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Meg of Mystery Mountain

by Grace May North · English · Gutenberg #42014 · 411,050 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Meg of Mystery Mountain

Author: Grace May North


        
Release date: February 4, 2013 [eBook #42014]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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[Illustration: Down the steps she went, holding out the papers. (Page 173)]


MEG OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN

by

GRACE MAY NORTH







The Saalfield Publishing Company
Akron, Ohio    New York

Copyright MCMXXVI

Made in the United States of America




MEG OF MYSTERY MOUNTAIN.




                               CHAPTER I.
                        THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL


Jane Abbott, tall, graceful and languidly beautiful, passed through the
bevy of girls on the wharf below Highacres Seminary with scarcely a nod
for any of them. Closely following her came three other girls, each
carrying a satchel and wearing a tailored gown of the latest cut.

Although Esther Ballard and Barbara Morris called gaily to many of their
friends, it was around Marion Starr that all of the girls crowded until
her passage way to the small boat, even then getting up steam, was
completely blocked.

Jane, when she had crossed the gang plank, turned to find only Esther and
Barbara at her side. A slight sneer curled her lips as she watched the
adulation which Merry was receiving. Then, with a shrug of her slender
shoulders that was more eloquent than words, the proud girl seated
herself in one of the reclining deck chairs and imperiously motioned her
friends to do likewise.

"It's so silly of Merry to make such a fuss over all those girls. She'll
miss the boat if she doesn't hurry."

Marion had evidently thought of the same thing, for she laughingly ran up
the gang plank, her arms filled with candy boxes, boquets and magazines,
gifts of her admiring friends. Depositing these on a chair, she leaned
over the rail to call: "Good-bye, girls! Of course I'll write to you,
Sally, reams and reams; a sort of a round-robin letter to be sent to the
whole crowd.

"Sure thing, Betty Ann. I'll tell my handsome brother Bob that you don't
want him to ever forget you." Then as there was a protest from the wharf,
the girl laughingly added: "But you wished to be remembered to him. Isn't
that the same thing?"

Noticing a small girl who had put her handkerchief to her eyes, Merry
remonstrated. "Tessie, don't cry, child! This isn't a funeral or a
wedding. Of course you'll see us again. We four intend to come back to
Highacres to watch you graduate just as you watched us today. Work hard,
Little One, and carry off the honors. I've been your big-sister coach all
this year, and I want you to make the goal. I know you will! Goodbye!"
Marion Starr could say no more for the small river steamer gave a warning
whistle--the rope was drawn in, and, as the boat churned the water
noisily in starting, the chorus of goodbyes from the throng of girls on
the wharf could be heard but faintly.

Marion remained standing at the rail, waving her handkerchief, smiling
and nodding until the small steamer rounded a jutting-out point of land,
then she turned about and faced the three other girls, who had made
themselves comfortable in the reclining steamer chairs.

"What a fuss you make over all those undergrads, Merry," Jane Abbott
remarked languidly. "A casual observer might suppose that each one of
them was a very best friend, while we three, who are here present, have
that honor. For myself, I much prefer to conserve my enthusiasm."

Marion sat down in a vacant steamer chair, and merely smiled her reply,
but the youngest among them, Esther Ballard, flashed a defense for her
ideal among girls. "That's the very reason why Merry was unanimously
voted the most popular girl in Highacres during the entire four years
that we have been at the seminary. Nothing was ever too much trouble, and
no girl was too unimportant for Merry's loving consideration."

"Listen! Listen!" laughed good natured Barbara Morris. "All salute Saint
Marion Starr."

But Esther, flushed and eager, did not stop. "While you, Jane
Abbott"--she could not keep the scorn out of her voice--"while you were
only voted the most beautiful."

"Only?" there was a rising inflection in Barbara's voice, and she also
lifted her eyebrows questioningly. "I think our queen is quite satisfied
with her laurels."

Jane merely shrugged her shoulders, then turning her dark, shapely head
on the small cherry colored pillow with which she always traveled, she
asked in her usual languid manner, "Marion, let's forget the past and
plan for the future."

"You said you had a wonderful vacation trip to suggest, and that you
would reveal it when we were on the boat. Well, this is the time and the
place."

"And the girls?" chimed in Barbara. "Do hurry and tell us, Merry. Your
plans are always jolly."

And so with a smile of pleasurable anticipation, Merry began to unfold
her scheme.

"Aunt Belle is going to one of those adorable cottage hotels at Newport.
She is just past-perfect as a chaperone and she said that she thought a
party of four girls would be ideal. It will only cost each of us about
$100 a month."

"A mere mite," Jane Abbott commented, "and the plan, as far as I'm
concerned, is simply inspirational. I've always had a wild desire to live
at one of those fashionable cottage-hotels, but not having a mother to
take me, I have never been. I know my father will be glad to have me go,
since your Aunt Belle is to be there, and I shall ask for $150 a month,
so that we may have plenty of ice cream and not feel stinted."

The usually indolent Jane was so interested in Merry's plan that she was
actually sitting erect, the small cherry-colored pillow in her lap.

"I'm not so sure that I can go," Esther Ballard said ruefully. "My father
is not a Wall Street magnate as is your father, Jane, and $100 a month
may seem a good deal to him, following so closely the vast sum that he
has had to spend on my four years' tuition at Highacres."

"Nonsense," Jane flashed at their youngest. "You are the idol of your
artist-father's existence. He'd give you anything you needed to make you
happy."

Then, before Esther could voice her retort, the older girl had continued:
"As for me, I shall need an additional $500 for clothes. Since we are
going to so fashionable a place, we ought to have the smartest and latest
summer styles from Paris. Let's all make note of the wardrobe we'd like
to take."

Out came four small leather notebooks and with tiny pencils suspended
above them, the girls thought for a moment.

Then Merry scribbled something as she remarked, "My first is a bathing
suit. Green, the color mermaids wear."

"Mine shall be cherry colored. It best suits my style of beauty," Jane
said complacently.

"You surely do look peachy in it," Barbara remarked admirably. "It
doesn't matter what I put on, my squint and my freckled pug nose spoil it
all."

"Oh, you're not so bad!" Esther said generously. "I heard one of the
cadets at our closing dance say that he thought your squint was
adorable."

"Lead me to him!" Barbara jumped up as though about to start in search of
her unknown admirer, but sank back again when she recalled that she was
on a steamer which was chugging down the Hudson at its best speed.

"Do be serious, girls. See, I've made out a long list of things that I
shall need." Jane held up her notebook for inspection. But Esther closed
hers and replaced it in her natty alligator traveling bag. "I'll select
my wardrobe after I have had my father's consent," she said. "You might
as well stop planning now, Jane, as we are nearly to the Battery."

Esther was right and in another five moments all was confusion on the
small steamer. When they had safely crossed the gang plank, Merry
detained them long enough to say, "Girls, before we part, let's plan to
meet at my home next Friday. Since you will all have to travel so far,
suppose you come early and stay to lunch. Then we can make our final
plans. How I do hope that we can all go."

"I know that I can," Jane replied confidently. "I always do as I wish,
and nothing could induce me to spend another summer with my young brother
and sister. They're so boisterous and bothersome. As for Dan, he's so
eager to make high grades at college that he always is deep in a book."

"Why Jane Abbott," rebuked Esther. "I think your little sister is
adorable. I'd give anything if I were not an only child." Jane merely
shrugged. "Au revoir," she called over her shoulder. "I've got to catch
the ferry."




                              CHAPTER II.
                         THE MOST SELFISH GIRL


The girls who had been inseparable friends during the four years at the
fashionable Highacres Seminary parted at the Battery to go in as many
different directions.

Marion Starr's home was far up on Riverside Drive, while Barbara Morris'
millionaire father had an extensive estate on Long Island. Esther
Ballard, the only daughter of devoted parents, resided in the house of
her grandfather, Colonel Ballard, on Washington Square, while Jane
Abbott's family of four lived in the same rambling, picturesque wooden
house that Mr. Abbott's father had built for his bride long before his
name had become so well known on Wall Street. Edgemere, a pretty little
town among the Jersey hills, Mr. Abbott deemed a good place to bring up
his younger girl and boy, and so, although Jane often pleaded that they
move to a more fashionable suburb, in Edgemere they had remained. Nor
would her father tear down the old home to replace it with one finer, for
his beloved wife, who had died at the birth of little Julie, had planned
it and had chosen all of the furnishings. "Some day you will have a home
of your own, Jane," he had told his proud older daughter, "and then you
may have it as fine as you wish."

But in all other things, Mr. Abbott humored her, for she was so like her
mother in appearance. It was with sorrow that the father had to confess
in his heart that there the resemblance ceased, for the mother, who had
been equally beautiful, had been neither proud nor selfish. Little Julie,
though not so beautiful, was far more like the mother in nature, and so,
too, was Daniel, the nineteen-year-old lad upon whom the father placed so
much reliance.

Regrettable as it may seem, Jane Abbott, as she stood on the deck of the
ferry that was to convey her to the Jersey shore, was actually dreading
the two weeks that she would have to spend in her own home. Marion had
suggested that they plan going to Newport by the middle of July and it
was now the first.

It was late afternoon, and there were many working girls on the huge
ferry, who were returning to their Jersey homes after a long hot day in
the New York offices. As they crowded against her, Jane drew herself away
from them haughtily, thankful, indeed, that her father was so wealthy
that she would never have to earn her own way in the world, nor wear such
unattractive ready-made dresses. Unconsciously her lips curled scornfully
until she chanced to catch a glimpse of her own trim tailored figure in
one of the panel mirrors; then she smiled complacently and seated herself
somewhat apart from the working girls, who, from time to time, glanced at
her, as she supposed, with admiration. But she was disabused of this
satisfying thought when one of them spoke loud enough for her to hear.
"See that stiff-necked snob! She thinks she's made of different clay from
the rest of us. I wish her pa'd lose his money, so she'd have to scrub
for a living."

