and you want to know her, herself, for she's great fun. She's
been--busy, this last week; but I had a note from her to-night, and she
wants us all to come down there to-morrow afternoon for a candy-pull. I
told her we'd go, so she's going to stop here after school and wait for
you and Howard, and we'll all go on together. The Everetts will be
there, too, and we shall be sure to have a good time; we always do at
Marjorie's."




CHAPTER IV.

ON THE CROSS-HEAD.


    "The bees and the wasps were there.
    The old queen bee, with fiendish glee,
    Was pulling a hornet's hair.
    The monkey thought 'twas rough;
    He took a pinch of snuff,
    And then the bees began to sneeze,
    And left,"--

sang a clear, boyish voice outside, and the next moment steps were heard
on the piazza.

"Who's that?" asked Marjorie, glancing up from the skating cap, which,
with infinite pains, she was crocheting, in thoughtful anticipation of
Howard's birthday, the following summer.

"Charlie; don't you know his voice?" responded Allie, who was sitting
with one foot tucked under her, while she sewed the buttons on her shoe.

"How should I? I've never heard him sing," answered Marjorie.

"You will soon, for he and Ned are to lead the new choir at Easter.
Charlie seems to be feeling unusually comf'y to-day," said his cousin,
as the boy came in at the side door opening into the dining-room, and
walked over to the corner where they were sitting, curled up by the
stove. "Where'd you get that pretty song?" she added.

"Made it up, of course; didn't you know I was a poet?" inquired Charlie
blandly, while he nodded to Marjorie, and then pulled off his glasses to
wipe away the steam condensed on them by the sudden change from the cold
outer air to the heat within the house.

"I never should have supposed so," Marjorie answered, laughing. "You
look altogether too plump and well-fed."

"Can't help it; you can't tell by looking at a toad how far he'll hop. I
wrote it 'all my lone,' as Vic says," responded Charlie. "I'm very proud
of it, too."

"Sit down and amuse us," said Allie, hospitably drawing a chair nearer
the fire.

"No, thank you; I'm engaged, and must be going," returned Charlie, with
a lofty air of importance which was not without its effect upon his
cousin.

"What's going on?" she asked curiously. "I told Marjorie that you acted
unusually set up over something."

"I met Mr. Everett just now, and he told me that, if I'd get over to the
smelter at three, he'd let me go down the mine this afternoon."

"O Charlie, take us with you," begged his cousin, starting up, forgetful
of the fact that she was still without one shoe. "I've never been, and I
do want to go, so much."

"Can't; girls aren't invited," said Charlie heartlessly. "He did say
that he'll take us all at once, though, as soon as they put the cage in,
next month; but he doesn't like to take but one at a time, on this thing
they're running now. I wish you could go, for 'twould be lots more fun."

"'Tisn't much to go down," said Marjorie, with an air of superior
wisdom. "It's dark and slippery, and not any too clean; and you have to
get out of the way of something or other, most every minute."

"Yes, I know," said Allie; "it's all very well to say that, when you've
been; but I never had a chance to go. I was ill the time Howard went;
and now I shall be the only one left that hasn't been down. I hope
you'll have an awfully good time, though, Charlie, and not get lost, or
smashed, or anything else that's bad, while you're underground. Isn't it
growing colder?" she added, as Charlie turned up the collar of his
ulster and scientifically pinched the edges of his ears, preparatory to
starting out once more.

"'T isn't exactly balmy," he answered. "Want anything, before I go?" And
a moment later the door closed behind him.

"You're a lucky girl, Allie," said Marjorie, while she watched the
figure striding along down the road. "Even Ned says he's the jolliest
fellow in town, all but Howard."

"Yes, 't is good to have him here," said Allie contentedly, as she
slipped on her shoe and stooped to button it up. "He's just as
good-natured and nice as he can be; and I think I like him better than
any boy I ever saw, except Howard, even if he hasn't been here quite a
month."

"Not better than Ned?" Marjorie exclaimed incredulously.

"Well--no--I don't know," said Allie, wavering a little. "Ned's just
about as near right as he can be; but I believe, after all, I'd rather
live in the house with Charlie. Ned might be a little too peppery for a
steady diet."

"I never thought you'd turn a cold shoulder to Ned," said Marjorie,
shaking her head over Allie's defection. "Charlie's very nice and
gentlemanly, and all that, but I don't believe he has half Ned's pluck.
Do you remember the time he sprained his wrist falling off his pony, way
up the gulch, and wouldn't tell of it till we were home again? I don't
think Charlie Mac would stand that kind of thing long. There's no
special reason he shouldn't be agreeable; we've all of us tried our best
to make him have a good time."

"Charlie isn't a baby, though," returned Allie, valiantly rising to the
defence of her cousin. "You think, just because he knows more about
music than 'most anybody else in the camp, and looks and acts as if he
came from a city, that he's more than half girl. But I'll tell you he
isn't, Marjorie, and if anything came to try him, you'd find he'd come
up to the mark every bit as well as Ned. I don't know as I care to have
anything happen, though, just for the sake of proving it."

In the mean time, the subject of the conversation was walking rapidly in
the direction of the smelter, whose pile of huge red buildings lay a
little to the southeast of the town, across the creek and close to the
foot of the mountain which towered above it sheer and straight. A few
hundred feet down the canon below it, and a little farther back from the
creek, was the shaft leading down into the mine, and beside it the
engine house with the machinery needful for raising the ore, and for
carrying the miners to and from the cross-cuts, hundreds of feet below.

Though he had often been to the smelter with Ned and Grant, it was the
first time that Charlie had visited the place alone. He felt very small
and insignificant, as he stepped inside the enclosure, with its array of
great buildings, mammoth chimneys whence rose the smoke from countless
and undying fires, and its throng of busy workers. Then he entered the
little building which served as superintendent's office, and in a moment
the whir and clang of the outer life was left behind him, and he found
himself in a quiet, pleasant room, with only a collection of maps and
photographs and specimens of ores, to tell of the vast business
centering there. As the boy shyly came in at the door, Mr. Everett rose
to receive him.

"O Charlie, you're just on the minute, and I'm all ready for you," he
said, glancing up at the clock.

"Somers, I'm going down the shaft with this young man; if anybody wants
me, tell him I'll be here at five." And, putting on his overcoat, he
went away, followed by Charlie, who was filled with an eager enthusiasm
at the idea of going so far towards the center of the earth.

"I'm sorry," Mr. Everett said, as they followed a path winding in and
out among the buildings, and then came out on the main road leading to
the shaft; "I'm sorry that we haven't time to take in the smelter, too,
to-day; but you can go there almost any time. Any of the men in the
office can take you through it, as well as I can; but I don't let
strangers go into the mine unless I'm with them. We're going to put in a
new cage, next month," he added casually, as they drew near the shaft.

"What's that for?" asked Charlie, to whom cages and their construction
were a mystery.

"Safer, and can carry more," answered his host concisely. "These
cross-heads and buckets are slow work. A two-deck cage will do the same
amount in much less time, and there's no fear of their catching, as
these do sometimes."

As he spoke, they paused to look at the gearing of windlass and cable at
the mouth of the shaft; then Charlie cautiously approached the opening.
After all he had heard of mines and shafts, it was rather disappointing
to him to see only a great, square hole leading down into the depths of
the earth. What he had expected, it would be hard to say; but it is
certain that his disappointment deepened when, after three strokes from
the engineer's bell, the hoisting engine suddenly started into life,
and, out from the darkness of the shaft, there slowly emerged into view
an ungainly contrivance of four great timbers, arranged in a hollow
square and hung on a cable, which passed freely through openings in the
upper and lower timbers, to carry a huge bucket fastened to its end,
while a black-faced miner stood in the bucket, much in the attitude of a
jack-in-the-box after the spring is loosed.

"That's what we call the cross-head, above," explained Mr. Everett. "It
slides free on the rope, and rests on the fastening of the bucket. Now
you see how we bring up the ore."

"But do we have to go down in that thing?" inquired Charlie, drawing
back in disgust, as he surveyed the grimy, dusty bucket before him.

"Not unless you prefer it," Mr. Everett answered, laughing. "It's
against rules to ride in it; and anyway I usually go on the cross-head,
myself, for the bucket reminds me too much of Simple Simon. Step on
here," he added, as the crude elevator sank down until the upper beam
was on a level with the surface of the ground. "Now, if you just hold
on to the rope, you're all right. Let us go slowly, Joe," he went on, to
the waiting engineer; "I want to take a look at the shaft, as we go
down. We'll try the seven-hundred level to-day."

A moment later, they began to sink away from the light above them, while
the opening at the mouth of the shaft grew smaller and smaller to their
eyes, and their lamps only cast a sickly, uncertain light on the walls
beside them. They went down slowly, so slowly, that, as soon as he had
had time to accustom himself to the new sensation, Charlie had plenty of
opportunity to examine the walls. For the most part, they were roughly
cased with boards and surrounded at intervals by the massive
collar-timbers, projecting ten or twelve inches inside the boards. At
each side of the shaft were the heavy upright guides, running from top
to bottom and serving to keep in place the cross-head, which was fitted
to move easily between them. Down, down they went, for what seemed to
the boy a limitless distance. They had passed a great square chamber,
opening into along, lighted corridor which Mr. Everett had told him were
the station and cross-cut at the four-hundred level, and still they were
sinking. All at once they came to a sudden stop, and the next instant
Charlie felt the rope he was holding slowly drawing down through his
hands. Mr. Everett gave a quick exclamation.

"Let go the rope!" he commanded abruptly.

"I'm perfectly willing," answered Charlie, laughing, as he rubbed his
tingling palms. "What's up, anyway? We don't seem to be anywhere in
particular."

"We're caught a little," replied Mr. Everett quietly. "You needn't be
frightened, for it's happened before. All is, the cross-head has caught,
and the bucket is going down without us, and taking the rope with it.
Have you a steady head?"

"I s'pose so," said Charlie lightly, for, in his ignorance of mines, he
had no idea of the possible danger of his position.

"Very well; can you turn around and step down on the beam that's just
below us?" returned Mr. Everett, still speaking in the same calm voice,
though with the brevity of a captain giving his orders on a field of
battle. "If you can, do it, and then put your arm around the back of the
guide there. So; that's all right."

In another moment, he had followed Charlie, and taken his place beside
him on the other side of the guide, where he showed the boy how to grasp
the timber in such a way that the cross-head, coming up, should not
touch his arm. That done, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"There!" he said; "now we're safe for the time being. The next question
is: how are we going to get out of this trap?"

"Why couldn't we stay on the cross-head?" asked Charlie, as it began to
move slowly away from the spot where it had lodged.

"Just that reason," returned Mr. Everett, with a motion of his head
towards the clumsy frame which, once loosed, went sliding away down the
rope after the bucket. "Though you may not have known it, young man, you
were never in a much more dangerous place than you were five minutes
ago; for, as soon as it could get free, the cross-head was going to
crash down on top of the bucket, with force enough to kill anybody that
happened to be on it. I knew 'twould go, sooner or later; but I didn't
feel so sure that we could get off in time."

"Then it's done it before?" asked Charlie, in no wise moved by the
knowledge of his past danger, but, boy-like, rather enjoying the novelty
of his position, halfway down the shaft of the mine, and lodged like a
fly on the wall, with only a narrow beam between himself and a fall of
four or five hundred feet.

"Once," answered Mr. Everett, amused, in spite of his anxiety, by the
boy's coolness. "It killed four men on the cross-head, and the one in
the bucket; but they have such accidents in the other mines often
enough, so we know about what the chances are. That's one reason we're
going to put in a cage. Now," he went on, resuming his tone of
authority, "don't you try to move, and, above all, don't look down. I'm
going to get round to the other side, where I can reach the bell-rope,
and signal the engineer to bring up the cross-head again."

"Not walk around on this beam!" exclaimed Charlie, as his interest
changed to genuine alarm, for he realized that such an attempt was a
very different matter from standing quiet and holding on by the upright
timber between them.

"There's no other way," Mr. Everett answered, as he started on his
perilous journey. "I can't reach to signal, from this side, and they
never would find us without. We can't very well stay here, so that seems
to be the only thing I can do. You needn't be alarmed, my boy," he added
kindly, as he saw that the lad was now thoroughly frightened for his
safety. "I am used to all these ins and outs, and know about what I can
do, even if I never happened to get caught just here before. We miners
get to be half monkeys, and can hang on where most men would fall."

He cautiously moved away a few inches along the beam; then he turned
back to add one parting caution.

[Illustration: "He cautiously moved away a few inches along the beam."]

"Remember," he said, "and don't try to look down, even if you think you
hear the cross-head coming up again. If you do, you are likely to get
dizzy and fall."

How long it took for Mr. Everett to creep around the shaft, neither he
nor Charlie ever knew. To them both, the moments seemed long, but to Mr.
Everett, in particular, they were like hours, for he realized so keenly
all the danger of their position, and felt the added responsibility for
the young boy in his care. Inch by inch, step by step, he worked his way
forward, until at length he reached the opposite guide, and felt the
signal cord between his fingers. Then he knew that all trouble was
ended.

One, two, three! rang out the engineer's bell.

The engineer was perplexed. He had been lowering the bucket more and
more slowly, and still there had reached him no summons to stop,
although his dial told him that the cross-head must be far below the
seven-hundred level. And now came the summons to raise slowly, when he
was sure that it was near the level of no station. What was the matter?
It was evident that there was some trouble.

Slowly the engine drew up the bucket. It had passed the six-hundred
level, then the five, and was now half way to the four-hundred, when the
bell rang again, a single stroke this time, the order to stop. The
engine was left motionless for some moments, while the engineer, with an
anxious face, stood awaiting a fresh signal. He knew that something was
wrong, and that it must concern the superintendent, since he had been
the last man to go down. He spoke a few quick words to his assistant,
and in a moment more a little crowd had gathered at the mouth of the
shaft, just as the bell sounded again, three strokes.

Standing once more on the cross-head, Mr. Everett and Charlie could feel
the man's excitement in the very motion of their tiny platform, as,
obedient to the engine, it rose a little, then stopped, then rose again,
as if feeling its way over an uncertain course. So they went on till the
four-hundred level was below them; then the engine quickened its action.
Little by little the tiny dot above them broadened, and turned to a wide
disk of blue sky; and their lamps dwindled to a pale yellow before the
clear light of day, as the cross-head, with its living freight, slowly
came up into the bright air, amid the shouts of the men who stood
waiting to receive it.