This remark merely caused Jane to sneer slightly, but what she heard next
filled her heart with terrified foreboding, for another girl had turned
to look at her and replied:

"Well, if she's who I think she is, her father's already gone bankrupt,
and she's poor enough, all right."

The working girls then moved to another part of the ferry and Jane was
left alone. It was ridiculous, of course. Her father could not lose his
vast fortune. Jane determined to think no more about it. The ferry had
reached its destination, and the proud girl hurried away. Never before
had she so longed to reach her home.

"Of course it is not true," her panicky thought kept repeating. "But what
could it mean? What could it mean?"

                            * * * * * * * *

Jane vowed to herself that she would not again think of what the spiteful
working girl had said, for how could she, a mere nobody, have information
concerning the affairs of a man of her father's standing, which Jane, his
own daughter, did not have?

But a disquieting thought reminded her that the working girl's face had
been familiar, and then memory recalled that she had seen her in the very
building on Wall Street where Mr. Abbott's offices were located.

Jane's troubled reverie was interrupted by a joyous exclamation, and her
brother, who was three years her senior and a head taller, leaped from
the crowd and held out both hands. His greeting was so enthusiastic, his
expression so radiant, that the girl was convinced that all was well with
their father, and so she said nothing of what she had heard.

It was not until they were seated on the train and had started for
Edgemere that Jane noticed how pale and thin was her brother's face, and,
when his eager flow of conversation was interrupted by a severe coughing
spell, the girl exclaimed with real concern, "Why, Brother Dan, what a
terrible cold you have! You ought to be in bed."

The boy's smile was reassuring. "Don't worry about that cough, sis," he
said lightly. "Now the grind is over, it will let up, I'm thinking. But
it surely has stuck closer than a postage stamp. Caught it weeks ago, but
I've been so busy, well, doing things, that I haven't had time to coddle
myself."

Suddenly the lad's expression became very serious, and turning, he placed
a thin hand, that was far too white, lovingly on his sister's as he said:
"Jane, dear, some changes have taken place in our home since you went
back to Highacres last Christmas. For Dad's sake try to bear them
bravely."

Then it was true, true, all that this dreadful working girl had said. For
a moment the girl's whole being surged with self-pity, then she felt cold
and hard. What right had their father to lose his fortune and bring
disgrace and privation upon his family? In a voice that sounded most
unfeeling, she asked, "And just what may those changes be?"

It was hard, so hard for Dan to tell the whole truth to a girl whom he
knew, with sorrow, thought only of herself. He had believed that trouble
might awaken the true Jane, whom he had always felt must be somewhere
deep under all the adamant of selfishness, but as yet there was no
evidence of it.

He removed his hand, as from something that hurt him, and folding his
arms, he began: "Our father is in great trouble, Jane, and he needs our
aid, but at present all we can do is to bear cheerfully the
inconveniences that are not nearly as severe as many others have to
endure."

But the girl was impatient. "For goodness sakes, Dan, don't preach! Now
is no time to moralize. If our father has done some idiotic speculating
and has lost his money, tell me so squarely."

A red spot burned in each pale cheek of the lad and a light of momentary
indignation flashed in his eyes, but he replied calmly enough: "Remember,
Jane, that you are speaking of our father, one of the noblest men who
ever trod on this earth. You know as well as I do that Dad never did any
wildcat speculating."

"Well, then, stop beating around the bush and tell me just what has
happened."




                              CHAPTER III.
                           FACING HARD TRUTHS


"It is because our father is honest that today we are poor," Dan Abbott
began, "and I glory in that fact."

His sister, sitting beside him in the train that was nearing Edgemere,
curled her lips but did not reply. "The firm to which Dad belonged made
illegal contracts in western oil fields. The other men will be many times
richer than they were before, but, because our father scorned to be a
party to such dishonesty, he has failed. Not a one of the men in whom he
trusted made the slightest effort to help avert the catastrophe."

"When did this all happen?" Jane's voice was still hard, almost bitter,
as though she felt hatred and scorn for her father, rather than loyalty
and admiration.

"Last February," was the brief reply.

"Then why was I not informed? Am I a mere infant to be kept in ignorance
of facts like these? Father has treated me unfairly, letting me boast to
my most intimate friends that I could have an elaborate Paris wardrobe
for the summer. My position is certainly a most unpleasant one."

At this the slow temper of the lad at her side flamed and though he spoke
in a low voice that the other passengers might not hear, he said just
what he thought. "Jane Abbott, you are the most selfish, heartless girl I
have ever known. It is very hard to believe that you are an own daughter
to that most wonderful woman whom we are permitted to claim as our
mother. In an hour of trouble (and there were many of them in those long
ago days) she was always brave and cheerful, comforting Dad and urging
him above all to be true to an ideal. But I actually believe that you,
Jane Abbott, would rather our Dad had entered into dishonest negotiations
as did the other members of his firm."

The lad glanced hopefully at his sister. Surely she would indignantly
refute this accusation, but she did nothing of the sort. With a shrug of
her slender shoulders, she sank back against the cherry colored cushion
as she replied, "I have often heard that an honest man can not be a
success in business, and I do feel that our father should have considered
his family above all else."

Dan pressed his lips firmly together. He feared that if his torrent of
angry thoughts were expressed it might form a barrier between himself and
his sister that the future could not tear down, and so, after taking a
deep breath that seemed almost a half sob, he again placed his hand
tenderly on the cold white one that lay listlessly near him.

"Sis, dear," he implored, "try to be brave, won't you? I'll do all I can
to make things easier for you, and so will Dad. He's pretty much stunned,
just now, but, oh, little girl, you can't guess how he is dreading your
homecoming. That's why I offered to meet you at the ferry station. I
wanted to tell you and save Dad that agony of spirit. If you would only
go in brightly and say, what our dear mother would have said, it will do
more to help our father than anything else in this world."

Selfish as Jane was, she dearly loved the brother who had idolized her,
and who in moments of great tenderness had always called her his little
girl, remembering only that she was three years younger and in need of
his protection.

Tears sprang to her eyes, but as the train was drawing in at the Edgemere
station she only had time to say, "I'll try. But, oh, it is so hard, so
hard."

Dan engaged a hack and after assisting his sister in, he sat beside her.
Then, as they drove along the pleasant streets of the village that were
shaded by wide spreading elms, the lad told her what changes had occurred
in their home.

"Mrs. Beach, our housekeeper, and Nora, her assistant, have left, and our
dear old grandmother has closed up her farm in Vermont and is staying
with father. It has been his greatest comfort to have his mother with
him. You always thought her ways so old-fashioned and farmerish, Jane,
but for all that she is the sweetest kind of a little old lady and as
brisk and capable as she was two years ago when we visited the farm."

There was a slight curl to Jane's lips, but she merely said: "I suppose I
shall be expected to wash dishes now. We must be terribly poor if we
couldn't even keep Nora."

"But we have one big blessing," Dan said brightly, "the home, which was
mother's can not be taken from us, for it belongs to us children."

Jane was not listening. She was trying to figure out something in her own
mind. "Dan." She turned toward him suddenly. "I can't see why Dad lost
his money, just because he did not want to be a partner in what he
considered a dishonest oil deal. Explain it to me a little more clearly."

"I didn't at first," her brother confessed, "fearing that it would not
have your sympathy. Many poor people invested their entire savings in the
oil deal, supposing that father's firm could be relied upon to be
absolutely honest. It is their money, much of it, which is making the
rich men richer. Our father, knowing that many had invested their all
because they trusted his personal integrity, has turned over his entire
fortune to make up their losses, as far as it will go." Dan was sorry he
had to make this explanation, for he saw at once the hard expression
returning to the eyes of his sister.

"If our father has greater consideration for the poor of New York than he
has for his own children, you can not expect me to express much sympathy
for him."

"Dear girl, wouldn't you rather have our father honest than rich?" The
lad's clear grey eyes looked at her searchingly.

Jane put her hand to her forehead as though it ached. "Oh, Dan," she
said, wearily, "you and father have different ideals from what I have, I
guess. I never really gave any thought to these things. I like comfort
and nice clothes and I hate, hate, hate drudgery and work of every kind.
I suppose now I shall have to scrub for a living." Jane was recalling
what the working girl on the ferry had said.

Dan's amused laughter rang out. "Oh, Jane, what nonsense. Do you suppose
that while I have a strong right arm I would let my little pal work in
any of those drudgery ways? No, indeed, so forget that fear, if it's
haunting you." But the boy could say no more, for another violent
coughing spell racked his frail body.

Instantly Jane was self-reproachful. "Oh, Dan, Dan," she said, "I know
you would give your very life to help me. I'm so selfish, so very
selfish! I'm going to think of only one thing, and that is how I can help
you to get well, for I can see now that you must have been ill."

The boy took advantage of this momentary tender spell to turn and take
the girl's hands in his and say imploringly: "Dear, we're almost home. If
you really want to help me to get well, be loving and brave to Dad. Your
unhappiness grieves me more than our loss, little girl, and I can't get
strong while I am so worried."

There were again tears in the beautiful dark eyes of the girl, and
impulsively she kissed the one person on earth whom she truly loved.
"Brother, for your sake I'll try to be brave," she said with a half sob
as the hack stopped in front of their home.




                              CHAPTER IV.
                            A SAD HOMECOMING


As Jane walked up the circling graveled path which led to the
picturesque, rambling, low-built brown house that she called home her
heart was filled with conflicting emotions. She bit her trembling lips
and brushed away the tears that quivered on her eyelashes. She knew, oh,
how well she knew, that they were prompted only by self-pity. She
struggled to awaken the nobler self that her brother was so confident
still slumbered in her soul, but she could not. She felt cold, hard,
indignant every time she recalled that her father had sacrificed his
children's comfort for a Quixotic ideal. "It is no use trying," she
assured herself, noticing vaguely that they were passing the rose garden,
which was a riot of fragrant, colorful bloom. How tenderly her father
cared for that garden, for every bush in it had been planted by the loved
one who was gone.

The tall lad carrying her satchels walked silently at Jane's side. He
well knew the conflict that was raging in the heart of the girl he had
always loved, in spite of her ever-increasing selfishness, with a
tenderness akin to that which he had given his mother, but he said no
word to try to help. This was a moment when Jane must stand alone.

They were ascending the wide front steps when the door of the house was
flung open and a little girl of ten leaped out with a glad cry. "Oh,
Janey, my wonderful big sister Janey." Two arms were held out, and in
another moment, as the older girl well knew, she would be in one of those
crushing embraces that the younger children called "bear hugs." She
frowned slightly. "Don't, Julie!" she implored. "My suit has just been
pressed. Won't you ever grow up, and greet people in a more dignified
way?"

The glad expression on the freckled face of the little girl, who could
not be called really pretty, changed instantly. Her lips quivered and her
eyes filled with tears. "Don't be a silly," Jane said rebukingly, as she
stooped and kissed the child indifferently on the forehead.

A dear old lady, wearing a pretty lavender gingham and a white "afternoon
apron," appeared in the doorway all a-flutter of happy excitement. She
had not seen Jane for two years, and she took the girl's hands in her own
that trembled.

"Dear, dear Jenny!" (How the graduate of fashionable Highacres had always
hated the name her grandmother had given her.) "What a blessing 'tis that
you have come home at last. It'll mean more to your father to have you
here than you can think." The old lady evidently did not notice the
scornful curling of the girl's lips, or, if she did, she purposely
pretended that she did not, and kept on with her speech. "You know,
dearie, you're the perfect image of that other Jane my Daniel loved so
dearly, and she was just your age, Jenny, when they met. It'll be like
meeting her all over again to have you coming home now, when he's in such
trouble, you being so like her, and she was most tender and brave and
unselfish."

Even the grandmother noticed that her well-meant speech was not
acceptable, for the girl's impatience was ill concealed.

"Where is my father?" she said in a voice which gave Dan little hope that
the nobler self in the girl had been awakened.

"He's working in the garden, dearie; out beyond the apple orchard," the
old lady said tremulously. "He told me when you came to send you out. He
wants to be alone with you just at first. And your little brother,
Gerald; I s'pose you're wondering where he is. Well, he's got a place
down in the village as errand boy for Peterson's grocery. They give him
his pay every night, and he fetches it right home to his Dad. Of course
my Daniel puts the money in bank for Gerald's schooling, but the boy
don't know that. He thinks he's helping, and bless him, nobody knows how
much he is helping. There's ways to bring comfort that no money could
buy."

Dan knew that Jane believed their gentle old grandmother was preaching at
her. He was almost sorry. He feared that it was antagonizing Jane; nor
was he wrong.

"Well, I think the back orchard was a strange place for father to have me
meet him," she said, almost angrily, as she flung herself out of the
house. Dan sighed. Then, stooping, he kissed the little old lady. "Don't
feel badly, grandmother," he said, adding hopefully: "The real Jane must
waken soon."

The proud, selfish girl, again rebellious, walked along the narrow path
that led under the great, old, gnarled apple trees which the children had
used for playhouses ever since they could climb. She felt like one
stunned, or as though she were reading a tragic story and expected at
every moment to be awakened to the joyful realization that it was not
true.

Her father saw her coming and dropped the hoe that he had been plying
between the long rows of beans. "How terribly he has changed," Jane
thought. He had indeed aged and there was on his sensitive face, which
was more that of an idealist than a business man, the impress of sorrow,
but also there was something else. Jane noticed it at once; an expression
of firm, unwavering determination. She knew that appealing to his love
for his daughter would be useless, great as that love was. A quotation
she had learned in school flashed into her mind--"I could not love thee,
dear, so much, loved I not honor more."

There was, indeed, infinite tenderness in the clear gray eyes that looked
at her, and then, without a word, he held out his arms, and suddenly Jane
felt as she had when she was a little child, and things had gone wrong.

"Father! Father!" she sobbed, and then she clung to him, while he held
her in a yearning, strong embrace, saying, "It's hard, my daughter,
terribly hard for all of us, but it was the thing that I had to do. Dan,
I am sure, has told you all that happened. But it won't be for long,
Janey. What I have done once, I can do again." He led her to a rustic
bench under one of the trees, and removing her hat, he stroked her dark,
glossy hair. "Jane, dear," he implored, when her sobs grew less, "try to
be brave, just for a time. Promise me!" Then, as the girl did not speak,
the man went on, "We have tried so hard, all of us together, to make it
possible for you to finish at Highacres. Poor Dan made the biggest
sacrifice. I feared that I would have to send for you to come home,
perhaps only for this term, but Dan wrote, 'Father, use my college money
for Jane's tuition. I'll work my way through for the rest of this year.'
And that is what he did. Notwithstanding the fact that he had to study
until long after midnight, he worked during the day, nor did he stop when
he caught a severe cold. He did not let us know how ill he was, but
struggled on and finished the year with high honors, but, oh, my
daughter, you can see how worn he is. Dr. Sanders tells me that Dan must
go to the Colorado mountains for the summer and I have been waiting,
dear, to talk it over with you. You will want to go with Dan to take care
of him, won't you, Jane?"

Almost before the girl knew that she was going to say it, she heard her
self-pitying voice expostulating, "Oh, Dad, how cruel fate is! Marion
Starr wanted me to go with her to Newport. They're going to one of those
adorable cottage-hotels, she and her Aunt Belle, and we three girls who
have been Merry's best friends were to go with her. It would only cost me
one hundred dollars a month. That isn't so very much, is it, Dad?"

Mr. Abbott sighed. "Jane," and there was infinite reproach in his tone,
"am I to believe that you are willing that Dan should go alone to the
mountains to try to find there the health he lost in his endeavor to help
you?"

Again the girl sobbed. "Oh, Dad, how selfish I am! How terribly selfish!
I love Dan, but the thing I want to do is to go to Newport. Of course I
know I can't go, but, oh, _how_ I do want to."

The girl feared that her father would rebuke her angrily for the frank
revelation of her lack of gratitude, but, instead, he rose, saying kindly
as he assisted her to arise, "Jane, dear, you _think_ that is what you
want to do but I don't believe it. Dan is to go West next Friday. My good
friend Mr. Bethel, being president of a railroad, has sent me the passes.
As you know, I still own a little cabin on Mystery Mountain which I
purchased for almost nothing when I graduated from college and went West
to seek my fortune. There is _no_ mystery, and there was _no_ wealth, but
I have paid the taxes until last year and those Dan shall pay, as I do
not want to lose the place. It was to that cabin, as you have often heard
us tell, that your mother and I went for our honeymoon. You need not
decide today, daughter. If you prefer to go with your friends, I will
find a way to send you."




                               CHAPTER V.
                          JANE'S SMALL BROTHER


There were many conflicting emotions in the heart of the tall, beautiful
girl as she walked slowly back to the house, her father at her side with
one arm lovingly about her.

"Jane," he said tenderly, "I wish there were words in our English
language that could adequately express the joy it is to me because you
are so like your mother, and, strangely perhaps, Dan is as much like me
as I was at his age as you are like that other Jane. She was tall and
willowy, with the same bright, uplifting of her dark eyes when she was
pleased."

Then the man sighed, and he said almost pleadingly, "You do realize, do
you not, daughter, that I would do anything that was right to give you
pleasure?"

Vaguely the girl replied, "Why, I suppose so, Dad. I don't quite
understand ideals and ethics. I've never given much thought to them."
Jane could say no more, for, vaulting over the low fence beyond the
orchard, a vigorous boy of twelve appeared, and, if ten-year-old Julie
had made a terrifying onrush, this boy's attack resembled that of a
little wild Indian. "Whoopla!" he fairly shouted, "If here isn't old
Jane! Bully, but that's great! Did you bring me anything?"

There was no fending off the boy's well meant embraces, and Jane emerged
from them with decidedly ruffled feelings.

"I certainly don't like to have you call me old Jane," she scolded. "I
think it is very lacking in respect. Father, I wish you would tell Gerald
to call me Sister Jane."

Mr. Abbott reprimanded the crestfallen lad, then he told the girl that
the boy had not meant to be disrespectful. "You know, Jane, that children
use certain phrases until they are worn ragged, and just now 'old' is
applied to everything of which Gerald is especially fond. It is with him
a term of endearment." Then, with a smile of loving encouragement for the
boy, their father added: "Why, that youngster even calls me 'old Dad' and
I confess I rather like it."

The boy did not again address his sister, but going to the other side of
his father, he clung affectionately to his arm and hopped along on one
foot and then on the other as though he had quite forgotten the rebuff,
but he had not. They entered a side door and Jane went upstairs to her
own pleasant room with its wide bow windows that opened out over the tops
of the apple trees and toward the sloping green hills for which New
Jersey is famous. Grandmother was in the kitchen preparing a supper such
as Jane had liked two years before when she had visited the Vermont farm,
and Julie was setting the table, when Gerald appeared. Straddling a chair
he blurted out, "Say, isn't Jane a spoil-joy? I'm awful sorry her
school's let out, and 'tisn't only for vacation that she'll be home. Dan
says it's forever 'n ever 'n ever. She'll be trying to tell us where to
head in. We'll have about as much fun as--as--(the boy was trying hard to
think of a suitable simile)--as--a----" Then as he was still floundering,
Julie, holding a handful of silver knives and forks, whirled and said
brightly, "as a rat in a dog kennel. You know last week how awful unhappy
that rat was that puppy had in his kennel, till you held his collar and
let the poor thing get away." Then as the small girl continued on her way
around the long table placing the silver by each plate, she said
hopefully, "Don't let's mope about it yet. Jane always goes a-visitin'
her school friends every summer and like's not she will this."