"Father said Joe was badly rattled," Ned told Charlie, that night, on
their way to a choir rehearsal. "He was sure 'twas all up with you, and
came near losing his head, so he couldn't run the engine, or answer a
signal."

"I didn't suppose 'twas as bad as that," returned Charlie. "I didn't
much like your father's having to walk round on that beam, or whatever
you call it, but I thought the rest was good fun."

"I told father that I didn't believe you knew enough to be scared," said
Ned, with masculine frankness. "He was talking, all dinner-time, about
the way you kept cool and didn't make a fuss. Father was frightened,
himself; he's never been in such a fix before, with all he's had to do
with mines, and he says he's going to hurry now, to get that cage put in
before they get into any more scrapes. But I just wish I'd been down
there with you," he added enviously. "It's ever so much more fun than
'tis to go straight down, without any hitches."

"I'll wait till I've tried both, before I make up my mind," responded
Charlie, as they reached the door of the chapel, and turned to wait for
Howard and Grant to overtake them.




CHAPTER V.

THE MEETING IN THE WATERS.


Three weeks had passed since Charlie's unsuccessful attempt to explore
the inside of a mine, and now the last of March had come. Already the
boy had begun to feel as much at home with his cousins and in the mining
camp, as if he had always lived in Blue Creek. Had the change from his
old surroundings been less abrupt and marked, he might have had
occasional twinges of homesickness; but everything about him was so new
and strange, and so full of interest, that it left him no opportunity to
mourn for his former life, save when the memory of his mother and of his
loss of her came fresh upon him, to bring him an hour of keen sorrow.
And now, as the weeks went on, although he never forgot her, still he
learned to turn to his aunt for a sympathy and guidance which in a
measure replaced the love that his mother had lavished upon him; while,
on her side, Mrs. Burnam soon came to look on him quite as her own boy,
and daily rejoiced in the close intimacy which had sprung up between
Charlie and his cousins.

The time had been as busy as it was happy. In the absence of any good
schools in the camp, Howard and the Everett boys studied under the
supervision of Mr. Nelson, who gave up his mornings to them; and Charlie
had joined them the week after he reached Blue Creek. Marjorie and
Allie, too, went every morning to have a few simple lessons from the
widow of one of Mr. Everett's former clerks,--a gentle, low-voiced
Southern woman who, left alone to make her own way in this new country,
was glad to help support herself by taking occasional private pupils.
Accordingly, at a little before nine o'clock every morning, the
procession of six formed in front of the Everetts and marched down the
street for half a mile, where they separated, to go to their different
tutors for three or four hours of work.

The unvarying program of the morning was followed by a hasty lunch; and,
after that, there were few afternoons when the children did not meet.
There were rare hours on the ice, when the skating was good; there was
coasting such as Charlie had never dreamed of before, for in a country
where all the land stood up on edge, as Grant expressed it, and where
fences were unknown, it was easy to find the long, smooth slopes which
are the delight of every owner of a good sled. Best of all, to Charlie's
mind, were the long afternoons of running on snow-shoes, when they
explored the canon far to the north and south, or penetrated the deep,
narrow gulch at the west of the camp. This last sport was especially
delightful to the boy, for it gave him a wild sense of exhilaration to
go sliding and scuffling along over three or four feet of snow, or coast
lazily down the tiny hillocks in his path; and, under the instructions
of his cousins, he quickly became skilled in the use of his runners,
until he could easily hold his place at the head of the party, or turn a
sharp corner without treading on his own or his neighbor's heels.

All this was excellent fun while it lasted, but far too soon came the
time of melting snows, when skates and sleds and snow-shoes all had to
be laid aside to wait for another winter. It had been a season of
exceptionally deep snow, and the firm, hard crust lasted far past its
usual time for thawing. Then came the chinook, the warm south wind,
which eats away the accumulated snow of months in as many days; and the
great white banks first grew porous, and then slowly sank away, while
the water ran in streams along the streets, or lingered in still pools
far under the unbroken crust, waiting to drench the unwary passerby who
should venture to set foot upon their treacherous covering.

It was the afternoon before Easter, and Louise Everett was just
preparing to start for the chapel, to help try the vestments on the boys
of the new choir. She had lingered in the doorway for a moment to watch
her brothers, who had gone on before her, laughing and shouting as they
floundered along, now walking a few steps on top of the snow, now
suddenly sinking down, up to the waist, as they chanced to find a spot
where the chinook had done more rapid work. As she looked after them,
she saw, crossing the road, one of the stray cows that wandered about
the town. The ungainly animal came slowly along, turning this way and
that, in search of a firmer footing, until all at once her hind legs
plunged down into a hole, and the poor creature was left sitting bolt
upright and staring stupidly about her, as if in astonishment at her
unwonted position. Louise laughed at the absurd picture, but her heart
failed her a little when she thought of the long walk in store for her.

"I've a great mind not to go," she said to herself; "the walking is so
bad, and they don't really need me. I wish I'd sent the bundle down by
the boys."

But she turned away and went to her room to put on her hat and jacket,
for it was never her habit to fail to keep an engagement, and she had
promised to be at the chapel that afternoon.

Perhaps it was the special providence supposed to watch over those who
are doing their duty, perhaps it was because her light, quick steps made
little impression on the snow; but more than two thirds of her walk was
over, and the crust had not once given way beneath her. She was within
sight of the chapel, now, but before she reached it, she must cross the
small, open square, where the two main streets of the town came
together. It was only fifteen or twenty yards, at most, but it lay lower
than the ground about it, and the snow showed dark patches, here and
there, as if the water had gathered below, and was trying to force its
way to the surface. Louise glanced doubtfully at the square; but there
was no other way she could take, and there were fresh footprints leading
across it, showing that some one had been just before her. Moreover, she
was late, and there was no time to be lost. With her skirts gathered
closely about her, and the great bundle grasped in her other hand, she
cautiously started forward, testing the ground at every step, before
trusting her weight upon it. Slowly and carefully she went on, and was
just congratulating herself upon her success, when--fwsch! There was a
sound of crunching and gurgling, and her left foot plunged down through
the snow, into six inches of water beneath, with a shock that threw the
bundle from her hand, and jolted her hat over her eyes. With a smothered
groan of mortification, she scrambled up to a solid footing once more,
while she thrust back her hat, and gave a hasty glance over her
shoulder, to assure herself that no one was in sight.

Not a human being was visible, except one man who was turning a distant
corner. For so much, at least, she could be thankful. But it was plain
that a further advance in that direction was impossible, and that she
must beat a retreat. Accordingly, she picked up her bundle and turned to
retrace her steps, moving with even greater caution than before, and
stepping only in her previous tracks. However, the strain of one
crossing was all that the weakened crust could bear, and the third step
let her down again, far into the cold snow-water below, while her hat
took a fresh lurch, this time to one side, and two or three hair-pins
flew from her glossy yellow braids. Her situation was fast becoming
tragic; but Louise gathered herself up anew and turned to the right,
only to plunge in deeper than before; to the left, to meet with the same
fate. Desperately she tried one spot after another. Now painfully
scrambling to an insecure footing on top of the crust, now violently
descending into the depths again, until the snow about her was marked
thick with deep, round holes, and her feet were drenched and well-nigh
frozen with the icy water which trickled up and down inside her shoes,
as she lifted now her toes and now her heels from the horizontal.

"Pardon me, madam, but you seem to be in trouble. Can I assist you?"
inquired a courteous voice behind her.

Slowly and painfully Louise turned around in her miniature well. Then
she blushed to the roots of her hair. Ten feet away from her, on the
outer edge of the square, stood a stranger, who was watching her with
an air of respectful sympathy, which was entirely out of harmony with
the amused twinkle of his gray eyes. One quick glance told the girl that
the stranger was young and undeniably good-looking; then her eyes
dropped to the bundle in her hand, as she answered,--

"Thank you, but I'm caught here, and can't seem to find a spot that will
bear me. Don't trouble yourself; I shall get out in a moment. Oh, don't
try to come here!" she added hastily, as he made a motion as if to go
nearer her. "If you do, you will never get out."

The stranger paused doubtfully and looked at her again. There was a tone
of good-breeding in her voice, and, as he came nearer, he saw that she
was pretty, with a delicate, refined beauty which was not in keeping
with her great bundle, her bedraggled appearance, and the hat cocked
rakishly over one ear, above the drooping braids of yellow hair. At
first sight, he had taken her for a pretty servant, out in search of a
new place; but now he realized his mistake, and offered her a mental
apology for his error.

"Perhaps I can tear a board or two off from that fence over there," he
suggested, after a fresh survey of the field. "If you can stay there
for a few minutes, I'll be back with some of them, and make a bridge."

In spite of herself, Louise laughed at the absurdity of her plight.

"Stay here!" she echoed; "I wish I could do anything else. But," she
demurred, "I am afraid you will get into trouble, too."

But the stranger had already gone. A moment or two later, he was back
again, with two long boards under his arm, as he picked his way along
towards the young woman to whose rescue he had so valiantly devoted
himself. Once back at his old station, he dropped one of the boards on
the snow, pushed it towards her, tested its strength, and then walked
the length of it, in order to place the other board in position. This
second bridge brought him to her side.

"Now," he said gravely, as he bent forward and held out his hand, "let
me take the bundle first."

Obeying him as implicitly as a child might have done, Louise handed him
the great bundle the ragged corners of which bore unmistakable signs of
her recent adventure, and he carefully conveyed it to a place of safety.
Then he returned to the spot where she was standing in a sort of open
pool, which was growing wider and deeper with her every motion.

"Please take hold of my hand," he said, with the same quiet courtesy
which he might have shown in asking her for a waltz, though he pressed
his lips firmly together, to keep back the smile which was trembling
there. "Now, can you step up on the end of this board?"

For a moment Louise hesitated. The step was a long one, and, in her
soaked condition, she had lost all her wonted elasticity of motion.
However, something in the stranger's face made her feel that it was best
for her to obey, with as few words as possible; so she mustered all her
strength, made a violent effort, and scrambled up to the end of the
board, striking it with a force which sent it swinging far to the left.
For one instant she balanced herself upon her slippery foothold; then
she fell backward with a suddenness that carried her rescuer with her,
and they both plunged head foremost down into the gray pool below, just
as Grant and Ned came out at the chapel door, to look for their missing
sister.

As a general rule, there was but little observance of Sunday in Blue
Creek. To the Eastern mind, it seemed strange to pass along the busy
streets and see the carpenters hard at work upon a new house, or to
listen to the clicking of the billiard balls in the wide-open rooms. In
such a community, church-going was not a popular way of spending the
time; but, on the next day, the little chapel was filled to overflowing
with the throng that had gathered to hear the new choir. It was Easter
evening, and the bright lights shone down on the masses of flowers on
the altar and the white robes of the boys in the chancel, and on the
closely-packed congregation below. Pipe organs and boy choirs were rare
in the region, and the people of Blue Creek looked upon these as the
means of furnishing an entertainment both novel and inexpensive; so it
was to a large and varied audience that Mr. Nelson had the pleasure of
preaching his Easter sermon. Aside from the regular attendants of the
chapel, there were groups of rough miners alone and with their families,
who were rarely to be found in any church; while, in the foremost rank,
sat Wang Kum and a dozen intimate friends, their very pigtails waggling
with suppressed excitement and admiration, as they looked about the
pretty chancel and listened to the voices of the boys. Mr. Nelson's
glance rested upon them for a moment, then passed on down the middle
aisle, to one of the rear pews, where a stranger was standing, listening
to the anthem with evident enjoyment.

He was a tall, well-built man of thirty, with bright brown hair and
mustache, and his eyes showed large and gray when he raised them, now
and then, as Charlie MacGregor's voice rang out above the rest of the
choir. He appeared to be acquainted with no one there, for he had come
in alone, and without making a sign of recognition to any one as he was
ushered to his seat. Only twice had he seemed to be roused from his
quiet repose of manner. When the first notes of the organ met his ear,
he had glanced in that direction; and any one watching him closely might
have seen him give a sudden start of surprise, while the color rose to
his cheeks, as his eyes rested upon the organist. Once again, in the
processional, he had started up with a quick smile of recognition, when
he looked back at the advancing line of boys, and saw Charlie leading
them; and he had bent towards the aisle to watch the lad, as he passed
on, unconscious of the faces around him, in his happiness at once more
being in his old place, at the head of a choir.

But the service was over, and the choir were coming towards him again,
their voices ringing clear and high in the refrain of Le Jeune's
_Jerusalem, the Golden_. Just as the leaders reached the stranger, there
came a pause between the verses, and Charlie raised his eyes to meet the
gray ones which were watching him so intently. Then his whole face
brightened, and he smiled and nodded in glad recognition, as they went
on down the aisle and out into the tiny choir-room.

The young man moved aside to let the other occupants of the pew pass out
into the aisle; then he stepped back and waited, watching, meanwhile,
the faces of the congregation, as they flocked past him. The group of
Chinamen were lingering in front of the chancel, peering about at the
lectern and font, and gazing up at the flower-laden altar.

"Heap nice; all samee Joss house," he heard one of them saying, with
manifest approval.

Up in her corner beside the chancel, the organist was still playing her
postlude; then she closed the organ, and rose to come down the steps,
drawing on her gloves as she came. Before she had time to raise her eyes
towards the congregation, the stranger was joined by Charlie MacGregor,
who had hurried to the place where he was still pausing irresolutely,
with his eyes fixed on Louise.

"Dr. Brownlee, when did you come?" the boy exclaimed, in enthusiastic
welcome. "I didn't know you were here yet."

"I only came yesterday morning," the doctor answered, with a cordial
smile which not only included Charlie, but extended to Howard and Ned
who were lingering at a little distance, and casting curious glances at
Charlie's unknown friend. "I was just in time to hear your new choir,
but I never dreamed of finding you in it."

"Yes, I'm in it," returned Charlie, laughing. "I'm all at home here,
now. I like it, too; ever so much-better than I thought I was going to.
These are my cousin and his chums," he added, as they moved slowly down
the aisle to where Grant had joined his brother and Howard. "And this,"
he went on, turning around abruptly, and speaking with the grace of
manner so natural to him, "this is our organist, Miss Everett. Miss Lou,
may I introduce Dr. Winthrop Brownlee, the friend I told you about
meeting on the way out here?"

For a moment the doctor and Louise stared at each other, too much
embarrassed to speak, while the color rushed to their faces. Then the
doctor came to his senses, saying slowly,--

"I think I have met Miss Everett before."