"Humph! She must be heaps nicer other places than she is here, or folks
wouldn't want her." Their mutual commiserating came to an abrupt end, for
Grandma appeared from the kitchen with a covered dish, out of which a
delicious aroma was escaping. Then in from the other door came Dad, one
arm about Jane and the other about Dan. Grandma glanced anxiously at her
big son. His expression was hard to read, but he seemed happier. How she
hoped Jane had proved herself a worthy daughter of her mother.

It is well, perhaps, that we cannot read the thoughts of those nearest
us, for all that evening Jane was wondering how she could make over her
last summer's wardrobe that it might appear new even in a fashionable
cottage-hotel.

On Thursday, directly after breakfast, Jane went up to her room without
having offered to help with the morning work. She had never even made her
own bed in all the eighteen years of her life and the thought did not
suggest itself to her that she might be useful. Or, if it did, she
assured herself that Julie was far more willing and much more capable as
a helper for their grandmother than she, Jane, could possibly be. The
truth was that bright-eyed, eager, light-footed little Julie was far more
welcome than the older girl, bored, sulky, and selfish, would have been.

Dan left early for the city, where he wished to purchase a few things he
would need while "roughing it" in the Colorado mountains. Gerald went
with him as far as the cross-roads, then the older boy tramped on to the
depot while the younger one, whistling gaily and even turning a
handspring now and then, proceeded to his place of business, and was soon
nearly hidden in an apron much too big for him, while he swept out the
store.

Mr. Abbott had watched his older daughter closely during that morning
meal. He had said little to her, but had conversed cheerily with Dan,
telling him just what khaki garments he would need, and, at Gerald's
urging, he had retold exciting adventures that he had had in that old log
cabin in the long ago days, when he had first purchased it. How the boy
wished that he, also, could go to that wonderful Mystery Mountain, but
not for one moment would he let Dad know of this yearning. He was needed
at home to earn what he could by working at the Peterson grocery. His big
brother was not well, so he, Gerald, must take his place as father's
helper. He was a little boy, only twelve, and it took courage to whistle
and turn handsprings when he would far rather have crept away into some
hidden fence corner and sobbed out his longing for travel and adventure.

All that sunny July morning Mr. Abbott worked in his garden back of the
apple orchard.

Often as he hoed between the long rows of thrifty vegetables, the
sorrowing man glanced up at the windows of the room in which he knew his
beloved daughter sat. How he wished she would come out and talk with him,
even if it were to tell him that she had decided that she wanted to go
with her friends to Newport. He had promised to find a way to obtain the
$300 she would need, if she wished to go for three months.

He sighed deeply, and, being hidden from the house by a gnarled old apple
tree, he stopped his work and took from his pocket an often read letter
from an old friend who had offered to loan him any sum, large or small,
at any time that it might be needed. "If Jane wants to go, I'll wire for
the money," he decided. Never before had a morning dragged so slowly for
the man who was used to the whirl, confusion and excitement of Wall
Street.

And yet, though he hardly realized it, the warm, gentle breeze rustling
among the leaves of the trees, the smell of the freshly turned earth in
which he was working, the cheerful singing of the birds far and
near--brought into his soul a sense of peace. At the end of one row he
stood up, very straight as he had stood before it had all happened, and
looking up into the radiant blue sky, he seemed to know, deep in the
heart of him, that all would be well. It was with a brisker step than he
had walked in many a day that he returned to the house, when little Julie
appeared at the back door to ring the luncheon bell.

"Surely Jane has decided by now," he told himself. "And equally surely
she will want to go West with the brother who has sacrificed himself, his
ease and his health that she might finish her course at Highacres." So
confident was he of his daughter's real nobility of nature that he found
himself planning what he would suggest that she take with her. She would
ask him about that at lunch. There was not much time to prepare, but she
would need little in that wild mountain country. At last he heard her
slowly descending the stairs. His anxiety increased. What would Jane's
decision be?




                              CHAPTER VI.
                             JANE'S CHOICE


The father, with his hands clasped behind him, was pacing up and down the
long dining room when his daughter entered. He saw at once that she had
been crying, although she had endeavored to erase the traces of the tears
which had been shed almost continuously through the morning.

In a listless voice she said at once, "Father, I have decided to go with
Dan since you feel that it is my duty, but, oh, how I want to go to
Newport with Merry and the rest: but of course it would cost $300 and
there is no money."

The father had started eagerly toward his daughter when she had entered,
but, upon hearing the concluding part of her speech, he drew back, a hurt
expression in his clear gray eyes. He folded his arms and a more alert
observer than Jane would have noticed an almost hard tone in his voice.
Never before had it been used for the daughter who was so like the mother
in looks only. "The matter is decided. Jane," he informed her. "The $300
that you require will be forthcoming. However, I wish you would plan to
leave tomorrow, the same day that your brother goes West. I want to be
alone, without worries, that I may decide how best to go about earning
what I shall need to finish paying the debt that I still owe to the poor
people who trusted me."

"Oh, father, father!" Jane flung herself into her chair at the table and
put her head down on her folded arms. "I didn't know that you felt that
you owe them more than your entire fortune."

"It was not enough to cover their investments," the man said, still
coldly, for he believed the girl was crying because she would have to
give up even more than she had supposed, and be kept in poverty for a
longer period of time. She sat up, however, when her father said, "Jane,
dry your tears. Since you are to go to Newport, I see nothing for you to
cry about, and I do not wish mother and Julie to know how I feel about
this whole matter."

Hastily Jane left the table to again remove the traces of tears, and when
she returned, her grandmother and Julie were in their places. Her father
had remained standing until she also was seated. Then, bowing his head,
he said the simple grace of gratitude which had never been omitted at
that table.

Jane marveled at the courage of her father, for he was actually smiling
at the little old lady who sat at his side. "Mother mine," he said, "if
this isn't the same kind of a meat pudding that you used to make for me
as a special treat, long ago, when I had been good. Have I been good
today?"

There were sudden tears in the fading blue eyes and a quiver in the
corners of the sweet old mouth as the grandmother replied, "Yes, Dan, you
have been very good. And all the while I was making it I was thinking how
proud and pleased your father would be if he only knew, and maybe he does
know, how good you've been. When you weren't more than knee high to your
Dad, he began to teach you that it was better to have folks know that
your word could be depended on than to be praised for smartness, and
that's how 'tis, Danny, and I'm happy and proud."

The dear little old lady wiped her eyes with a corner of her apron; then
she smiled up brightly, and pretended to eat the meat pie, which was in
danger of being neglected by all except Julie, who prattled, "We've set
away two big pieces, one for brother Dan, when he comes home from the
city, and one for Gerry. Umm, won't they be glad when they see them?
They'll be hungry as anything! I like to be awful hungry when there's
something extra special to eat, don't you, Janey?" Almost timorously this
query was ventured. Julie did not like to have the big sister look so
sad. The answer was not encouraging. "Oh, Julie, I don't want to talk,"
the other girl said fretfully.

"Nor eat, neither, it looks like," the old lady had just said when the
front door bell pealed. Julie leaped up, looking eagerly at her father.
"Oh, Dad, may I go?" But, being nearest the door, he had risen. "I'll
answer it, Julie," he replied. "It is probably some one to see me." But
Mr. Abbott was mistaken. A messenger boy stood on the porch. After the
yellow envelope had been signed for, it was taken to Jane, to whom it was
addressed.

Eagerly the girl tore it open, the others watching her with varied
emotions, although Julie's was just eager curiosity. "Ohee," she
squealed, "telegrams are such fun and so exciting. What's in it, Janey,
do tell us!"

Mr. Abbott noted that a red spot was burning in each cheek of the
daughter who had been so pale. She glanced up at him, her eyes shining.
"Dad," she cried, "you won't have to give me $300. Listen to this. Oh,
Merry is certainly wonderful!" Then she read:

  "Dearest Jane: Aunt Belle has changed her plans. She has rented a
  cottage just beyond the hotel grounds and is going to take her own cook
  and I want you to come as our guest, because, darling girl, I owe you a
  visit, since you gave me such a wonderful time in the country with you
  last year, and, what is more, we are going Friday, so pack up your
  trunk today, and be at the Central Station tomorrow at 4:00. Lovingly,
  your intimate friend--Marion Starr.

  "P. S.--Who, more than ever, is living up to her nickname, Merry.--M.
  S."

During the reading of the "night letter" Mr. Abbott had quickly made up
his mind just what his attitude would be. "That's splendid, Jane, isn't
it?" he said, and not even his watchful mother noted a trace of
disappointment in his voice. "If I were you I would pack at once. You
would better go over to the city in the morning and that will give you
time to buy a new summer dress, for I am sure that you must need one."

Jane started to reply, but something in her throat seemed to make it hard
for her to speak, and so she left the room hurriedly without having more
than touched her plate. Julie followed, as she adored packing. When they
were gone, the man sighed deeply. "Mother," he said, "I have decided to
send Julie with Dan. She can cook the simple things he will need and some
one must go with the boy. I would go myself, but I would be of little
use. In a few days, as soon as I can pull myself together, I am going
back to the city to start in some occupation far from Wall Street."

The old lady reached out a comforting hand and placed it on that of her
son nearest her. "Dan," she said in a low voice, "Jane doesn't know a
thing about your long illness, does she? Nobody's told her, has there?"