And, to the utter mystification of the boys, they burst out laughing,
and laughed as if they would never stop.




CHAPTER VI.

MARJORIE'S PARTY.


"O Allie," said Marjorie suddenly; "did you know that next Thursday is
going to be mamma's birthday?"

"No, is it?" asked Allie, as she stooped to pick up the long, lean gray
cat that was wandering aimlessly around them, and rubbing her hollow
sides against their ankles. "I thought you gave Waif away, Marjorie."

"We did," responded Marjorie, laughing. "She was a stray cat that came
to us, you know, and she was so homely that mamma didn't want her in the
house, so we gave her to Dr. Hornblower, a month ago."

"Where'd she come from, then?" queried Allie, while she stroked the cat
as she stood pawing and purring in her lap. "Wouldn't she stay with
him?"

"Didn't I tell you? How queer, for we we've been laughing about it ever
since! You see," Marjorie continued, "the doctor was lonesome, and
wanted a cat for company, and we didn't want Waif, so we gave her to
him. He was perfectly delighted with her, and carried her off home in a
paper sack, with her head poking out through a hole in one side, and her
tail sticking out the other. Two days later he stopped papa in the
post-office and told him, 'Your kitty's caught a mouse.' The next week
he met mamma and told her 'Kitty's caught three mice.' Then we didn't
see anything more of him for ever so long, and we supposed that was the
last of it; but, day before yesterday morning, he came to the door and
handed a bundle to mamma, and said he didn't like the kitty as well as
he thought he was going to, after all, so he'd brought her back. So here
she is. Don't you want her?"

"I wouldn't take such a looking cat as a gift," returned Allie
disdainfully. "But wasn't that just like Dr. Hornblower? He's very good;
but he's as stupid as he can be, and I don't s'pose it ever occurred to
him that he could pass the cat along to somebody else. Did you ever
notice the way Mrs. Pennypoker always calls him 'good old Dr.
Hornblower,' when she's ten years older than he is? I wonder how he'd
like it, if he could hear her."

"I don't believe he'd mind, for he likes her so well; at least, he's
there ever so much," said Marjorie innocently.

"H'm! you needn't think he goes to see Mrs. Pennypoker," said Allie
scornfully. "It's Miss Lou that he likes."

"Not that old man!" And Marjorie stared at her friend in amazement.

"He isn't so very old; and I don't know as I wonder if he does," replied
Allie, with an air of great enjoyment in her small gossip. "I should
think anybody might like Miss Lou, she's so pretty; and I just believe
Mrs. Pennypoker is helping him on. You wait and see."

The two girls were sitting alone in the open front door of the Fishers'
house, enjoying the late afternoon sun of a warm spring day. They had
been off for a long ride with the boys, as was their frequent custom.
The children all had their saddle ponies, and it was their delight to
canter off, soon after lunch, for an hour or two among the pleasant
mountain roads surrounding the town. On their return, they had stopped
for a moment at Marjorie's door, to find that Mrs. Fisher had gone out
to make some calls; and Marjorie had begged Allie to stay and keep her
company until Allie had at length yielded and allowed the boys to go on
without her.

There was a pause after Allie's last words; then Marjorie returned to
her original charge.

"Yes," she resumed; "Thursday is going to be her birthday, and I want to
celebrate. What can I do?"

"I don't know, I'm sure," answered Allie vaguely. "What do you want to
do?"

"That's the worst of it," responded Marjorie thoughtfully. "I want it to
be something that she'd like, and I don't know just what. I might--Let
me see. I'll tell you," she added, with sudden inspiration, "I'll give
her a surprise party."

"What?" And Allie looked at her friend, in astonishment at so daring a
proposal.

"Yes, I'll give her a party," repeated Marjorie, nodding her head with
decision.

"But do you suppose she'd like it?" inquired Allie dubiously.

"Of course she will. She 'most always has one for me on my birthday, you
know," returned Marjorie; "and she wouldn't do that, if she didn't like
them. She never had one herself; but that's only because she didn't have
anybody to give her one."

Such logic was not to be resisted; and Allie felt her misgivings swept
away while she listened.

"Besides," Marjorie went on enthusiastically; "I heard her say to papa,
last night, that they'd take that very day to go over to Butte, and buy
the new parlor carpet. They'll go in the morning early, and not come
back till five, so that will just give us time, while they're out of the
way. You'll help me get ready for it, won't you, Allie?"

"If mamma will let me," Allie was beginning, when Marjorie
interrupted,--

"Your mother mustn't know anything about it; but we won't go to Mrs.
Hammond that morning, we'll come here instead."

"I'm afraid we oughtn't to do that," remonstrated Allie feebly, although
she was secretly longing to enter into the proposition.

"Why not?" demanded Marjorie. "Mamma gave up going to missionary
meeting, last year, to get ready for my birthday party, and this is just
the same thing. Don't be silly, Allie, but help me plan. I know mamma
would say 'twas right," she added with an air of self-sacrificing
virtue; "to give up our own improvement for the sake of making her
happy."

"We might ask mamma," suggested Allie hopefully.

"Oh, no; she'd be sure to tell my mother, and that would spoil all the
surprise," interposed Marjorie hastily. "It will be all right, I know.
Would you have them come to supper, or just in the evening?"

"It's less work to have them come in the evening, isn't it?" asked
Allie, losing her last doubts in the excitement of making plans for so
momentous an occasion.

"Well, no," said Marjorie reflectively. "You have to feed them both
times; and, in the evening, we'd have to have more salads and fancy
things. We won't need so much, just for tea."

"What would you have?" inquired Allie, moving down to the lower step
where her friend was sitting.

"Oh, just cake and preserves, and some kind of cold meat," returned
Marjorie. "They'll be so busy talking they won't much mind what they get
to eat, as long as there's plenty of it. We'll have it early, too, so
they won't get so hungry. I can make splendid gingerbread, and the rest
we can get down at the bakery; I haven't touched my this month's money
yet. We'll work hard all the morning, and get the tables set and
everything ready before mamma comes home, so they can be on hand to
surprise her, when she comes in at the door."

"Yes," continued Allie, growing enthusiastic in her turn; "and then she
won't need to have any care or worry about it; all she'll have to do
will be just to sit in the parlor and make sure that they have a good
time. At the table, she'll have to pour the tea; but we can pass things.
Who're you going to invite?"

"Let's see," said Marjorie, pondering over the matter. "There's your
father and mother, and Mr. Everett and Miss Lou and Mrs. Pennypoker;
that's five."

"And Ned and Grant?" suggested Allie.

"Oh, no," answered Marjorie; "they'd only be in the way, and, besides,
they're too young. This isn't a party for me, you know, and we can't
have the boys."

"Not even Howard?" begged Allie. "He could help us cut meat, and wash
dishes afterwards. He can do that as well as a girl."

"The boys can all come and wash dishes, after it's over, if they want
to," returned Marjorie firmly; "but we can't have them at supper-time.
I wouldn't mind Howard; but there's Charlie and the Everetts that would
have to come, if he did, so we might as well stop before we begin. Where
was I? Two Burnams and three Everetts and two Fishers, to start with:
seven."

"And the Nelsons?" asked Allie.

"Yes, nine; and Dr. Hornblower is ten,--I suppose we ought to ask
him,--and Mrs. Hammond is eleven, 'cause she might be cross next day, if
we didn't invite her. And then that new doctor that Charlie knows--what
is his name?"

"Dr. Brownlee?" inquired Allie. "But does your mother know him?"

"I don't think so," said Marjorie; "but he's real pleasant looking, and
I've heard her say, ever so many times, that it's polite to welcome
strangers when they first come to a place, so I know she'd want us to
ask him. And then Miss Lou knows him a little bit, for I saw him take
off his hat to her the other day; and she can introduce him. He makes
twelve. I don't believe we'd better have any more. I'd like to ask Mr.
Saunders, that keeps the fruit store down on the corner; but they say
thirteen is unlucky, so perhaps twelve will do."

"All right," agreed Allie. "How are you going to ask them?"

"I shall just say, 'Mamma wishes you'd come to supper at half past
five.' I won't ask them till the night before for fear somebody'd tell
her; but if she goes on the early train, it will be safe enough."

"Then aren't you going to say it's a surprise party?" asked Allie,
rising to go home, as she saw Mrs. Fisher coming up the street.

"No; for I'm afraid they mightn't come," said Marjorie, in a low voice.
"Now, Allie, don't you dare to breathe a word of this to anybody, not
even to Howard, for I want it to be a perfect surprise. And you know
you've promised to help me out in the morning."

Five days later, two flushed and grimy, but triumphant young hostesses
stood gazing at the tables before them. Marjorie's plan had been carried
into effect; and her guests, one and all, had gratefully accepted Mrs.
Fisher's invitation to tea, for they knew of old that her little parties
were the most enjoyable ones in the camp. Even Dr. Brownlee had sent a
cordial message of acceptance, for though he was surprised at the
invitation, coming as it did from a stranger whom he did not even know
by sight, he attributed it to the proverbial Western hospitality, and
was glad of anything which could bring him into connection with the
people among whom he was to live. Early that morning Mr. and Mrs. Fisher
had gone away for a long, tedious day of shopping, and an hour later
Allie and Marjorie had invaded the kitchen for four hours of hard work.
By noon all was in readiness, and they could pause to contemplate the
result of their labors.

The table was stretched to its utmost length, and bright with snowy
linen and glass and silver, while around it were gathered twelve chairs,
taken from the different rooms, in order to accommodate the unusual
number of guests. Here a dining-room chair stood beside one borrowed
from Mrs. Fisher's bedroom; there kitchen wood and parlor upholstery
were placed side by side, in striking contrast. The table itself was
groaning beneath the weight of the feast, for Marjorie had been liberal
in her selection from her mother's preserves; while a whole boiled ham,
fresh from the bakehouse, stood before Mr. Fisher's place, and at the
other end of the table his wife's chair was decked with ribbons, and
confronted with a great loaf of cake, whose uneven icing bore, in red
sugar, the letters "M.C.F.," traced by an inexperienced hand. This was
Allie's contribution to the banquet, and Marjorie had thoughtfully
surrounded it with a circle of thirty-nine tiny candles, which stood
ready for the lighting. Plates of assorted cookies were scattered about
the board; here lay a low dish of olives, whose dusky green contrasted
well with the ruddy globe of an Edam cheese, placed beside them, and
there rose a towering pyramid of golden oranges flanked on either side
by a tempting pile of purple and white grapes.

"It does look pretty, doesn't it, Allie?" asked Marjorie for the fifth
time.

"Yes," said Allie, as she bent forward to break a corner off from one of
the cookies and tuck it into her mouth. "Yes, it is lovely. I do hope
your mother will like it. But now I must hurry, or mamma will know
something is going to happen."

"Go on, then; only be sure you're back here by five," Marjorie warned
her. "And don't let the boys come here this afternoon, for I'm too tired
to even look at them."

At half past five, the guests had assembled and were sitting in the
parlor, looking a little annoyed and uncomfortable as the moments passed
by and their hostess did not appear.

"Come right in," Marjorie had said to them, one after another; "Mamma
will be so glad to see you; she'll be here in a minute."

Last of all came Dr. Brownlee. He had been delayed until the last
possible moment, and now, just as Mr. and Mrs. Fisher turned the corner
far down the street, he rang at the door, to be admitted by Marjorie.
Once inside the parlor, he stopped and looked around the room in search
of his hostess, in order to offer her a prompt apology for his seeming
rudeness in being so late. To his surprise, there was no one present at
all answering to the description of Mrs. Fisher which he had received
from his landlady.

"Hamlet, without the ghost!" he thought to himself, as he paused
irresolutely, just across the threshold, and glanced about in vain for a
familiar face.

For a moment there was an awkward hush. Most of the guests knew the
doctor by sight, but in the explicable absence of their hostess, no one
was sufficiently at ease to rise and bid the stranger welcome to another
person's house. They tried to go on with their conversation, in apparent
unconsciousness of the young man who stood in the doorway, reddening
under their sidelong glances; but their attempt was not crowned with
success, and there came one of those seemingly interminable pauses
which sometimes fall upon a room. Then, all at once, Louise Everett rose
from her chair in the bay-window, where she had been hidden behind the
ample shoulder of Mrs. Pennypoker, and, crossing the room, she greeted
the doctor as an old acquaintance. A few words passed between them; then
she introduced him to the other guests, before leading the way back to
her own cosy corner, where Mrs. Burnam sat waiting to welcome him, as
the friend of her young nephew.

"Who's that going in at our house?" Mr. Fisher had asked, peering over
the top of the pile of bundles in his arms. "It looks like Dr. Brownlee;
but why should he be going there?"

"Oh, dear; I hope it isn't anybody coming to call," sighed his wife,
with the inhospitality born of a long day of tedious, unsatisfactory
shopping. But she quickened her pace, in order to discover who was the
guest awaiting them.

At the door she was met by Marjorie, dressed in her best gown, and
looking strangely excited.

"Let me take your things, mamma," she said in a low tone. "There's
somebody to see you in the parlor."

Forcing a smile to her tired face, Mrs. Fisher advanced to the door to
greet her caller. On the threshold she paused aghast, for, to her
startled eyes, the room appeared to be thronged with people, who rose
and stepped forward to meet her, while Marjorie stood at her side,
gleefully clapping her hands and exclaiming,--

"It's a surprise party, mamma! It's a surprise party!"

For one instant, Mrs. Fisher faltered. She had come home in a state of
utter exhaustion, and she longed to run away from the parlor and hide.
But the next minute her courage came back to her, in the face of her
roomful of guests, and she gave them as hearty a welcome as if the party
had been one of her own making. Up and down the room she went, speaking
a word here, shaking a hand there, all with the tact for which her
hospitality was noted. She had sent one appealing glance towards Louise,
and the girl, taking in the situation in a moment, had come to her aid,
with Dr. Brownlee at her side. In a short time the room was buzzing with
voices, as the guests entered into the full tide of conversation.

Suddenly the dining-room door swung open, and Allie appeared on the
threshold.

"Please come out to supper, now," she said shyly, as she met her
mother's surprised glance.

There was another pause of uncertainty; then Mr. Everett offered his arm
to Mrs. Fisher, and led the way to the table, where the guests seated
themselves as they wished, gazing, meanwhile, with amused eyes at the
feast before them. A short silence followed, and then the conversation
started up once more, as Mr. Fisher, with one despairing glance at his
wife, attacked the vast ham before him, and Mrs. Fisher began to pour
out the pale, watery effusion which filled the teapot. Allie and
Marjorie were already bestirring themselves to pass the plates and cups
about the table; but all at once Marjorie paused abruptly, with her arm
outstretched, as she gazed blankly this way and that. Then her face grew
red and the sudden tears rushed to her eyes, as she hurried out of the
room, with a gesture to Allie to follow her.