The man shook his head. "Jane has been so interested in her own problems,
and in finding a way to do as she wished, that she has not even wondered
why I am working about in the garden instead of going to the city daily,
as I always have done. But don't tell her, mother. She does not seem to
care, and, moreover, I am now much stronger. My only real worry is Dan,
and I do feel confident that if he can be well cared for, the mountain
air will restore his health."

Rising, he stooped to kiss his mother's forehead, then left the room,
going through the kitchen to the garden. As he worked he glanced often at
the open windows of the room above the tree tops. He saw the two girls
hurrying about, for Jane had gladly accepted Julie's offer of service,
and the trunk packing was evidently progressing merrily. This assurance
was brought to him when he heard Jane singing a snatch of a school song.

It sounded like a requiem to the man in the garden below. He leaned on
his hoe as he thought, self-rebukingly, "It is all my fault. I have
spoiled Jane. My love has been misdirected. It is I who have made her
selfish. I wanted to give her everything, for she had lost so much when
she lost her mother. I have done as much for the other three children,
but somehow they didn't spoil."

The comfort of that realization was so great that the father soon
returned to his self-imposed task, and, an hour later, when Dan appeared,
he told the boy Jane's decision, saying: "Son of mine, it would be no
comfort to you to have her companionship if her heart were elsewhere."
The shadow of keen disappointment in the lad's eyes was quickly
dispelled. Placing a hand on his father's shoulder he said cheerfully,
"It's all right, Dad. Julie is a great little pal."

But even yet the matter was not decided.

That Thursday night, after the younger members of the household were
asleep, Mr. Abbott and his mother talked together in his den.

"Julie was the happiest child in this world when I told her she was to go
with Dan." The old lady smiled as she recalled the hoppings and
squealings with which the small girl had expressed her joy. "Luckily I'd
washed and ironed her summer clothes on Monday and Tuesday, and this
being only Thursday, she hadn't soiled any of them."

Then her tone changed to one of tenderness. "Dan," she said, "Julie and
Jane aren't much alike, are they? That little girl didn't hop and squeal
long before she thought of something that sobered her. Then she told me,
'I don't like to go, Grandma, and leave Gerald at home. He's been wishing
and wishing and wishing he could go, but he wouldn't tell Dad 'cause he
wants to stay home and earn money to help.'"

To the little old lady's surprise, her companion sprang up as he
exclaimed: "Mother, I won't be gone long. Wait up for me!" Seizing his
hat from the hall "tree," he left the house. "Well, now, that's certainly
a curious caper," the old lady thought. "He couldn't have been listening
to a word I was saying. He must have thought of something he'd forgotten,
probably it's something for Jane. Well, there's nothing for me to do but
wait." She glanced at the clock on the mantle. Even then it was late. She
was usually asleep at ten. There had been time for many a little cat-nap
before she heard her son returning. His expression assured the old lady
that he was satisfied with the result of his errand.

"Why, Dan Abbott," she exclaimed, "whatever started you off in that way?
'Twasn't anything I said, was it?"

The man sank down in his chair again and took from his pocket a telegram.
"That's what I went after, mother," he told her. "I wired Bethel for one
more pass, as I had a small son who also wished to go West, and this is
his answer:

"'Glad indeed to accommodate you, Dan, and I'm sending one more, just for
good measure. Happened to recall that you have four children. Let me do
something else for you, old man, if I can.'"

The grandmother looked up with shining eyes as she commented: "Bert
Bethel's a true friend, if there ever was one. Won't Gerry be wild with
joy?

"But, goodness me, Danny, that means more packing to do. There's room
enough in Julie's trunk for the things Gerald will need, and I do believe
I'll go right up and put them in while the boy's asleep." Then she paused
and looked at her son inquiringly. "Will it be quite fair to Mr. Peterson
to have Gerry leave his store without giving notice?"

"I've attended to that, mother," the man replied. "While I was waiting
for an answer from Bert, I walked over to the grocery and told Jock
Peterson all that had happened, and he was as pleased as he could be. He
wants Gerald to come over there first thing in the morning to get a
present to take with him.

"He didn't say what it would be. I don't even suppose that he had decided
when he spoke. I was indeed happy to have him praise Gerald as he did. He
said that he would trust our boy with any amount of money. He has watched
Gerald, as he always does every lad who works in the store. He said that
nearly all of them had helped themselves to a piece of candy from the
showcase when they had wished, but that Gerald had never once touched a
thing that did not belong to him. Mr. Peterson was so pleased that he
asked Gerald about it one day, saying: 'Don't you like candy, lad?' And
our boy replied: 'Indeed I do, Mr. Peterson! I don't buy it because I
want to save all my money to help Dad.'

"Gerald hadn't even thought of helping himself as he worked around the
store."

"Of course, Gerry wouldn't," the old lady replied emphatically, "for
isn't he your son, Daniel?"

"And your grandson, mother?" the man smilingly returned. "But we must get
some sleep," he added, as the chimes on the mantle clock told them that
it was eleven. "Tomorrow is to be a busy day."

It was also to be a day of surprises, although this, these two did not
guess.




                              CHAPTER VII.
                            GERRY'S SURPRISE


Grandmother Abbott had indeed been right when she prophecied that
Gerald's joy, upon hearing that he could accompany Dan and his sister
Julie, would be unbounded. She told him before breakfast while they were
waiting for the others to come down. They had planned telling him later,
but when his father saw how hard the small boy was trying to be brave;
how the tune he was endeavoring to whistle wavered and broke, he could
stand it no longer, and, putting a hand on each of the boy's shoulders,
he looked down at him as he asked: "Son, if you could have your dearest
wish fulfilled, what would it be?"

The lad hesitated, then he said earnestly: "There's two things to wish
for, Dad, and they're both awful big. I want everything to be all right
for you, but, oh, how I do want brother Dan to get well."

Tears sprang to the eyes of the little old lady, and placing a hand
affectionately on the boy's head she asked: "Isn't there something else,
dearie, something you'd be wishing just for yourself?"

It was quite evident to the two who were watching that a struggle was
going on in the boy's heart. He had assured himself, time and again, that
his dad must not know how he wished that he could go with Dan. He even
felt guilty, because he wanted to go, believing that his dad needed his
help at home, and so he said nothing. His father, surmising that this
might be the case, asked, with one of his rare smiles: "If you knew, son,
that I thought it best for you to go with Julie, to help her take care of
Dan, would you be pleased?"

Such a light as there was in the freckled face, but, even then, the boy
did not let himself rejoice. "Dad," he said, "don't you need me here?"

"No, son, your grandmother has decided to stay all summer. She has found
a nice family to take care of her farm. Indeed I shall feel better,
knowing that you are with Julie, if Dan should be really ill."

For a moment the good news seemed to stun the little fellow. But when the
full realization of what it meant surged over him, he leaped into his
father's arms and hugged him hard, then turning, he bolted for the
stairway, and went up two steps at a time.

"Hurray!" he fairly shouted. "Dan, Jane, Julie, I'm going to Mystery
Mountain!"

This unexpected news was received joyfully by Julie and Dan, but Jane,
who was putting the last touches to her traveling costume, merely gave a
shrug, which was reflected back to her in the long mirror. "Well, thanks
be, I'm not going," she confided to that reflection. "I'd be worn to rags
by the end of the summer if I had to listen to such shrieking. I'm
thankful Merry's Aunt Belle has no children. They may be all very well
for people who like them, but I think they are superlative nuisances."

The entire family had gathered in the dining room when Jane descended,
and, after the grace had been said, the two youngest members began to
chatter their excitement like little magpies. Dan, who sat next to Jane,
smiled at her lovingly. "I suppose you are going to have a wonderful
time, little girl," he said. "I have heard that Newport is a merry whirl
for society people in the summer time, with dances, tallyho rides, and
picnic suppers."

Jane's eyes glowed, and she voiced her agreement. "I've heard so, too,
and I've always been just wild to have a wee taste of that gay life, and
now I can hardly believe that I am to be right in the midst of it for
three glorious months." Then, as she saw a sudden wearied expression in
her brother's face, she added: "You're very tired, Dan, aren't you? If
only you were rested, I should try to plan some way to have you go with
me. I'm wild to have you meet Merry. I do believe she is just the kind of
a girl whom you would like. You never have cared for any girl yet, have
you? I mean not particularly well?"

There was a tender light in the gray eyes that were so like their
father's. Resting a hand on Jane's arm, he said in a low voice, "I care
right now very particularly for a girl, and she is my dear sister-pal."

Somehow the expression in her brother's eyes made Jane unhappy. She did
wish he would not look at her--was it wistfully, yearningly or what?
Rising, their father said, "The taxi is outside, children. Are you all
ready?"

There was much confusion for the next few moments. The expressman had
come for the trunks, and there were many last things that the father
wished to say to the three who were going to his cabin on Mystery
Mountain.

"Dan, my boy," Mr. Abbott held the hand of his eldest in a firm clasp and
looked deep into his eyes, "let your first thought be how best you can
regain your strength. If you need me, wire and I will come at once." Then
putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out an envelope. "The passes are
in here. Put them away carefully." Then he turned to Jane. "Goodbye,
daughter. You will be nearer. Come home when you want to. May heaven
protect you all."

The two younger children gave "bear hugs," over and over again, to their
dad and grandmother, and when at last all were seated in the taxi, they
waved to the two who stood on the porch until they had turned a corner.

Dan smiled at Jane as he said: "This is indeed an exodus. That little old
home of ours never lost so many of us all at once."

"Gee, I bet ye the apple orchard'll wonder where me and Julie are," the
boy began, but Jane interrupted fretfully. "Oh, I do wish you would be
more careful of the way you speak, Gerald. You know as well as any of us
that you should say where Julie and I are."

The boy's exuberance for a moment was dampened, but not for long. He soon
burst out with, "Say, Dan, you know that story Dad tells about a brown
bear that came right up to the cabin door once. Do you suppose there's
bears in those mountains now?"

"I'm sure of it, Gerry. Dozens of them, but they won't hurt us, unless we
get them cornered."

"Well, you can bet I'm not going to corner any of them," Gerry confided.
"But I'd like to have a little cub, wouldn't you, Julie, to fetch up for
a pet?"

The little girl was doubtful. "Maybe, when it grew up, it would forget it
was a pet bear, and maybe you'd get it cornered, and then what would you
do?"

Dan laughed. "The bear would do the doing," he said. He glanced at Jane,
who sat looking out of the small window at her side. He did not believe
that she really saw the objects without. How he wished he knew what the
girl, who had been his pal all through their childhood, was thinking. As
he watched her, there was again in his eyes that yearning, wistful
expression, but Jane did not know it as she did not turn.

The little station at Edgemere was soon reached, the trunks checked for
the big city beyond the river, and, after a short ride on the train and
ferry, they found themselves in the whirling, seething mass of humanity
with which the Grand Central Station seemed always to be filled.

The train for the West was to leave at 10, and after it was gone, Jane
planned going uptown to buy a summer dress. Dad had told her to charge it
to him. His credit was still good. As they stood waiting for the gates to
open, Dan took from his pocket the envelope containing the passes. For
the first time he glanced them over, then exclaimed: "Why, how curious!
There are four passes! I thought there were but three. Oh, well, they are
only slips of paper, and do not represent money." He replaced them and
smiled at Jane. The children raced to a stand to buy a bag of popcorn and
Dan seized that opportunity to take his sister's hand, and say most
seriously: "Dear girl, if I never come back, try to be to our Dad all
that I have so wanted to be."

There was a startled expression in the girl's dark eyes. "Dan, what do
you mean?" Her voice sounded frightened, terrorized. "If you never come
back? Brother, why shouldn't you come back!" She clung to his arm. "Tell
me, what do you mean?" But he could not reply for a time, because of a
sudden attack of coughing. Then he said: "I don't know, little girl. I'm
afraid I'm worse off than Dad knows. I----"

"All aboard!" The gates were swung open. Frantically, Jane cried: "Dan,
quick, have my trunk checked on that other pass. I'm going with you."

                            * * * * * * * *

Mr. Abbott smiled through tears as he handed his mother the telegram he
received that afternoon. "I felt sure our Jane had a soul," he said. "Her
mother's daughter couldn't be entirely without one."

"And now that it's awakened maybe it'll start to blossoming," the old
lady replied.




                             CHAPTER VIII.
                               ALL ABOARD


There had been such a whirl at the last moment that it was not until they
were on the train and had located their seats on the Pullman, that the
children realized what had happened. Luckily Jane was too much occupied
readjusting her own attitude of mind, and trying to think hastily what
she should do before the train was really on its way, to notice the
disappointment which was plainly depicted on the faces of Julie and
Gerald. They gazed at each other almost in dismay when they heard that
their big sister was to accompany them, but the joy in their brother's
face and manner was all that was needed to reconcile the younger boy.

In the confusion caused by passengers entering the car with porters
carrying their luggage, Gerald managed to draw Julie aside and whisper to
her: "Don't let on we didn't want Jane, not on your life! Dan wanted her,
and this journey's got just one object, Dad says, and that's to help Dan
get well."

But Julie was too terribly disappointed to pretend that she was not. "I
know all that," she half sobbed and turned toward the window across the
aisle, "but I was so happy when I s'posed I was to cook for Dan, and when
you and I were to be the ones to take care of him. But now Jane will get
all the honor and everything, and we'll have to be bossed around worse
than if we were at home, for Dad's there to take our part."

Gerald's clear hazel eyes gazed at his sister rebukingly. "Julie," he
said, with an earnestness far beyond his years, "the train hasn't started
yet and if you'n I are going to think of ourselves we'd better go back
home. Shall we, Julie?"

The little girl shook her head vigorously. "No, no. I don't want to go
home." She clung to the back of a seat as though she feared she were
going to be taken forcibly from the train.

Gerald leaned over to whisper to her, but he first gave her a little kiss
on the ear, then he said: "Julie, you'n I will have oodles of fun up
there in the mountains. If Jane isn't too snappish, I'll be glad she's
along, because, of course, she'll be able to take care of Dan better than
we could." Then suddenly he laughed gleefully.

"I've got it!" he confided to the girl, who had looked around curiously.
She could not imagine how Gerald could laugh when such a tragic thing had
happened. "You're dippy about pretending, Julie. You once said you could
pretend anything you wanted to, and make it seem real. Well, here's your
chance. Every time Jane is snappy, pretend she has said something
pleasant. That'll be a hard one, but for Dan's sake, I'm willing to give
it a try."

Julie's mania had always been "pretending," and she had often wished that
Gerald would play it with her, but he was a matter-of-fact sort of a lad,
and his reply had been that real things were fun enough for him. The
little girl's face brightened. At last her brother was willing to play
her favorite game.

"That will be a hard one," she agreed. Then, as she was lunged against
the boy, she also laughed. "Oh, goodie!" she whispered. "Now the train is
really started--nobody can send us back home. Honest, I was skeered Jane
might want to. She thinks we're so terribly in the way."

Happy as Dan was, because the sister he so loved was to accompany him to
the West, he did not forget the two who had been willing to go with him
and care for him in the beginning, and, as soon as the train was well
under way, he called to the children. "Come here, Julie. I've saved the
window side of my seat for you, and I'm sure Jane will let Gerald sit by
the window on her seat. Now, isn't this jolly?"

The children wedged into the places toward which he was beckoning them.
Julie glanced almost fearfully up at the older girl she had accidentally
jostled in passing, but Jane was gazing out of the window deep in dreams.
Dan noticed his sister-pal's expression. How he hoped she was not
regretting her hasty decision.

His fears were soon dispelled, for Jane turned toward him with a tender
light in her beautiful dark eyes. "Brother," she said, "I have just been
wondering how I can communicate with Marion Starr. She expects to meet me
at the Central Station at four. It is now nearly noon. I should have left
some message for her."

"We must send a telegram to her home when we reach Albany, or sooner, if
we make a stop. I'll ask the conductor. Suppose you write out what you
wish to say." And so Jane took from her valise the very same little
leather covered notebook in which, less than a week before, she had
written a list of the things she would need for a wardrobe to be worn at
the fashionable summer resort at Newport.

Of this Jane did not even think as she wrote, after a thoughtful moment,
the ten words that were needed to tell her best friend that she was on
her way West with her brother Dan, who was ill and who needed her.

The conductor took the message and said that he expected to have an
opportunity to send a telegram in a very short time. The train soon
stopped at a village, where it was evidently flagged, and the young
people saw the station master running from the depot waving a yellow
envelope. The conductor received it, at the same time giving him the
paper on which Jane's message was written. "Please send this at once."
The sound of his voice came to them through Gerald's window. Then the
train started again and had acquired its former speed when the kindly
conductor entered their car. He was reading the telegram he had just
received. Stopping at their seats, he asked: "Are you Daniel Abbott,
accompanied by Jane, Julie and Gerald?"

"We are," the tall lad replied in his friendly manner. "Have you a
message from our father?"

The conductor shook his head. "No, not that. This telegram is from the
president of the railroad telling us that four young people named Abbott
are his guests, and he wishes them to receive every courtesy, and now, as
it is noon, if you will come with me, I will escort you to the diner."

"Oh, but I'm glad," Julie, who treated everyone with frank friendliness,
smiled brightly up into the face of the man whom she just knew must be a
father, he had such kind, understanding eyes. "I'm awful hungry; aren't
you, Gerry?" she whispered, a moment later, as they filed down the aisle
in procession, the conductor first, Jane next, with Dan at the end as
rear guard. Julie tittered and Jane turned to frown at her. Gerry poked
his young sister with the reminder, "Pretend she smiled."

But frowns could not squelch Julie's exuberance when they were seated
about a table in the dining car, which was rapidly filling with their
fellow travelers.

"Ohee, isn't this the jolliest? I'm going to pretend I'm a princess
and----" But the small girl paused and listened. The head waiter was
addressing Jane. "As guests of Mr. Bethel's," he told them, "you may
select whatever you wish from the menu. Kindly write out your orders." He
handed them each an order slip and a pencil and then went on to another
table. Julie gave a little bounce of joy. The "_real_" was so wonderful,
she would not have to pretend. She and Gerald bowed their heads over a
typed menu; and then they began to scribble. Dan, glancing across at
them, smiled good naturedly. "What are you doing, kiddies, copying the
entire menu?" he asked. But Jane remarked rebukingly, "Julie Abbott, do
you wish people to think that you have been starved at home? Tear those
up at once. Here are two others. If you can't make them out properly,
I'll do it for you."

Dan saw a rebellious expression in Julie's eyes, so he suggested, "Let
them try once more, Jane. They can't learn any younger. Just order a few
things at first, Gerry, and then, if you are still hungry, you can have
more."

Such a jolly time as the children had! When the train turned sharply at a
curve and the dishes slid about, Julie laughed outright. She purposely
did not look at Jane. She could pretend her big sister was smiling
easier, if she didn't see the frown. But their fun was just beginning.




                              CHAPTER IX.
                               TELEGRAMS


Although the children were greatly interested in all they saw, nothing of
an unusual nature had occurred, when, early one morning they reached
Chicago.

The kindly conductor directed them to the other train that would bear
them to their destination, assuring them that on it, also, they would be
guests of Mr. Bethel.

The four young people were standing on the outer edge of the hurrying
throng, gazing about them with interest (as several hours would elapse
before the departure of the west-bound train), when Jane was sure that
she heard their name being called through a megaphone.

"It's that man in uniform over by the gates. He's calling 'Telegram for
Jane Abbott!'" Gerald told her. "May I go get it, Dan? May I?"