"What is it, Marjorie?" Allie exclaimed in alarm, as the young hostess
sank down into the wood box and buried her face in her hands.

An inarticulate moan was her only answer.

"Marjorie! Marjorie!" she urged again. "Tell me what's the matter. Are
you ill?"

Then Marjorie raised her head for a moment.

"I'm all right," she said, with a great sob of shame; "but what shall we
do, Allie? We ate up all the bread for breakfast, and I forgot to order
any more."

It was late that evening when the guests took their leave; and, as they
went away down the street together, they said, over and over again, that
Mrs. Fisher had never before been half so bright and witty in her talk,
so quick to plan new modes of entertainment. Their hostess watched them
out of sight; then, after an expressive look at her husband, she turned
away from the door, and crossed the hall to Marjorie's room. All was
dark within, as she opened the door and entered; but, as soon as her
eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom, she went up to the bed, and laid
her hand on a small, dark body, curled up on the white spread.

"Marjorie, dear," she said gently.

The childish figure was quivering with suppressed sobs; but there was no
other answer.

"Marjorie," she said again; "don't feel so badly about it, my child."

The tone of motherly sympathy was too much for Marjorie's self-control,
and the tears began to come, thick and fast.

"O mamma," she cried; "truly we didn't mean to. I'm so sorry."

Mrs. Fisher sat down on the side of the bed, and drew her daughter
towards her.

"Don't cry so, Marjorie," she repeated. "I know you didn't mean to do
anything out of the way. Tell me how you came to ask all these people
here."

Between her sobs, Marjorie told her mother the whole story; and Mrs.
Fisher rejoiced that the kindly darkness hid her smile, as she listened
to her little daughter's incoherent explanation of the party and its
cause.

"And I meant it should all be so nice," Marjorie ended, with a fresh
burst of tears; "and it was just dreadful. I forgot the bread, and the
candles wouldn't burn, and nobody knew Dr. Brownlee, and everything was
horrid. Scold me, if you want to; but I truly meant to give you a good
time, only it all went wrong."

"Marjorie, dear," her mother said, when she could steady her voice
enough to speak; "I know you meant to make me have a happy birthday, and
I am grateful to my little girl for taking so much pains for me. Another
time we will talk it over together, and plan the best thing to do,
instead of your trying to surprise me. And now forget all about the
worry of it, and only remember that you've done what you could to make
the day pleasant for me." And she bent over for a goodnight kiss, before
she returned to the kitchen for a long hour of dish-washing and putting
the room to rights.




CHAPTER VII.

JANEY'S PROPHECY.


"Git up in de mawnin' singin', an' de cat cotch you befo' night," Janey
had said oracularly, when Allie ran out into the kitchen, that morning
before breakfast, with the refrain of one of Charlie's songs upon her
lips.

"What nonsense, Janey!" said Allie, laughing at the strange, old-time
saying. "I don't believe the cat'll 'cotch' me any more for singing, and
it's ever so much more fun than 'tis to cry."

In fact, there was no particular reason that Allie should not sing, for
life looked very attractive to her that morning. The bright June
sunshine was lying warm over the town, and giving back a dazzling lustre
from the snow-capped mountains which rose up from the midst of the
summer landscape; lessons were over for the present, and, best of all,
Mr. and Mrs. Burnam were to go out to camp that day, to make final
arrangements for the long-talked-of week, when the Everetts, Burnams,
and Fishers were to pitch their tents beside the engineering camp, in
the Bitter Root Mountains, and enjoy a week of roughing it in the
wilderness. Soon after breakfast they drove away from the door, with
Victor snugly tucked in between them, while Allie, with the boys and
Ben, stood on the piazza, to wave them a good-by. The children lingered
there until the wagon was out of sight; then they turned back into the
house, feeling very important over the prospect of two days of
housekeeping on their own account.

But, after all their anticipations, the morning did not prove to be
quite as enjoyable as they had hoped it would be. Marjorie had been
invited to spend the day with them; but, unfortunately, Marjorie was in
one of her perverse fits, and so successfully devoted herself to the
task of being disagreeable that Allie was at her wits' end how to manage
her; Howard openly quarrelled with her, and even Charlie, the courteous,
marched out of the room and slammed the door behind him, while he sang,
with tantalizing distinctness,--

    "'Oh, jimineddy! And oh, goody gracious!
    How I did love her! But she was contumacious.'"

This last insult was too much for Marjorie to bear, for, in her secret
heart, she greatly admired Charlie, and longed to have him for her ally
and champion, instead of being forced to watch his unswerving devotion
to his cousin. As the door closed behind him, she flew after him, to
deliver herself of one parting shot,--

"Charlie MacGregor, I de-test you! You're no gentleman, even if you do
think you are; and I only hope you'll get what you deserve for being so
rude to me, when I'm company."

Then the door banged again with even greater violence than before, and
Marjorie burst out crying, as she put on her hat and departed, without a
word to Allie.

Her irate guest once gone, Allie moved up and down the rooms, putting
them in order with much the same dazed feeling as that which comes in
the sudden hush that sometimes follows a violent thunder-shower. The
more she pondered on the events of the morning, she could not see that
either she herself or the two boys were in any way to blame for
Marjorie's explosion, and as she forlornly sat down to the lunch table,
she felt as if she were in part realizing the truth of Janey's
prediction. However, she was too much accustomed to Marjorie's sudden
fits of temper, and too well acquainted with her really kind heart, to
dwell long upon the matter; so before the meal was ended she was gayly
laughing with the boys, and planning for the next day's frolic.

"Come out and have a ride, Allie," urged Charlie, as they left the
table. "I have a kind of a sort of a feeling that I'm in disgrace, and I
want some fun to console me."

Allie laughed.

"How silly you are to mind what Marjorie says!" she answered. "She'll be
all over it by to-morrow, and like you better than ever; I know just how
angelic she always is, after one of these times. But if you want a ride,
I'll be ready in an hour. I've promised to write a letter for Janey,
first."

"To his Goatship?" inquired Howard disrespectfully. "All right; we'll go
out and play ball till time to get the ponies." And they went away,
while Allie stood in the door, saucily calling after them to be good
boys and not get into mischief.

"Now, Janey," she said, as she went out into the kitchen; "I'll write
that letter for you before you wash the dishes or anything; because Mr.
Charlie wants me to go to ride with him, as soon as I can." And she
seated herself at the table, while Janey went after her writing
materials.

"How you done like my paper, Miss Allie?" the girl asked proudly, as she
laid upon the table a sheet of vivid, rose-colored paper, and its
accompanying envelope, which brought with them an aggressive fragrance
of musk. Then she dropped down on the floor behind her young mistress,
coiling herself up in the corner, with her back against the wall, that
she might dictate at her ease.

"My dear frien'," she began slowly, and with the air of searching her
mind for properly sonorous phrases; "I have done receive your letter,
an' I take my pen in han' to now reply. I was very glad to know dat you
is well, an' I am sorry to say I am not; I think I have de
consumption"--

"Why, Janey," interposed Allie; "what do you mean? Aren't you well?"

"Yes, I's well enough," answered Janey, as she shot a sudden mischievous
glance from the corners of her downcast eyes; "but I reckon he'll think
more of me, ef he thinks I's goin' to die. I am not very happy," she
resumed, in the same stilted tone as before; "an' las' night you came to
me in a dream, an' tol' me you was dead. I done specks he'll cry like
everything, when he reads dat," she interpolated, with a nod of triumph.
"Sometimes I reckon we sha'n' never see each other no mo'; but you mus'
never forget your Janey. Um-mm," she went on, in an inarticulate mumble.

"What?" inquired Allie, pausing, with her pen in mid air, as she turned
around to see Janey with her cap off, a row of hair-pins between her
lips, and a pair of gleaming scissors raised to one of her woolly tails.

There was a sudden sound of snipping steel, and then Janey continued,--

"I sen' you a plat of my hair, an' I wants you to sen' me one of yours;
an'--an--'" Janey hesitated, while she put on her cap once more.

"Well, what next?" asked Allie, secretly wondering, as she glanced at
the sable tress before her, why each could not retain his own hair,
since the two locks would probably be so much alike that only the keen
eye of an expert or a lover could distinguish between them.

"So no mo' now," dictated Janey. "Give my love to Emma Digson, an' Joe
Harrison, an' my mother, an' tell little Bill he mus' be a good boy, an'
tell Sarah Johnson"--Here followed a list of greetings and messages, as
long as those at the end of the Pauline epistles.

Allie was still toiling her way through them, making conscientious
attempts to discover the proper spelling of names, when she heard the
front door open and shut. A moment later, Howard appeared in the
kitchen, very pale and with trembling lips.

"Come here a minute, Allie," he said, in a tone of command so unlike his
usual manner that his sister started up at the first word.

"What is it?" she demanded hastily. "What do you want of me?"

But Howard had already hurried back to the parlor. She followed him,
with a dull, cold feeling about her heart, as she became more and more
convinced that there was some trouble. As she reached the parlor door,
she drew back, for a moment, in alarm. On the sofa lay Charlie, with his
handkerchief tied over the upper part of his face, and his cheeks and
lips as white as Howard's had been. The next instant she sprang forward
to his side, crying,--

"O Charlie, what has happened? Are you hurt? What is it?"

With a strong effort, the boy steadied his voice enough to say quietly,
as he stretched out his hand towards the spot where he had heard her
drop down on her knees beside the sofa,--

"'Tisn't much, Allie; so don't get rattled. Howard'll tell you about
it." And he paused abruptly, biting his lip to keep from crying out with
pain.

"We were playing ball, and Charlie went to catch. He muffed, somehow,
and the ball hit him in the eye; it smashed his glasses, and they've cut
his eyes some," explained Howard, in a hurried, breathless tone, while
he tramped nervously up and down the room.

"What can we do? If mamma were only here, Howard! Is it very bad,
Charlie?" And for a moment Allie's head dropped beside her cousin's,
while she shook with sobs of mingled pity and fear. Then she started up
again, to force back her tears as she said, with all the pride and
energy of the MacGregors in her firm, clear voice,--

"Howard, don't rush round so; you'll only make Charlie worse. It may not
be so bad; but you go, quick as you can, for Dr. Brownlee. Run every
single step of the way, and don't you come back without him."

For an instant, Howard stared admiringly at the determined little figure
before him; then he rushed away, glad to get out of sight, where he
could rub the tears off from his cheeks, and feeling an immediate relief
in the need for prompt action. Twenty minutes later he came back,
accompanied by the doctor, whom he had met on the street, not far from
his office.

As Allie rose from her place beside the sofa, she was filled with a
momentary dislike of this handsome, well-dressed young man, with the red
carnation in his button-hole, who came into the room with a sort of
quiet briskness, and addressed a half-laughing remark of greeting to
Charlie. But as she watched him, she soon realized that there was
nothing unsympathetic in his cheerfulness; and she felt a quick trust in
him, when she looked up into his kind gray eyes, while he bent over
Charlie and took the handkerchief from his face. An older person would
have read much from the sudden frown which passed across his forehead;
but Allie failed to catch it, and was cheered by his next words,----

"Only a scratch or two, and a little cut. We'll patch you up soon, my
boy, so you needn't worry. There's a little glass left here, though,
that we want to get out of the way, first of all. You say your parents
are away?" he asked, turning to Allie. "Do you suppose you can help me a
little; or are you afraid?"

Allie's cheeks grew white at the thought; and the doctor, as he watched
her, added kindly,--

"Or perhaps your brother"--

But Howard had fled, to shut himself up in his mother's room. Allie
could hear him moving restlessly about, behind the closed door.

"I'll help if I can," she said bravely, though her rigid lips would
scarcely form the words; and she dropped her hand on Charlie's cold
fingers, to feel them close around it, with a grateful pressure, as the
doctor said approvingly,--

"That's a brave girl! Now, has your mother anything that I could use for
bandages?"

Allie hurried away in search of the great "emergency basket," which her
mother always kept well stocked with rolls of old cotton and linen and
flannel. The doctor gave a quick nod of pleasure, as he saw the orderly
store.

"Good!" he said, as if to himself; "that tells the story. I wish more
women would look out for such things. Now," he went on, while he drew a
chair to the window, and laid a little case of shining, ugly-looking
instruments on a table beside it; "we must get rid of that glass as soon
as we can; and I want you, little woman, to hold this boy's head tight,
very tight, so he can't move, no matter how much I do hurt him. Any
slip now would be very serious."

There followed a short interval of silence, when Charlie ground his
teeth hard together, to keep back any sound, and Allie sturdily held her
place at the back of his chair, though she felt faint and sick at the
sight before her, as those horrible little steel points moved up and
down across her cousin's eye. Then the doctor spoke again, in his
cheery, pleasant way, while he adjusted the necessary bandages; but to
Allie his voice sounded a long way off, and she dropped to the floor in
a forlorn little heap, as soon as she received the doctor's nod to
assure her that her work was ended.

"You're a plucky pair," said Dr. Brownlee then, as he led the boy back
to the sofa, and arranged a pillow under his head. "I don't know which
has been braver, but I'm proud of you both. The worst is over now; but
we want to get this boy into bed, where he can keep quiet for a day or
two. I wish we could send word to your mother; but I suppose that is out
of the question, so we shall have to get along without her. Still,
you've a good nurse here, Charlie," he added, with an admiring glance at
Allie, who had roused herself once more and was standing by the sofa,
with one slender hand resting on her cousin's forehead.

"Shall I get his room ready?" she asked, as her blue eyes filled with
tears again; for the doctor's kind words were too much for her shaken
nerves to bear.

"Yes, he'll be better there," the doctor answered, as he followed her
into the room which the two boys usually occupied. "A southwest corner
room," he said, glancing around it. "That's too strong a light; isn't
there somewhere else?"

"Mine is on the other side," she suggested.

"That's better; but what will you do, my young nurse?" he asked with the
gentle courtesy which was habitual with him.

"I'll take the sofa, or anywhere," she said, as she led the way into her
own dainty little room. "He can have this to himself, too; and Howard is
in the other. I truly don't mind a bit being turned out." She paused and
glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the door was shut. "Is it
very bad, Dr. Brownlee?" she asked, in a frightened whisper.

"I can't tell yet; but I hope not," the doctor said reassuringly. "Now,
little woman, listen to me. Your cousin will have to be shut up here in
the dark for a good many days, and your mother will be away till
to-morrow night. I might send for somebody to come and stay with you;
but it would only frighten Charlie, so I am going to leave him in your
care, instead. You've just been doing splendidly with him; and he's used
to you, and likes to have you round him. Now, do you suppose you can see
to him till bedtime, and through the day to-morrow? A great deal, much
more than you know, depends on his being kept quiet and content, without
any worry. I will come back this evening, and sleep on the sofa here,
where I can look out for him through the night. Do you think you can do
it?"

"I will," answered Allie, as solemnly as if she had been taking her
marriage vows.

The doctor studied her face intently. Such a little thing, a happy,
rollicking child! But, in the past hour, she had shown herself a woman,
in the courage and tenderness which her love for her cousin had given
her. He felt that he could trust her, even in such a critical case as
this. But, as he looked down at the wistful, white face, and the drawn
lips which yet made no complaint of weakness or of fear, some sudden
impulse made him stoop and lift her hand to his lips.

"I am glad to bend the knee before so brave and true a lady," he said,
with assumed lightness to mask his real feeling. "I hope the time may
come when I shall be able to prove how gladly I would serve her."

"Cure Charlie's eye, then," she answered, with quaint, serious
directness.

"My dear little girl, I will if I can," he replied gravely.

Then he turned away, to close the blinds, draw down the shades, and pull
together the heavy curtains, until the room lay in deep shadow. At sight
of these ominous preparations, Allie's fear came back to her.

"Oh, must he stay like this, all in the dark?" she cried, in a sudden
terror of she knew not what.

"For a little while," answered the doctor, his voice sounding brisk and
cheery again, through the thick darkness. "We'll try not to have it last
any longer than we can help. Now," he went on kindly, "if you'll go out
in the sunshine and take a little run, while you get quieted down, I'll
help Charlie into bed. Then I shall leave him in your hands."

But Allie was in no mood for sunshine. She paused for one moment beside
her cousin, without daring to trust her voice to speak; then she fled
to the kitchen, and cast herself into Janey's arms, to cry as if her
young heart were breaking.

"Miss Allie, honey," Janey begged her; "what is it? Tell Janey what's de
matter. Don' cry so, Miss Allie, don't."

Allie was past heeding her words. It had taken all her courage and
self-control to go through the last hour, and, now that she could have a
moment to herself, she could only cling to Janey and sob with a
bitterness which brought the sympathetic tears into the dark eyes above
her.

"What is it, honey?" asked Janey again, as the child grew more quiet.

"Oh, Janey, it's Mr. Charlie!" And Allie's head went over against the
girl's shoulder once more.

Janey looked pityingly down into the swollen, flushed face before her.
Then she seated herself in a chair, and gathering up the child in her
strong, young arms, she rocked gently to and fro without speaking, while
Allie sobbed out the story of the accident. When she paused, the girl's
brown cheek lay, for a moment, against the soft, thick hair, in an
unspoken caress; then she said cheerfully,--

"Now, Miss Allie, dear, it's too bad, and Janey's sorry for you all. But
jus' you dry up your eyes, an' don' cry no mo'. Mars' Charlie's too good
a boy for de Lord to give him very bad time, an' 'twon't be long befo'
he's all right again. Janey's awful sorry for you; but you jus' try to
keep jolly, for his 'count, an' your ma will be home to-morrow. It'll
all come out for de bes'," she added, with the simple faith of her
people, which somehow comforted Allie, and gave her new strength to go
on.

A few minutes later, the doctor sent Howard in search of his sister, and
Allie was able to go quietly back into her room. It looked strangely
unfamiliar to her; but as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness,
she gradually made out the figure of her cousin, who was lying in her
dainty bed, with broad white bandages covering his eyes.

"Is that you, Allie?" he asked eagerly, as the door opened. "The doctor
says you're to look out for me to-day, and I'm no end glad of it."

"Yes," said the doctor, from his corner where Allie had not yet seen
him; "you couldn't have a better nurse. Now," he added, after giving her
a few simple directions, "I shall be back early this evening, and, till
then, you're in charge. All you have to do," he went on, as Allie
followed him to the door, "is to wait on him, and see that the light
doesn't get to him. You can talk to him, just as you always do, only be
a little quiet. Above all, don't let him get to thinking about his eye,
for he mustn't worry. Good-by."

He left her to go back into her cousin's room, while he went down the
street, saying to himself,--

"I wish I could often get as plucky a patient and nurse. But I'd give a
good deal if I had a first-class oculist in town to-night; I don't like
the looks, up there."




CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE DARK.


Often and often, during the next few weeks, Allie recalled the
conversation which had taken place between herself and Marjorie, months
before; for Charlie's time had come to prove his ability to bear trouble
and suffering as bravely as a boy could do. Early on the afternoon
following the accident, Dr. Brownlee had saddled his horse and ridden
away to meet Mrs. Burnam, and prepare her for the new care awaiting her;
but it was not until the next day that he told her of his real fear, the
danger that the injured eye might become so seriously inflamed that its
sight would be destroyed. How Howard and Allie found it out, it would be
impossible to say; but, before the day was over, they knew the secret,
and hovered about their cousin with an anxious care, the real cause of
which he understood as little as he did that of the doctor's extreme
gentleness of voice and touch, when he came, morning and night, to
examine the wound and renew the bandages.

It was a hard experience for the boy, for there were long days of
sickening, throbbing pain, that darted up and down about his eye, and
painted strange, lurid pictures against the darkness of his closed lids.
Then came the time when he was allowed to sit up once more, and to
wander clumsily about his narrow quarters, bruising himself by frequent
collisions with the unseen furniture, until Allie's heart ached for him,
and she longed to tear away the bandages, and let him have one short
hour of daylight again. His piano was his main solace in these days, for
Mrs. Burnam had had it moved into his room, and he amused himself with
it for long hours at a time, when his cousins were busy, or away from
home. Of course he grumbled a little at times, as any healthy boy would
do; of course he had hours of being undeniably cross; but, for the most
part, he showed a quiet endurance which won the admiration of all his
friends.

But, little by little, as the danger passed, his privileges increased,
and he was free to make daily excursions out into the parlor, which was
darkened for his use, and to receive short calls from the Everetts and
Marjorie. Allie had been his constant companion in these weeks,
entertaining him, leading him about the room, and even feeding him the
meals which Mrs. Burnam and Janey prepared so daintily. Then, at length,
came the great day when the bandage was taken off, to be replaced by a
shade, and only resumed for the hour when Allie was to be allowed to
lead him up and down the sunny piazza, and out along the street for
daily-increasing distances. For Charlie, all this was like coming back
into life once more. In spite of the darkness of his room, he could yet
see the dim outlines of objects in his narrow line of vision, and grope
his way about without being dependent upon his cousins for his every
need; and after a month of perfect helplessness, even this was a relief,
and he accepted it gratefully.

And, after all, dark as the days were, they yet had their bright spots.
In his constant visits, the doctor had quite won Charlie's heart with
his lively talk and fun, until the boy found himself eagerly looking
forward to the next call, and wondering what fresh interest his new
friend had in store for him. For the doctor, true to the instincts of
his profession, knew so well how to cover his real anxiety under his
gay, light manner, that his young patient had no idea of the possible
danger of his case, and only regarded it as a tedious, painful wound
which would soon heal.

"I am getting most awfully sick of this, though," he said one day, after
the doctor had gone. "It's a shame to be losing all this jolly weather,
and I've forgotten how everything looks. Dr. Brownlee is a first-rate
man; but he needn't make such a fuss over a scratch. I say, Allie, let's
run away and go for a ride up the gulch."

"Oh, wouldn't I like to!" responded Allie, with a fervor which led
Charlie to say gratefully,--

"I'll tell you what, Allie; it's a shame for you to stay tucked up with
me in this hole. You've stuck by me like a Trojan; but I'm well enough
off alone. Go out and have a lark; I would if I could."

"Sha'n't!" returned Allie composedly. "Besides, there isn't anybody to
lark with."

"Where are Marjorie and the boys?" demanded Charlie, casting himself
down in the easy-chair, and turning to face Allie, as she stood leaning
against the window curtain.

"They went fishing with Mr. Everett, up the canon."

"Bother!" exclaimed Charlie impatiently. "Here I am losing all the fun;
and you're so silly, you won't go without me, when you could, as well as
not. That's just like a girl."

"Now, Charlie, you just keep your temper," said Allie laughingly, while
she covered his mouth with her hand. "If you say anything more that's
saucy, I'll go off and never come back. I didn't want to go to-day; it's
too warm. Besides, we'll make up for all this when we go into camp."

"Are we really going? I thought 'twas given up." And Charlie started up
with quick enthusiasm.

"Yes, the plans are all made, and we're only waiting for you to be able
to go. We're going to be gone two weeks, and"--Allie paused, before
imparting her final bit of good news--"papa has asked Dr. Brownlee to go
too."

"How jolly!" Charlie exclaimed rapturously.

"Isn't it? The doctor didn't want you to get where he couldn't see to
you; and we all like him so much that papa said this was the best thing
to do, so we're going to start the very first day you are able."

"When does he say 'twill be?" asked the boy eagerly.

Allie hesitated. This part of her news was not so pleasant, for since
the first danger was over and Charlie was allowed to be up and about the
room, she knew that he was restless, and longing to be out with the
boys, enjoying his old free life once more.

"Well," he urged again, "when can we go?"

"Not for three or four weeks," she said gently, as her hand fell down
from his face, and rested on his shoulder with a little caressing
gesture.

The boy needed all her sympathy, for his disappointment was keen. The
prospect of a month more of an existence like that of the past three
weeks was too much for his courage; and, shaking off her hand, he rose
and tramped up and down the room, frowning and moody.

"I won't stand it!" he exclaimed suddenly, as he paused. "There's no
need of it, Allie, and I'm just not going to stand another month of it.
I'll risk my eyes, or let them slide; but I must get out of this stuffy
old room inside of a week, or I'll know the reason why."

But his temper was always short-lived, and he was soon his old bright
self again. That night he was cheered by hearing the doctor say that he
might go out into the parlor to see Ned and Grant for an hour in the
morning.

From that time on, his days began to pass more quickly. With Ned and
Marjorie at their head, the young people showed unlimited patience and
ingenuity in planning new amusements for their friend; and not a day
passed that they did not descend upon him in a body, laden with
offerings of fruit and flowers, trophies of their fishing expeditions,
and bits of gay gossip from mine and smelter, choir and Chinatown.

Marjorie, in particular, was his devoted slave. For the past few weeks,
she had been carrying, deep down in her heart, a little sore spot, left
there by the stinging memory of her hasty words an hour before the
accident; and, now that she could see her friend once more, she did her
best to make amends for her past sins. But though her endless fun and
rollicking kindness gave Charlie many a pleasant hour, it was to Allie
that he turned in any emergency, for her long days of devotion to him
had proved her a staunch, true friend.

"Allie is a pretty good sort of girl," he confided to Ned one day.
"She's just the kind to have round when you aren't well, for she's
jolly, and takes first-rate care of you, without being soft."

One afternoon, about three or four weeks after the accident, Marjorie
and the three boys were sitting on the little front porch at the
Everetts', reposing after a long ride. It was a cool, cloudy day; the
mist lay low over the mountain sides, and closed in between the walls
of the canon, and the wind blew up fresh and sharp. Allie had watched
the little group of riders as they cantered past the house and, turning
the corner, stopped at the Everetts'. Then she was seized with a sudden
inspiration.

"Get up, lazy boy," she commanded, going into her room where Charlie lay
on the sofa, stretched out at his ease, with his arms folded under his
head. "Mamma's coming in here, in a minute, to put on your blinders, and
then let's go down to the Everetts' for an hour. They're all down there,
and we'll take them by surprise."

Charlie started up eagerly enough. It was the longest walk that he had
taken, and he was glad to get out of his dull routine; so, ten minutes
later, he was on his way, with his hat pulled down over his face to
cover the ignominious bandage, and Allie's hand on his arm.

Grant was the first to see him coming.

"Hurrah!" he shouted. "There's Charlie Mac!"

"Where?" exclaimed Ned, turning around with a suddenness which made him
lose his balance, as he sat on the rail, and sent him rolling over
backwards to the ground. He was on his feet again in a twinkling, and
tore away up the street to meet his guest, and, usurping Allie's place
as escort, bring him back to the steps in triumph. "Sit down here, old
fellow," he said, as he deposited him in a chair, and seated himself
protectingly on the arm. "How jolly to have you round again!"

"Glad you think so," responded Charlie; "I was feeling fine to-day, and
Allie thought 't would be a good scheme to come down here. You can just
believe I was ready for a change of base."

The first chatter of eager greeting was not yet ended, when Louise
Everett appeared in the doorway behind them.

"I must just come out to speak to Charlie," she said, as she stepped
forward to his chair. "It's so long since I've seen you. No, don't get
up," she added hastily; "you look too comfortable to let me disturb you,
so I'll just sit down on the step beside Howard, if there's room."

"Always room for you, Miss Lou," returned Howard gallantly, as he curled
up his feet so that his dusty shoes should not soil her fresh, pink
gown. "We've set Charlie up in the middle, like a Chinese idol, and are
adoring him."

"You'd better get Wang Kum out here to help," suggested the idol
complacently. "I'm afraid I'm not much to look at, Miss Lou; but
fortunately I don't have to see myself these days. I leave it to Allie,
to tell me if my hair's smooth."

Louise laughed, as she rested one hand affectionately on the girl's
shoulder.

"The doctor says she has been a most devoted Allie; and we all think
that we haven't seen much more of her than of you, this last month."

"I know that, Howard and I aren't any account, any longer," said
Marjorie, in an injured tone, from her seat on the rail. "Howard, which
of us shall get broken to pieces, so the other can 'tend to it?"

"What's the use?" returned Howard languidly. "Our noses are out of joint
now, and it doesn't seem to do us any good."

"Oh, by thunder!" exclaimed Grant, suddenly.

"Grant, dear, what words!" said his sister reprovingly.

"Can't help it, Lou; look there! Dr. Hornblower is coming down the road,
and I can see, by the northeast corner of his weather eye, that he's
going to stop and make us a visit."

"Dr. Hornblower? Do put me out of sight somewhere," begged Charlie.