The older boy nodded and the younger pushed through the crowd, the others
following more slowly. Very quickly Gerald returned, waving two yellow
envelopes. One was a night letter from Marion Starr. Tearing it open,
Jane read:

  "Dearest friend: As soon as I received your message I telephoned your
  father, knowing that he could explain much more than you could in ten
  words. What you are doing makes me love you more than I did before, if
  that is possible. My one wish is that I, too, might go West. I like
  mountains far better than I do fashionable summer resorts. Will write.
  Your
                                                                 Merry."

The other telegram contained a short message, but Jane looked up with
tears in her eyes as she said: "It is from father and just for me."

Dan smiled down at her and asked no questions. The few words were: "Thank
you, daughter, for your self-sacrifice. Now I know that Dan will get
well."

But their father did not know how serious Dan believed his condition to
be.

"And he shall not," the girl decided, "not until I have good news to
send."

As soon as they were seated in the train that was to take them the rest
of the journey, Jane said anxiously: "Dan, dear, aren't you trying too
hard to keep up? You look so very weak and weary. Let's have the porter
make up the lower berth, even though it is still daytime. You need a long
rest."

Dan shook his head, though he pressed her arm tenderly, but a coughing
spell racked his body when he tried to speak. The conductor on the Rock
Island was more practical than their former friend, but not more kindly.
He motioned Jane to one side.

"Miss Abbott," he said, "there is a drawing-room vacant. Bride and groom
were to have had it, but the order has been canceled. Since you are
friends of Mr. Bethel, I'm going to put you all in there. It will be more
comfortable, and you can turn in any time you wish."

Jane's gratitude was sincerely expressed. It would give Dan just the
opportunity he needed to rest, and the lad, nothing loath, permitted Jane
to have her way. How elated the children were when they found that they
were to travel in a room quite by themselves. That evening they went to
the diner alone, but Gerald was not as pleased as was his sister.

"I should think you'd be tickled pink," Julie said, inelegantly, "to be
able to order anything you choose and not have Jane peering at what you
write."

The boy replied dismally: "I can't be much pleased about anything. Don't
you know, Jane's staying with Dan 'cause she thinks he's too weak to come
out here? I heard her ask the porter to have their dinners brought in
there. Julie, you and I'll have to keep quieter if we want to help Dan
get well. He's sicker than he was when we started. I can see that easy."

The small girl was at once remorseful.

"I'm so glad you told me," she said with tears in her dark violet eyes.
"I've just been thinking what a lot of fun we're having. I've been worse
selfish than Jane was."

Seeing that her lips were quivering, Gerald said consolingly: "No, you
haven't, either. Anyhow, I think Dan's just tired out. He'll be lots
better in the morning. You see if he isn't."

But when Dan awakened in the morning he was no better.

During the afternoon, that their brother might try to sleep, the
conductor suggested that Julie and Gerald go out on the observation
platform.

"Is it quite safe for them out there alone?" Dan inquired.

"They will not be alone," was the reply. "I'll put them in the care of
Mr. Packard, with whom I am acquainted, as he frequently travels over
this line."

Julie had been very eager to ride on the observation platform, but Jane
had not wished to go outside because of the dust and cinders which she
was sure she would encounter, but now that the small girl was actually
going, she could hardly keep from skipping down the aisle as she followed
the conductor with Gerald as rear guard.

There was only one occupant of the observation platform, and to Gerald's
delight, he wore the wide brimmed Stetson hat which the boy had often
seen on the screen.

"I'll bet yo' he's a cattle-man. I bet yo' he is!" Gerry gleefully
confided to his small sister while their guide said a few words to the
Westerner. Then, turning, the conductor beckoned to them.

The stranger arose and held out a strong brown hand to assist the little
girl to a chair at his side.

"How do you do, Julie and Gerald?" he said, including them both in his
friendly smile. Julie bobbed a little curtsy, but Gerald's attempt at
manners was rudely interrupted by the necessity of seizing his cap.

"We have to watch out for our hats," the stranger cautioned, "for now and
then we are visited by a miniature whirlwind."

Gerald was almost bursting with eagerness. "Oh, I say, Mr. Packard," he
blurted out, "aren't you a reg'lar--er--I mean a reg'lar----" The boy
grew red and embarrassed, and so Julie went to his aid with, "Mr.
Packard, Gerry thinks maybe you're a cow-man rancher like we've seen in
the moving pictures."

The bronzed face of the middle-aged man wrinkled in a good-natured smile.
"I am the owner of a cattle-ranch fifteen miles from Redfords," he told
them.

This information so delighted the boy that Julie was afraid he would
bounce right over the rail.

"Gee-golly! That's where we're going--Redfords is! Our daddy owns a cabin
way up high on Mystery Mountain."

The man looked puzzled. "Mystery Mountain," he repeated thoughtfully. "I
don't seem to recall having heard of it."

Then practical little Julie put in: "Oh, Mr. Packard, that isn't its
really-truly name. Our daddy called it that 'cause there's a lost mine on
it and Dad said it was a mystery where it went to."

The man's face brightened.

"O-ho! Then you must mean Redfords' Peak. That mine was found and lost
again before I bought the Green Hills Ranch. Quite a long while ago that
was."

Gerry nodded agreement. "Yep. Dan, our big brother is most twenty-one and
he hadn't been born yet." Then the boy's face saddened as he confided:
"Dan's sick. He's got a dreadful cough. That's why we're going to Dad's
cabin in the Rockies."

"Our doctor said the al-te-tood would make him well," Julie explained,
stopping after each syllable of the long word and saying it very
thoughtfully.

Gerald looked up eagerly. "Do you think it will, Mr. Packard? Do you
think Dan will get well?"

The older man's reply was reassuring: "Of course he will. Our Rocky
Mountain air is a tonic that gives new life to everyone. Are you three
traveling alone?"

Julie and Gerald solemnly shook their heads, and the small girl, in
childish fashion, put a finger on her lips as though to keep from saying
something which she knew she ought not. It was Gerald who replied: "Our
big sister Jane is with us." The boy said no more, but Mr. Packard was
convinced that, devoted as the youngsters were to Dan, Jane, for some
reason, was not very popular with them.

Then, as he did not wish to pry into their family affairs, the genial
rancher pointed out and described to fascinated listeners the many things
of interest which they were passing.

The afternoon sped quickly and even when the dinner hour approached the
children were loath to leave their new friend.

"Me and Julie have to eat alone," the small boy began, but, feeling a
nudge, he looked around to see his sister's shocked little mouth forming
a rebuking O! and so, with a shake of his head, he began again: "I mean
Julie and I eat alone, and gee-golly, don't I wish we could sit at your
table, Mr. Packard. Don't I though!"

"The pleasure would be mine," the man, who was much amused with the
children, replied. Then, after naming an hour to meet in the diner, the
youngsters darted away and Mr. Packard laughed merrily.

It was quite evident that some one of their elders had often rebuked them
for putting "me" at the beginning of a sentence, he decided as he also
arose and went within.

Meanwhile Julie and Gerald had quietly opened the door of the
drawing-room, and, finding Dan alone, they told him with great gusto
about their new friend. "Mr. Packard says he's a really-truly neighbor of
ours," Gerry said. "How can he be a neighbor if he lives fifteen miles
away?"

"I don't know, Gerald, but I suppose that he does," Dan replied. "I would
like to meet your new friend. I'll try to be up tomorrow."




                               CHAPTER X.
                          A CATTLE-MAN FRIEND


The next day Dan seemed to be much better as the crisp morning air that
swept into their drawing-room was very invigorating. By noon he declared
that he was quite strong enough to go to the diner for lunch, and, while
there, the excited children pointed out to him their friend Mr. Packard.

That kindly man bowed and smiled, noting as he did so that the older girl
in their party drew herself up haughtily. The observer, who was an
interested student of character, did not find it hard, having seen Jane,
to understand the lack of enthusiasm which the children had shown when
speaking of her.

Not wishing to thrust his acquaintance upon the girl, who so evidently
did not desire it, the man passed their table on his way from the diner
without pausing.

It is true that Julie had made a slight move as though to call to him,
but this Mr. Packard had not seen, as a cold, rebuking glance from Jane's
dark eyes had caused the small girl to sit back in her chair, inwardly
rebellious.

Dan, noting this, said: "I like your friend's appearance. I think I shall
go with you for a while to the observation platform. I cannot breathe too
much of this wonderful air."

Jane reluctantly consented to accompany them there. "Gee-golly, how I
hope Mr. Packard is there," Gerald whispered as he led the way.

The Westerner rose when the young people appeared and Jane quickly
realized that he was not as uncouth as she had supposed all ranchers
were.

Dan was made as comfortable as possible and he at once said: "Mr.
Packard, Gerald tells me that you are our neighbor. That is indeed good
news."

"You have only one nearer neighbor," the man replied, "and that is the
family of a trapper named Heger. They have a cabin high on your
mountain."

Then, turning toward Jane, he said: "Their daughter, whom they call Meg,
is just about your age, I judge. She is considered the most beautiful
girl in the Redfords district. Indeed, for that matter, she is the most
beautiful girl whom I have ever seen, and I have traveled a good deal.
How pleased Meg will be to have you all for near neighbors."

Jane's thoughts were indignant, and her lips curled scornfully, but as
Mr. Packard's attention had been drawn to Gerald, he did not know that
his remarks had been received almost wrathfully.

"Ranchers must have strange ideas of beauty!" she was assuring herself.
"How this crude man could say that a trapper's daughter is the most
beautiful girl he has ever met when he was looking directly at _me_, is
simply incomprehensible. Mr. Packard is evidently a man without taste or
knowledge of social distinctions."