"What for? You've never seen him, and he's lots of fun," said Howard,
without the faintest appearance of respect for the clerical brother.

"I know, but I'd rather meet him some time when I don't feel so much
like a mummy in a museum," urged Charlie again. "Can't you get me out of
this, Ned?"

"There isn't time, honestly. He's right here, or I would," answered Ned
in a low voice, as he drew his friend's soft hat forward and turned down
the brim. "You're all right; and, besides, he's such an old duffer that
he won't notice anything. He won't stay here, any way; he comes to see
cousin Euphemia, and help her out when she gets in a tight place with
Wang Kum. Wang's been cutting church lately, and most likely the
doctor's come to see about it."

The Reverend Gabriel Hornblower belonged to the fast vanishing school of
mossbacks, or "old-timers," as they more elegantly termed themselves,
the early settlers who had watched the State grow from its first
squatter population to its present comparative civilization. A mere boy
in the stormy days of Sixty-three, he had joined one of the many trains
of ox-teams which started across the country, on their slow, toilsome
march to the far West; and, for the next few years, his life had been
one of continual excitement and hardship. His father and grandfather
before him had been ministers; so it was small wonder that Gabriel, upon
arriving at man's estate, should feel that both his family tradition and
his name had called him to the life of a wandering preacher among the
mining camps and scattered ranches of the region, until he had finally
settled down to take charge of the little church in Blue Creek. He was
neither a great man, nor an educated one. On the contrary, he was
ignorant of any life outside of his own narrow sphere, and intolerant of
all spirit of advance or change, singularly devoid of tact, but literal,
honest, and well-meaning. Moreover, he was absolutely self-satisfied,
but utterly lacking in the sense of fun which makes conceited people so
much less disagreeable, since it gives them a glimmering appreciation of
their own absurdity.

As far as his outward man was concerned, the Reverend Gabriel Hornblower
was not fair to look upon. Although Mrs. Pennypoker never failed to
speak of him as "old Dr. Hornblower," in reality he was not far from
forty-five; but he looked a score of years older, for his constant
exposure to the fierce mountain gales and the burning suns of summer had
tanned and dried him until his complexion closely resembled a withered
seckel pear, and his body was as thin and wiry as that of a September
locust in a season of famine. But, in spite of his dull, yellow-brown
skin, his deep-set blue eyes retained all their old life and sparkle,
while his thick auburn hair was cut close at the back and sides of his
head, and allowed to grow long above his forehead, where it was combed
up to form a single curl, which ran straight across the top of his head,
from brow to crown. The peculiar nature of this curl had beguiled the
time of dreary sermons for many a youthful sinner; for, like
Melchisedek, it appeared to have its beginning and ending in nothing,
and there was a certain fascination in tracing its placid course above
the august forehead.

Approaching nearer to Dr. Hornblower, it was easy to see that he was a
close student, either of books or of human nature. His habit of profound
thought had developed an anxious frown, which had traced three deep
wrinkles between his eyebrows; while, upon the rare occasions when his
massive brain was at rest, and his brow was smoothed, two narrow lines
of white, untanned skin came to the surface, and gave his face a little
the appearance of a fantastic mask.

As he drew near the little group on the steps, Louise courteously rose
to greet him.

"Come in, Dr. Hornblower," she said hospitably. "Walk into the parlor,
and I'll call Mrs. Pennypoker."

The doctor paused irresolutely, while he looked up into her fair young
face.

"Um--thank you," he said awkwardly. "I will--at least I didn't exactly
come to see Mrs. Pennypoker, this afternoon. I"--

"Shall I call Wang Kum?" suggested Grant, with an air of ready interest,
as he rose and moved a step towards the door.

"Not just now," said the Reverend Gabriel stiffly. "Miss Everett, may I
not have the--the pleasure of sitting at your feet?" And he fixed his
eyes on the patent-leather tips of her shoes.

"Of course we should be very glad to have you with us, Dr. Hornblower,"
returned Louise, while the pink color in her cheeks grew a shade deeper,
as she heard an irrepressible giggle from Marjorie. "Ned, will you
please bring out another chair? This is Charlie MacGregor, Dr.
Hornblower," she added, as she saw the doctor's eyes turn inquiringly in
his direction.

"In--deed; the young boy who was injured while at play? How do you do,
Charles?" asked the Reverend Gabriel, after pausing to contemplate the
lad, who had risen to his feet.

"Very much better, thank you," replied Charlie, while Howard gave him a
stealthy poke with his foot.

"Ah? I am glad to hear it, for I have been much interested in your case.
I hope you are properly thankful that there is now some slight
possibility that your sight may be restored to you."

"Take this chair, Dr. Hornblower," interposed Louise hastily, while
Charlie turned an appealing face towards his cousins. "It is a long time
since you have been here; Mrs. Pennypoker was speaking of it only
yesterday."

"Yes, I have been much occupied with the duties of my calling," returned
the Reverend Gabriel, as he seated himself in the low chair, which
brought his bony knees almost on a level with his chin. "My time has
been engaged in visiting the erring members of my flock; and now,
to-day, I find that I have an hour in which to call on you."

"I hope you don't look upon me as an erring member," Louise said,
laughing lightly.

"Pardon me, my dear young friend, no; you are misapprehending me,"
answered the doctor, with a stiff-necked bow which sent Grant and
Marjorie into the house to laugh unseen. "I only wished to state that"--

"Cousin Euphemia will be here in a minute, Lou," interrupted Ned,
reappearing in the doorway. "She saw the doctor coming, and she sent me
out to say she'd be right here; she wants to talk up something about
Wang. Come on, Charlie, I want to show you something in the house."

"Really," exclaimed the discomfited doctor, as he looked beseechingly at
Louise; "I had no wish to disturb your cousin, Miss Everett. I trust
that she did not feel that she ought to see me, if it is inconvenient."

"Not at all; she'll be delighted to see you," answered his young
hostess, with a grateful glance at her brother as he disappeared through
the open door.

"There!" said Ned triumphantly, as the children settled themselves
inside the parlor. "We'll stay cached in here, out of the way; and maybe
there'll be some fun before long, if Cousin Euphemia and the doctor get
after Wang. He's been to our church all the time lately, ever since our
choir started up; and Cousin Euphemia doesn't like it. I just heard her
telling Wang to go out to them as soon as he could get ready."

Ned's suspicions were well founded. A few moments later Wang Kum came
shuffling around the corner of the house, with his hat cocked defiantly
on the back of his head, and his hands buried in the pockets of his
loose blue toga.

"How do you do, Wang Kum?" asked the doctor, benevolently eyeing the
stray lamb before him.

"Heap well," returned Wang Kum calmly, as he kept his eyes fixed on the
ground, to avoid Mrs. Pennypoker's warning glance.

"I was afraid you were ill," observed the doctor, with an approving
smile for his own crafty manner of approaching the subject.

"Uh?" inquired Wang Kum.

"I thought perhaps you might be sick," repeated the doctor. "I hadn't
seen you at church lately."

Wang shook his head contemptuously.

"Wang no get sick," he remarked.

"Then why haven't you been to church?" asked the doctor.

But Wang Kum only replied with a scarcely perceptible shrug.

"Wang, didn't you hear Dr. Hornblower speak to you?" asked Mrs.
Pennypoker sharply.

Wang still stood gazing on the ground and nodding his head in a slow,
thoughtful way which communicated a rhythmic undulation to his pigtail.
At Mrs. Pennypoker's question, he glanced up.

"Wang no likee your church," he answered coolly. "Pisplykal church heap
lot better; smell good, sound good." He paused, then added, with a
cunning twinkle in his little dark eyes, "Make heap washee for
washee-shop." And, turning on his heel, he marched off towards the
kitchen, with the air of a man who had solved vast economic problems.




CHAPTER IX.

CAMPING ON THE BEAVERHEAD.


The August sun was shining down from a cloudless sky. He had risen
betimes that morning; but he was not the first one up in Blue Creek, for
the dim light of the dawn had found Ned and Grant Everett dressed and
flying about the house, while, farther up the street, Marjorie was
peering out through the window blinds, to assure herself that it was to
be a pleasant day. By seven o'clock the Burnams, too, were stirring; and
soon afterwards Allie and the boys appeared in the dining-room at the
Everetts', to exchange noisy congratulations over the fine weather.

The day had at length come when they were to start upon their
long-delayed camping trip. For the past week, the young people had been
in a state of ferment, while their elders were in much the same
condition, even to Mrs. Pennypoker, whose excitement was largely mixed
with dread at the thought of the Bohemian life before her. The
engineering camp, which they were to join, was now pitched beside the
Beaverhead River; and Mr. Burnam, who had been out with his party much
of the time since Charlie's accident, had come back to Blue Creek two
days before, announcing that all was in readiness for their reception;
so the hour for their departure was fixed upon. The distance to the camp
was so great that they were to be two days upon their journey, spending
the night at a ranch on their way, and reaching camp late on the
following afternoon.

By nine o'clock, the party had assembled at the Burnams', ready for the
start. They made an imposing cavalcade as they moved away down the
street, for all but the older women were mounted on horseback. At the
head of the procession rode Mr. Everett, Mr. Burnam, and Mr. Fisher,
followed closely by the four boys, Allie and Marjorie, while Louise
Everett, in her close-fitting dark green habit, cantered along in the
rear, with Dr. Brownlee by her side. Then came the three wagons, the
first driven by Wang Kum, with Janey perched up on the high seat beside
him, eyeing her companion askance; while Mrs. Pennypoker, directly
behind them, watched them both with an unswerving vigilance, ready to
check any sign of levity on the part of man or maid. Mrs. Pennypoker
was attired with all her wonted nicety, and her prim black straw bonnet
and decorous gloves formed a striking contrast to the plain
rough-and-ready gowns and broad hats of the other matrons, who were more
accustomed to the needs of the life before them. Last of all came the
two baggage wagons, one carrying the tents and stove, the other laden
with the generous stock of provisions which Mr. Burnam had laid in for
his guests; while in and out among them all raced Ben in a series of
mad, elephantine gambols, expressive of his joy at being started for the
field again.

Through the town they proceeded quietly enough; then, when they came out
into the open ground of the lower canon, the boys uttered a wild whoop,
and dug their heels into the flanks of their ponies, as they went
scurrying away, far in advance of the rest of the party.

"Just look at Charlie!" said Marjorie, as the boys turned to ride
leisurely back to their companions once more. "He acts as if he didn't
know what to do next."

"He's just about wild to be out again," returned Allie, gathering up her
reins preparatory to joining the lads at the head of the procession.
"You see, he was shut up 'most eight weeks, so I don't wonder he wants
to make up for it. I expect he'll break his neck, though; for he's so
near-sighted that he can't see without his glasses, and of course he
can't wear them with that patch over his eye."

"How long is he going to wear it?" asked Marjorie soberly.

"I don't know; a good while, the doctor says, but I don't think Charlie
minds much, after the other."

"I suppose he came awfully near"--Marjorie paused, with a little shiver.

Allie nodded understandingly.

"Yes; he didn't have any idea of it, though, till that day he met Dr.
Hornblower at the Everetts'. After that he was dreadfully blue; you know
he wouldn't stir out anywhere, for ever so long."

"Say, Allie," began Marjorie abruptly; "do you remember that day before
he was hurt?"

"When you were so cross?" inquired Allie mercilessly.

"Yes. Did Charlie ever say anything about it?"

"Why, no," answered Allie after a little reflection. "I don't believe he
ever thought of it again."

"I am glad of it," responded Marjorie; but still she did not look
altogether pleased. She would have preferred that her words should
carry a little more weight. Then she went on with her confession, "Well,
I kept thinking about it, till I began to feel as if I'd done it all.
You know I said I hoped something would happen. I wanted to come
straight down here, that very night, but mamma wouldn't let me, not even
long enough to just say I was sorry; and then the doctor wouldn't let
any of us see him for ever so long, so I never said anything about it.
Would you now, or would you let it go?"

"I don't know," said Allie thoughtfully. "Charlie'd never lay up
anything of that kind; but I always just like to say I'm sorry, when
I've been hateful to him or Howard. It kind of smoothes things out; but
you can do as you like."

"Hi, you girls!" exclaimed Grant, dashing past them at this moment,
after capering about the wagons in a manner calculated to bring down
Mrs. Pennypoker's denunciations upon his yellow head. "What makes you so
puppywented slow? Come on!"

"All right!" And Allie scampered off at his heels, sitting very straight
and trim in her pretty new saddle.

Howard and Ned went after them, and Charlie was just ready to follow
when he heard some one coming up behind him on his blindfold side.

"Wait just one minute, Charlie," said Marjorie's voice in his ear. "I
want to say something to you--just to say"--She paused, and swallowed
hard for a minute; then she went on steadily, "how sorry I've been that
I was so mean to you that day your eye was hurt. I wanted to tell you so
right off then, but I couldn't. But I kept thinking about it, all the
time you were ill, and 'twas most as bad as if I'd thrown the ball."
Marjorie stopped; the very earnestness of her apology made it hard to
utter.

Charlie turned his head to look at her. He was surprised to see her face
so pale and her lips trembling.

"That's all right enough, Marjorie," he said heartily. "I knew you
didn't mean it, and I didn't think any more about it. Give us your fist,
and then we'll go after the others."

Sunset, the next night, found the party comfortably established in their
new quarters, on the very bank of the willow-bordered creek that plunged
into the river, forty feet away. Across the creek and six hundred feet
down the valley, dingy and brown with much service stood the tents of
the engineering corps; but the officers' tent was deserted, for its
occupants had come over to pay their respects at Camp Burnam, as the
children had christened it. The site for the camp had been fixed upon,
two days beforehand, and it was but the work of an hour to unpack the
wagons and pitch the four tents which made up the outfit. At the south
were the sleeping-tents, with Mrs. Burnam presiding over one, and Mr.
Everett over the other, while at the east, close to the creek, were
those given up to dining and cooking, where Janey and Wang Kum held sway
by day, with many a wrangle over the possession of the little
camp-stove, and many a heated discussion as to the relative merits of
Asiatic and African cookery.

The stove had been the first thing to be unpacked, and by the time the
last guy-rope was made fast, the last roll of bedding opened and
arranged in its place, the welcome call to supper was sounded, and they
gathered about the long table, spread in the open air, in the golden
sunset light. Then the elders settled themselves for the evening, glad
to rest after their long ride, while the children raced up and down the
camp, exploring all the nooks and corners of their little domain, before
throwing themselves down on a pile of blankets to watch the full moon
as it rose from a bank of cloud just above the low hills to the
eastward, and threw its white light over their gay group. Fifteen feet
away from them Mrs. Burnam sat in the doorway of her tent, with Louise
at her feet. The girl's golden hair was glistening in the moonlight, as
she raised her head to speak to the topographer of the party, a
sandy-haired, jovial young fellow, so lately come from "Sheff" that he
retained all the slang and easy assurance of the genuine college boy.
Ten months of camp life had made him hail with delight the prospect of
paying court to a pretty girl; and he had attached himself to her side
to the utter exclusion of Dr. Brownlee and the grave, taciturn leveller,
who had retired from the contest and was devoting himself to Mrs.
Burnam, whom he had known for years. For a few moments, the doctor stood
looking on; then he turned away and joined the group of children, who
received him enthusiastically.

"I'll tell you what, this is fine!" said Charlie contentedly, while the
doctor seated himself by his side, and the boy stretched himself out at
full length, with his head on his friend's knee, and lay staring up at
the moon. "This is something I've never tried before, and always wanted
to."

"Which?" inquired Allie, as she bent over to tickle his nose with a long
straw stolen from the bedding; "taking up twice as much room as belongs
to you, or looking at the moon?"

"Camping out, of course," answered her cousin, curling up his feet, in
deference to her words. "Looking at the moon, too, for that matter; for
I didn't see much of the last one."

"Speaking of moons," interposed Grant, from the corner where he and
Marjorie and Howard had been chattering and giggling together; "the last
two days have been no end hard on the storm center, and I think we shall
catch a blizzard soon, by the looks. Just see her now!"

Grant's comment was in part justified, for the past two days had been
undeniably hard upon Mrs. Pennypoker's appearance. The sun is no
respecter of persons, and he had beaten down upon her majestic Greek
nose with precisely the same fervent caresses which he had lavished upon
Marjorie's freckled pug. Unfortunately, Mrs. Pennypoker's neat little
straw bonnet was by no means so good a protection as Marjorie's soft
scarlet felt hat, with its broad, flapping brim, and, even in the cold
light of the moon, Mrs. Pennypoker's countenance gleamed with the luster
of polished mahogany, which was enhanced by the great white kerchief
that she had tied over her head, to keep out the evening air. No urging
could induce her to sit on a blanket on the ground; so, in the absence
of upholstered chairs, Mr. Everett had arranged a wooden pail against a
tall box, cushioned them both with straw and blankets, and mounted his
cousin upon this rustic throne, where she sat with her skirts carefully
tucked up about her and her nose in the air, looking as much out of
place as a Dresden china dinner service would have done on the rough
board table.

Howard laughed, as he looked at her.

"I should think Wang would like her, to put her in his Joss house," he
said disrespectfully. "What'll she ever do, before two weeks are up?
She'll be a case for the doctor, sure enough."

"We ought to have brought Dr. Hornblower along, to amuse her," suggested
Grant. "Come, I'm tired of this; let's have a game of 'I spy.' This
moonlight would be fine for it. Come on, Ned!"

"Where?" inquired Ned lazily, for he was thoroughly absorbed in the
story that Dr. Brownlee was telling.

"'I spy'; anything to get waked up."

"Sha'n't. I'm too comfortable to move."

"Allie?"

"Don't want to," replied Allie, without stirring from her place beside
Ned.

"Charlie--anybody?" demanded Grant.

"What's the use? I can't see enough without my gigs."

"Lazy things! Don't disturb them, Grant," said Marjorie scornfully. "If
this is the way you're going to do, I wish we'd left you at home. Grant,
we'll hide, and let Howard find us. Come ahead!" And they vanished into
the shadow beside the cooking tent.

Three minutes later there was a vigorous splash, followed by a shriek
from Marjorie, which brought the whole party flying to the spot. Down in
the shallow creek sat Grant, blinking up at them in bewilderment, as he
wiped the water from his eyes.

"What's the matter?" asked Howard, as Mr. Burnam helped the boy to
scramble to his feet, and up the steep bank of the stream.

"Wish you'd whitewash those guy-ropes!" responded Grant petulantly. "I
tripped over 'em, and they landed me in that squdgy old creek. Marj
needn't have squealed like a cat, though, and given it all away."

"'If this is the way you're going to do, I wish we'd left you at home,'"
quoted Allie majestically, as she surveyed the dripping boy before her.
"I think Charlie has his spectacles in his pocket, Grant, if you'd like
to borrow them."

However, this ended the frolic of the evening, for Mrs. Pennypoker
summarily seized upon the young explorer and ordered him to bed, while
Wang Kum spread his clothes to dry before the fire. The other boys soon
followed Grant's example, and the older people with them; so, after much
wriggling and nestling about in the blankets, they at last dropped to
sleep, and silence descended upon Camp Burnam.

Camp life began in earnest the next day, and for the next two weeks the
party enjoyed one perpetual picnic. The children were up and out by
daybreak, ready for the long days of fun, and by seven o'clock the
breakfast call had sounded to gather them around the long table. It was
good to see Wang Kum, tin horn in hand, emerge from his improvised
kitchen, and blow the deep blast which should summon his flock to the
meal; it was good to see Janey follow in his wake, armed with the great
coffee-pot and a pile of light hoe-cakes, and then rush up and down
behind the chairs, trying to serve them all at once, while she
struggled in vain to repress an inclination to prance, and never failed
to give a vigorous tweak to Wang Kum's pigtail, as she passed him. The
relation between the two servants was unique, and, at times, somewhat
strained. Although Wang Kum, left to himself, would have been the most
peaceable of mortals, Janey persisted in treating him as an embodied
joke, and lost no opportunity to tease and torment him, until he came to
regard her with a strange mingling of hatred and fear.

"Wang tell Mis' Pen'plok'," he would mutter, with a threatening glance
from his beady eyes.

"Ol' mis' won' believe you," Janey would make answer. "She knows dat
you's a heathen, an' won' go to church. Cut off your great long plat, ef
you don' wan' me to pull it no mo'. I cyarn' help it, ef it gits in my
way, all de time." And then she would slyly lift the tip of the
offending member and lay it across the table, before setting her heavy
iron dish pan upon it. "Don' you year ol' mis' calling you?" she would
ask then. "Take care! Don' upset all my dish tub!" And the war would
begin again.

The weather left nothing to be desired, and, the party usually
scattered soon after breakfast. The older men went on long hunting
expeditions, in pursuit of the game which generally proved to be just
over the divide; or explored the creek in search of trout,--great,
rich-flavored fellows, which put to shame the tiny products of our
Eastern streams. The boys, in the mean time, made friends with the
engineers, and spent whole days in the field. Howard and Ned attached
themselves to the transitman, and took turns as head and rear chain,
while Grant superintended the levelling, and Charlie trudged along in
the rear with the young topographer, who had taken a sudden fancy to the
boy, and gave him frequent lectures on the theory and practice of
surveying, until his pupil longed for the time when he too could wear on
his watch-chain the tiny blue shield, with its golden date and initials.

Then there were long rides up and down the valley, and merry evenings in
camp, when they told over the adventures of the day, played games, or
sang college songs to the tinkling notes of the mandolin which Louise
had brought with her. There was an elaborate afternoon tea, when Mrs.
Burnam and Louise devoted their entire supply of tin plates and cups to
the entertainment of the whole corps of engineers, down to the very
axmen, and feasted them upon the miscellaneous delicacies concocted by
Janey and Wang. Three days later, this hospitality was returned by a
grand dinner-party at the lower camp, when venison and trout were the
main dishes of the meal, and the table was set and served with a
masculine disregard for appearances.

But the last night of their holiday had to come. Evening found them all
gathered at Camp Burnam, watching the darkness settle around their
pleasant forest home. Both camps were to be struck on the following day,
for the engineering party was to move down the river at the same time
that the others started for home.

"I have only two things to mourn about," said Charlie meditatively. "I
haven't shot a single bear, and I haven't even seen the tail of a
cayote."

"Wish you had; 't would have been such fun to see you turn and run,"
responded Ned, as he indolently settled himself with his head on Ben's
side.

"Poor old Ben! Does he use you for a pillow?" asked Marjorie, stooping
to stroke the great creature's head.

"I say, Marjorie, stop that," remonstrated Howard suddenly. "When you
pet that end of him, this end wags, and his tail whacks awfully. Do let
him go to sleep, or else warn me, so I can get out of the way."

"You'd better try this, you fellows," advised Ned. "It's fine; the best
bed I've had since I left home."

"What's going on here?" asked Dr. Brownlee, moving up to the group, in
company with Louise and her faithful attendant, the topographer, just as
Howard and Charlie stretched themselves out beside Ned.

"Nothing, only they're getting ready for a nap," said Allie. "Don't you
wish we didn't have to go home to-morrow?"

"I do," groaned Charlie. "I never had so much fun before, and I don't
want to go back to town again. I believe I'll run off and set up in life
as a brave. Will you come, too, Allie?".

"Not if I have to live in a wick-i-up three feet square, and wear your
cast-off blankets," she answered, with some spirit. "I'm just about the
right color for a squaw, though; that is, if I look as badly as the rest
of you do."

"Thank you, dear," returned Howard laughing. "You're at least ten shades
blacker than anybody else; and Charlie is so dark that his patch hasn't
showed any for five days."

"How about the freckles?" inquired Charlie composedly. "I don't care;
I've had a good time, and maybe 'twon't be fast color."

"It won't hurt you, Charlie," remarked the doctor. "You started off
looking rather too white, after living in the dark for a month. This
camping trip has been the best thing you could have had."

The two weeks had certainly done the boy good, and, removed from any
temptation to use his eyes, he had given them the utter rest which they
demanded, until they had nearly regained their former strength. Dr.
Brownlee watched him approvingly for a moment. Notwithstanding the dark
sunburn on his cheeks and the shade over his right eye, it was an
attractive face, in spite of its lack of real beauty, such as had fallen
to the share of Ned and Grant.

"It has been immense," said the boy regretfully. "But maybe we can come
out again, next summer."

"Don't flatter yourself with any such notion," said Howard. "If you'd
been with papa as long as I have, you'd know that there isn't much
chance of our being here, by another summer. He may be ordered to
Alaska or Arizona, by that time; and we'll have to 'hoppee 'long, too.'"

"Just this way," interposed Grant, starting up abruptly with an inviting
chirrup to Ben, who scrambled to his feet with a suddenness which sent
the three boys rolling into an indiscriminate pile among the blankets,
as their pillow went rushing away across the camp, in pursuit of some
imaginary intruder.

It was late that night when the party finally broke up and went to their
tents; it was later still before the usual gentle snores arose from Mrs.
Pennypoker's corner. Soon afterwards, the silence of the night was
broken by the sound of stealthy footsteps, coming up the river bank from
the engineers' tents. A moment later, the music from a full orchestra of
combs roused the sleepers from their dreams.

"Farewell, farewell, my own true love!" they wailed, in a gusty and
oft-repeated chorus, until even Ben's feelings overpowered him, and,
running to the door of the tent, he raised his nose towards the waning
moon, and howled till his voice was husky. Then the swaying curtain at
the doorway of the tent dropped once more, and all was still. The play
was over, and the orchestra had ceased. Camp Burnam's story was ended.




CHAPTER X.

UP THE GULCH.


"I do believe every-day things are pleasantest, after all," said Allie
contentedly.

It was a month after their camping party, and she and her mother were
comfortably settled in the parlor, with the mending basket between them.
The windows and doors were thrown wide open, and the room was flooded
with the yellow sunlight that lay across the floor, while the warm
September wind softly fluttered the light draperies. Outside the door,
on the piazza, Ben lay snoozing in the sun, sleepily wagging his tail in
some happy dream of full-flavored bones or trespassing cats; and beyond
him Victor was trudging up and down the path in front of the house,
laden with a tiny scarlet pail filled with sand. Allie glanced
thoughtfully about the pretty room, and out at her baby brother; then
she turned back to her mother again, as Mrs. Burnam asked,--

"How do you mean, Allie?"

"Why, after all our camping and fun, it seems good to sit down and
visit a little, mammy. Don't you see, we haven't had a chance for ever
so long, not since Charlie was hurt; and I enjoy it, once in a while.
The other is fun; but I like to stop and talk it over sometimes." And
Allie paused meditatively, with one of Howard's long stockings drawn
over her hand.

"Yes, I know," her mother answered, while she trimmed a patch to fit the
hole which it was intended to fill; "we haven't had a quiet afternoon
for a long time, hardly since Charlie came out here, last spring. You've
been so busy with the boys that I didn't know whether you'd ever enjoy
sitting down with me any more."

"Yes, this is nicest," said Allie. "The boys aren't you, any more than
Charlie is Howard. I like them both; but I need you to straighten out
things sometimes."

"What is it now?" asked her mother quietly, for she saw from Allie's
face that something was troubling her, and, mother-like, she wished to
help her little daughter.

"Why, it isn't so much; only something that Grant was telling, something
Mrs. Pennypoker said," answered Allie, while she threaded her needle and
stuck it in beside the hole. Then she asked abruptly, "Mamma, is it
true that Charlie has ever so much money?"

"Yes; that is, he will have, when he grows up," replied Mrs. Burnam, a
little surprised at the question, for she had tried to train her
children to feel that wealth was by no means the main end in life.

"How much?" persisted Allie.

"A great deal, for Uncle Charlie was a rich man, and our Charlie is his
only child."

"Oh!" And Allie lapsed into silence again.

"What made you ask, Allie?" her mother inquired, after a pause.

"Nothing; only Mrs. Pennypoker said somebody told her he was very rich,
and that was the reason you'd let him come here, so maybe we could get
some of it; and she asked Mrs. Pennypoker if she hadn't seen the way I
hadn't had so much to do with Ned and Marjorie since he'd been here, and
all. Wasn't it horrid, mamma?"

Mrs. Burnam frowned. She was sorry to have such ideas put into the head
of her young daughter; and, during the past five months, she had grown
to feel that Charlie was almost one of her own children; so the
worldly-wise tone of these comments grated upon her ears.

"Grant had no right to tell you this," she said thoughtfully.

"I don't care if he did," Allie interrupted. "I knew 't wasn't true, and
I told him that I didn't think Charlie had any money, and we didn't want
any of it, if he had; we'd plenty of our own. But I wish people wouldn't
talk such things. I like Ned and Marjorie just as well as I used to; but
when Charlie's here in the house, and just as splendid as he can be, I
don't see why I shouldn't like him better. Nobody minded when I was with
Howard 'most all the time, and Charlie's just like another brother." And
she nodded conclusively as she resumed her work.

Mrs. Burnam watched her steadily for a moment, trying to read whether
there was any unspoken thought in her daughter's mind; but Allie looked
up, and her blue eyes met her mother's so squarely that Mrs. Burnam was
satisfied.

"Charlie does seem just like one of us," she assented heartily; "and I
know we've all enjoyed his being out here; but it isn't because he's
rich that we've liked him, it's because he's just what he is, a bright,
manly boy, without any airs or nonsense. Aunt Helen asked to have him
come to us, because he hadn't any other cousins; and it would have been
a pleasant six months for all of us, if it hadn't been for his terrible
illness." Mrs. Burnam paused; she could never speak of his accident
without a shudder.

"I'm glad it happened," returned Allie proudly. "If it hadn't, we
shouldn't ever have known how brave he was. And, besides, if it hadn't
been for that, we never should have known Dr. Brownlee half so well, and
he wouldn't have gone into camp with us; so you see there was some good
came out of it. But didn't we have a fine time in camp, mammy?"

"Yes, I think our camping trip was a success, in more ways than one,"
said Mrs. Burnam, smiling quietly to herself, as she recalled certain
scenes in which Louise and the doctor had played a part. There was no
doubt in her mind about the enjoyment of two of their number, however
the others might have looked upon it.

"But, after all," resumed Allie, going back to her original statement;
"I do like getting settled down again; and this vacation has been so
stirred up that I believe I shall be glad to have some lessons once
more."

"Here comes Ned," said her mother, glancing up from her work as the boy
turned the corner and came up the street towards the house. "He's
probably after you and the boys for some frolic or other."

"All right; I've just finished my last stocking. Did you ever see
anybody make such holes as Howard does?" And she rolled the stockings
into a ball and tossed them into the basket, as Ned came up the steps.

"Hullo!" he remarked, dropping into the chair from which Allie had just
risen, and helping himself to her orderly work-basket. "Where are the
other fellows?"

"They've gone up the creek fishing," answered Allie, watching, with an
anxious face, while Ned investigated her papers of needles, and then
turned his attention to her button bag.

"They must want something to do," returned Ned scornfully. "I should
think you about lived on fish, up here."

"They don't often catch anything," said Mrs. Burnam, laughing; "not even
colds. Howard fell into the creek, day before yesterday, and then sat
around in his wet clothes all the afternoon; but it didn't seem to hurt
him any."

"I tried that once," said Ned, as he stealthily put the basket on the
floor, just behind Allie, where she could not fail to step in it and
overturn it; "but I had the worst of it, for Cousin Euphemia saw me when
I came home. She put me to bed, right in the middle of the day, and made
me take some hot ginger-tea. Ugh, what a mess 't was! I'd rather have
had a dozen colds than be choked to death, and left to stew in a flannel
blanket. But what I came to say, Allie--Oh, isn't that too bad! You've
upset your basket."

"What a wretch you are, Ned!" And Allie slyly dropped a large, flat
button down inside his collar, as she stooped to pick up her scattered
treasures. "You've done this before, and I know just how sorry you are."

"I didn't do a single thing," returned Ned innocently. "How'd I know you
were going to put your foot in it that way? But I stopped to see if some
of you didn't want to go up the gulch this afternoon. It's not so very
warm, and Lou and Grant are going, so I said I'd hurry on ahead and get
you to come too. Here they are, now."

"I'll go; wait till I get my hat." And Allie vanished.

"Come along too, Mrs. Burnam," said Ned persuasively.

"I wish I could, Ned; but I must stay with Vic, for Janey has gone out
this afternoon. You'd better stop in here, all of you, when you come
back, though. The boys will be home by that time, and I want to see
Louise, too," she added, as Ned and Allie went down the steps.

At the west side of the town, the mountains rose up, sheer and straight,
their slopes ending abruptly at the outer streets, which were carefully
laid out and numbered, although no houses had yet been built there.
However, the low, even ground was elaborately divided into blocks, and
the blocks, in their turn, into building lots, to be in readiness for
the possible purchaser, who might appear at any moment. On the boundary
line between the town and this suburban region was the little brick
school-house; and beyond it lay the open ground which now, in the
absence of any inhabitants, was still used as a wood yard for the
distant smelter, whose constant fires easily devoured the vast piles of
wood daily unloaded by the trains which ran down the spur of track
leading to the yard. Beyond this again were the mountains, which rose to
their highest point just to the west of the town, where the tips of the
tallest peaks were always blanketed with the soft, white piles of snow.
At only one spot their unbroken front was interrupted, where a deep,
narrow ravine led far up among the mountains, forming a delightful walk
in a warm summer day. After the burning glare on the dry, sandy soil of
the town, which, in its barren lack of grass and trees, stared back at
the sun like a lidless, lashless eye, the cool shadows of the pines in
the gulch were a refreshing change. The little gulch had its variety of
names: Bear Gulch, it was called, Lover's Gulch, and even Cemetery
Gulch, from the lonely burial ground perched on the top of the rugged
bluff at its entrance.

Ned and Allie had taken the lead, with Louise and Grant following close
behind them, as they picked their way among the countless tin cans
scattered over the fields, or paused to look and laugh while the boys
clambered to the top of the long wood-piles, and ran slow, unsteady
races over their uneven surfaces. Then they came out to the track, and
followed along its course, where Ned and Allie joined hands and walked
the rails, and Grant trudged along behind them, stepping with an
elaborate care upon each one of the ties, or leaping over occasional
cattle-guards, as they crossed his path.

They were far past the western houses of the town, and rapidly
approaching the foot of the mountain, when Ned gave Allie's hand a
violent twitch.

"Look back!" he exclaimed in an undertone.

With a little cry of alarm, Allie sprang from the track; then, as she
glanced back over her shoulder, she burst out laughing.

"How you scared me, Ned!" she said, as she stopped abruptly. "I thought
'twas a train, but it's only Dr. Hornblower."

True enough; up the track behind them came the excellent doctor, waving
his cane in amicable salutation, as he strode along at a pace which
might have put to shame the wearer of the famous seven-league boots. His
leathery skin was dark and shining from the violence of his exercise, as
he came sweeping on towards them, till he paused by the side of Louise,
who watched him with some anxiety while he stood wheezing and panting
before her.

"My dear Miss Everett," he said, when he could regain his breath enough
to speak once more; "are you not afraid to walk so rapidly at this
altitude? I fear you may over-exert yourself some day." He paused for a
moment, puffing like the engine of an overloaded freight train; then he
resumed, "I called at your residence, and was so regretful at not
finding you at home that your cousin, Mrs. Pennypoker, told me that you
were bound for the gulch, and assured me that there was--um--some
prospect of my overtaking, not to say catching up with you."

"Are you out on the round-up again to-day, Dr. Hornblower?" asked Ned
soberly.

The Reverend Gabriel looked at him with a perplexed countenance.

"I am afraid that I do not perfectly apprehend your meaning," he said.

"Why, you said, last time you called on Lou, that you were hunting up
stray sheep, and I didn't know but you were out after some more to-day,"
Ned explained, with a naughty satisfaction in his sister's struggles to
repress her smiles.

But Dr. Hornblower was quite unmoved. His professional dignity rose to
the surface, and his voice took on its Sunday twang as he replied
pompously,--

"No, Edward; the sheep are all in the fold. To-day I am only in search
of congenial society." And he bowed gravely to Louise.

"Come on, now," whispered Grant, as he joined Allie and Ned in advance,
and left Louise to follow them with her elderly admirer; "the doctor's
lost his wind already, and can't keep up; but, if he wants a walk,
we'll give him one."

His companions entered into the spirit of his proposition, and they
quickened their pace, after casting one backward glance towards Louise,
as she lingered along, with a sort of repressed impatience of step and
manner, while she listened to the Reverend Gabriel's elaborate
explanations of his reasons for following her. Then such a race as they
led him! Quitting the track, they turned aside into the open ground,
covered with uneven tufts of coarse bunch grass and thickets of sage
brush, now racing down a little hillock, now jumping over a tiny stream
and forcing their way through the clumps of willows on the bank, but
always choosing the roughest, hardest path, and always going at the top
of their speed, while Louise and the doctor panted and floundered along
too far in the rear to be heard in their calls for mercy. Even Allie was
beginning to be exhausted when, a few hundred feet above the mouth of
the gulch, Grant turned abruptly to the right and scrambled up the steep
hillside leading to the cemetery.

"There!" he chuckled, while Ned and Allie, breathless with laughing and
with their rapid climb, dropped down on the ground beside him; "we'll
give him a rest when he gets up here. If he's going to come along and
spoil all our fun, he must pay for it; but he'll be tired by this time."

"I wonder if he'll ever get up here alive," said Allie, as she reached
out to the nearest bush, to pick a bit of fur from the twig which had
caught it from some passing cottontail. "You almost used me up, and I
don't believe Miss Lou could have gone on much farther, so I shouldn't
wonder if he was pretty nearly dead."

"Well, 'twould be a nice, convenient place for the funeral; only I
shouldn't be surprised if he stuck, half way up here," suggested Ned,
comfortably lying on his back, and fanning himself with the hat which
Allie had tossed aside. "No; here he comes," he added, as the Reverend
Gabriel's wide-brimmed straw hat and flushed face appeared over the brow
of the hill, followed by Louise, looking rosy and mischievous, but as
fresh as she had done at the start.

"Come over to this tree, doctor, and sit down here in the shade while
you rest," she said kindly, as she led the way to the spot where the
boys were stretched out on the grass.

There was an unwonted gentleness in her voice, for she had been quick
to discover the impish intention of her brothers, and was anxious to
atone for their lack of courtesy towards an acquaintance whom she had
always regarded as an old man, on the down-hill side of life. In spite
of herself she had been amused at the doctor's frantic efforts to keep
up with her own firm, quick pace, and at his urgent entreaties that she
should tell him if he walked too fast for her. Nevertheless, as she
seated herself beside her young brothers, she was resolving to give them
a lecture upon the sins of the afternoon, so soon as she could get them
in a place of safety.

In the mean time, the doctor appeared to be strangely annoyed over
something, although she was unable to discover the cause of his trouble.
In obedience to her inviting gesture, he had spread out his large blue
silk handkerchief on the ground by her side, and seated himself upon it.
Then he started to remove his hat; but he had no sooner raised it a
little from his head than he hastily clapped it on again, with a little
exclamation of surprise and displeasure.

"I do hope that these bad boys haven't given you too hard a climb,
doctor," Louise was saying politely, while she turned to frown down any
fresh demonstrations on the part of Grant, who was evidently plotting
some new mischief.

"Um--m--ah--no--at least, I beg your pardon, but what was it you said?"
inquired the doctor, so abstractedly that Louise looked at him in
astonishment.

The Reverend Gabriel sat with his face slightly turned away from her. He
was tilting his hat so that, on the farther side, it was raised an inch
or two from his head, while, with his disengaged hand, he was feeling
carefully about underneath it, as if in search of some missing object.
His face, meanwhile, was rapidly assuming every appearance of trouble
and distress, which became more and more acute with every fresh motion
of his hand. Louise watched him compassionately, sure that something was
amiss, but not daring to offer to come to his assistance; then, thinking
to spare him any added mortification, she looked away towards the
valley.

A lovely picture lay at her feet, for the canon opened out before her
eyes in all the grandeur of its mountainous surroundings, while the
little town in its bosom was softened and beautified by the kindly
autumnal haze, which took away the crude shabbiness of its detail and
brought it into harmony with the rugged landscape about it. Beyond the
town lay the creek, and over it all floated the heavy pall of thick
white smoke, which seemed to be supported on the tall red chimneys of
the smelter buildings. The sun was dropping behind the mountains, and
already the town lay in shadow, while the last beams lingered upon the
cloud of smoke which flushed to a pale pink, then deepened to a rosy
glow. The girl's eyes rested on the scene below her; then, surprised at
the continued silence of her escort, she glanced at him once more. He
was still groping about underneath his hat, with the same strained,
upward roll to his eyes; but, as she looked at him, a new light burst in
upon Louise's mind, for two long locks of tawny hair had straggled down
over his right ear, and lay in a feeble ringlet against the top of his
tall collar. The Reverend Gabriel's wrist brushed against them; he felt
of them inquiringly; then he deliberately took off his hat to show the
top of his head shorn of the glory of his curl, and the long ends of
hair hanging in elf-locks about his face.

"Miss--um--Miss Everett," he began hesitatingly, while a dark flush rose
on his weather-beaten cheeks; "Miss Everett, I am exceedingly sorry to
trouble you, but"--he paused; then went on desperately; "in fact, could
you be good enough to lend me a hairpin? The exertion of my climb has
removed mine from its accustomed place, and I fear that my hair may be
slightly disarranged."

The silence that followed was unbroken while Louise felt about among her
braids and drew out a long, slender pin; but when the doctor put his hat
down on the ground by his side, carefully rolled up his hair over his
two forefingers, spread it into the usual long curl, and fastened it
into its place, Allie and Ned fell into an uncontrollable fit of
giggling. But, for the once, Grant's attention was distracted, for he
was gazing steadily towards the engine house at the mouth of the mine.

"Say, Lou," he exclaimed; "what's going on down there? Everybody's
rushing over to the mine; something must be wrong."

Louise's eyes followed the direction of his hand.

"There 's some trouble, down there," she said, rising abruptly. "Will
you excuse us, Dr. Hornblower, if we go down without waiting to get
rested? I am always a little anxious about my father." And she hurried
away down the hill, leaving the Reverend Gabriel to adjust his hairpin
at his ease, while he reflected upon the unsatisfactory nature of his
walk.




CHAPTER XI.

"SWEET CHARITY'S SAKE."


"You see," Howard was explaining to Ned, that evening, "he'd put in his
charge for the blast, and was tamping it down all right; but he kicked
over his drill, and the end fell on an extra package of giant powder."

"I know that," interrupted Ned. "Papa said he was outrageously careless,
to have any of the stuff lying around loose; and 'twas a wonder that
there weren't any more men near enough to be killed. Poor old Mike! He's
worked in the mine ever since 'twas first opened, and he was one of
their best men."

"I don't see how he came to be so careless, then," said Marjorie, wisely
shaking her head over the matter. "I should suppose he'd have known
better by this time."

"They do know better," said Ned thoughtfully; "only they get hardened to
the risk and don't think much about it, or 

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