Jane soon excused herself, and going to their drawing-room, she attempted
to read, but her hurt vanity kept recurring to her and she most heartily
wished she was back East, where her type of beauty was properly
appreciated. It was not strange, perhaps, that Jane thought herself
without a peer, for had she not been voted the most beautiful girl at
Highacres Seminary, and many of the others had been the attractive
daughters of New York's most exclusive families.

Dan returned to their drawing-room an hour later, apparently much
stronger, and filled with a new enthusiasm. "It's going to be great,
these three months in the West. I'm so glad that we have made the
acquaintance of this most interesting neighbor. He is a well educated
man, Jane." Then glancing at his sister anxiously, "You didn't like him,
did you? I wish you had for my sake and the children's."

Jane shrugged her slender shoulders. "Oh, don't mind about me. I can
endure him, I suppose."

Dan sighed and stretched out to rest until the dinner hour arrived.

Julie and Gerald joined them, jubilantly declaring that they were to
reach their destination the next morning before sun-up.

"Then we must all retire early," Dan said. This plan was carried out, but
for hours Jane sobbed softly into her pillow. It was almost more than she
could bear. She had started this journey just on an impulse, and she
_did_ want to help Dan, who had broken down trying to work his way
through college that there might be money enough to keep her at
Highacres. It was their father who had been inconsiderate of them. If he
had let the poor people lose the money they had invested rather than give
up all he had himself, she, Jane, could have remained at the fashionable
seminary and Dan would have been well and strong.

Indeed everything would have been far better.

But the small voice in the girl's soul which now and then succeeded in
making itself heard caused Jane to acknowledge: "Of course Dad is so
conscientious, he would never have been happy if he believed that his
money really belonged to the poor people who had trusted him."

It was midnight before Jane fell asleep, and it seemed almost no time at
all before she heard a tapping on her door. She sat up and looked out of
the window. Although the sky was lightening, the stars were still shining
with a wonderful brilliancy in the bit of sky that she could see. Then a
voice, which she recognized as that of Mr. Packard, spoke.

"Time to get up, young friends. We'll be at Redfords in half an hour."

Gerald leaped to his feet when he heard the summons. Then, when he
grasped the fact that they were nearly at their destination, he gave a
whoop of joy.

"Hurry up, Julie," he shook his still sleeping young sister. "We are
'most to Mystery Mountain, and, Oh, boy, what jolly fun we're going to
have."

Half an hour later, Mr. Packard and the young Abbotts stood on a platform
watching the departing train. Then they turned to gaze about them. It
surely was a desolate scene. The low log depot was the only building in
sight, and, closing in about them on every side were silent, dark,
fir-clad mountains that looked bold and stern in the chill gray light of
early dawn. Jane shuddered. How tragically far away from civilization,
from the gay life she so enjoyed--all this seemed.

The station master, a native grown too old for more active duty, shuffled
toward them, chewing tobacco in a manner that made his long gray beard
move sideways. His near-sighted eyes peered through his brass-rimmed
spectacles, but, when he recognized one of the new arrivals, he grinned
broadly. In a high, cracked voice he exclaimed: "Wall, if 'tain't Silas
Packard home again from the East. Glad to git back to God's country,
ain't you now, Si? Brought a parcel of young folks along this trip? Wall,
I don't wonder at it. Your big place is sort o' lonesome wi' no wimmin
folks into it. What? You don' mean to tell me these here are Dan Abbott's
kids! Wall, wall. How-de-do? Did I know yer pa? Did I know Danny Abbott?
I reckon I was the furst man in these here parts that did know him. He
come to my camp, nigh to the top of Redfords' Peak, the week he landed
here from college." The old man took off his bearskin cap and scratched
his head. "Nigh onto twenty-five year, I make it. Yep, that's jest what
'twas. That's the year we struck the payin' streak over t'other side of
the mountain, and folks flocked in here thicker'n buzzards arter a dead
sheep. Yep, that's the year the Crazy Creek Camp sprung up, and that's
how yer pa come to buy where he did."

Then, encouraged by the interest exhibited by at least three of the young
people, the old man continued:

"The payin' streak, where the camp was built, headed straight that way,
and I sez to him, sez I--'Dan Abbott,' sez I, 'If I was you I'd use the
money I'd fetched to get aholt of that 160 acres afore it's nabbed by
these rich folks that's tryin' to grab all the mines,' sez I. 'That's
what I'd do.' And so Dan tuk it, but as luck would have it, that vein
petered out to nothin' an' I allays felt mighty mean, havin' Dan stuck
that way wi' so much land an' no gold on it, but he sez to me, 'Gabby,'
that's my name; 'Gabby,' sez he, 'don' go to feelin' bad about it, not
one mite. That place is jest what I've allays wanted. When a fellow's
tired out, there's nothin' so soothin',' sez he, 'as a retreat,' that's
what he called it, 'a retreat in the mountains.' But he didn't need 160
acres to retreat on, so he let go all but ten. He'd built a log cabin on
it that had some style, not jest a shack like the rest of us miners run
up, then Dan went away for a spell--but by and by he come back." The old
man's leathery face wrinkled into a broad smile. "An' he didn't come back
alone! I reckon you young Abbotts know who 'twas he fetched back with
him. It was the purtiest gal 'ceptin' one that I ever laid eyes on.
You're the splittin' image of the bride Danny brought." The small blue
eyes that were almost hidden under shaggy gray brows turned toward Jane.
"Yep, you look powerful like your ma."

But Jane had heard only one thing, which was that even this garrulous old
man knew one other person whom he considered more beautiful. How she
wanted to ask the question, but there was no time, for "Gabby" never
hesitated except to change the location of his tobacco quid or to do some
long distance expectorating.

Turning to Mr. Packard, he began again: "Meg Heger's took to comin' down
to Redfords school ag'in. She's packin' a gun now. That ol' sneakin' Ute
is still trailin' her. I can't figger out what he wants wi' her. The
slinkin' coyote! She ain't got nothin' but beauty, and Indians ain't so
powerful set on that. Thar sure sartin is a mystery somewhere."

The old man stopped talking to peer through near-sighted eyes at the
canon road.

"I reckon here's the stage coach," he told them, "late, like it allays
is. If 'tain't the ho'ses as falls asleep on the way, then it's Sourface
his self. Si, do yo' mind the time when the stage was a-goin' down the
Toboggan Grade----"

It was quite evident that Gabby was launched on another long yarn, but
Mr. Packard laughingly interrupted, placing a kindly hand on the old
man's shoulder.

"Tell us about that at another time, Gab," he said. "We're eager to get
to the town and have some breakfast."

He picked up Jane's satchel and Dan's also, and led the way to the edge
of the platform, where an old-fashioned stage was waiting. Four white
horses stood with drooping heads and on the high seat another old man was
huddled in a heap as though he felt the need of seizing a few moments'
rest before making the return trip to Redfords.

"They have just come up the steep Toboggan Grade," Mr. Packard said by
way of explanation. "That's why the horses look tired."

Then in his cheerful way he shouted: "Hello, there, Wallace. How goes
it?"

The man on the seat sat up and looked down at the passengers with an
expression so surly on his leathery countenance that it was not hard for
the young people to know why he had been given his nickname, but he said
nothing, nor was there in his eyes a light of recognition. With a grunt,
which might have been intended as a greeting, he motioned them to get
into the lower part of the stage, which they did.

Then he jerked at the reins and the horses came to life and started back
the way they had so recently come. Gabby had followed them to the edge of
the platform, and as far as the Abbotts could make out, he was still
telling them the story which Mr. Packard had interrupted.

"How cold it is!" Julie shivered as she spoke and cuddled close to Dan.
He smiled down at her and then said:

"Mr. Packard, this is wonderful air, so crisp and invigorating. I feel
better already. Honestly, I'll confess now, the last two days on the
train I feared you would have to carry me off when we got here, but
now"--the lad paused and took a long breath of the mountain air--"I feel
as though I had been given a new lease on life."

The older man laid a bronzed hand on the boy's sleeve.

"Dan," he said, "you have. When you leave here in three months you'll be
as well as I am, and that's saying a good deal."

Then the lad surprised Jane by exclaiming: "Perhaps I won't want to
leave. There's a fascination to me about all this."

He waved his free arm out toward the mountains. "And your native
characters, Mr. Packard, interest me exceedingly. You see," Dan smilingly
confessed, "my ambition is to become a writer. I would like to put
'Gabby' into a story."

Mr. Packard's eyes brightened. "Do it, Dan! Do it!" he said with real
enthusiasm. "Personally I can't write a line, not easily, but I have real
admiration for men who can, and I am a great reader. Come over soon and
see my library."

Then he cautioned: "I told you to write, but don't begin yet. Not until
you are stronger. Stay outdoors for a time, boy. Climb to the rim rock,
take notes, and then later, when you are strong, you will find them of
value."

While they had been talking, the stage had started down a steep, narrow
canon. The mountain walls on both sides were almost perpendicular, and
for a time nothing else was to be seen. It was more than a mile in
length, and they could soon see the valley opening below them.

"Redfords proper," Mr. Packard smilingly told them as he nodded in that
direction. "It is not much of a metropolis."

The young Abbotts looked curiously ahead, wondering what the town would
be like.




                              CHAPTER XI.
                                REDFORDS


"Is that all there is to the town of Redfords?" Jane gasped when the
stage, leaving Toboggan Grade, reached a small circular valley which was
apparently surrounded on all sides by towering timber-covered mountains.
A stream of clear, sparkling water rushed and swirled on its way through
the narrow, barren, rock-strewn lowland. The rocks, the very dust of the
road, were of a reddish cast.

"That road yonder climbs your mountain in a zig-zag fashion, and then
circles around it to the old abandoned mining camp." Then to Gerald, he
said: "Youngster, if you're pining for mystery, that's where you ought to
find one. That deserted mining camp always looks to me as though it must
have a secret, perhaps more than one, that it could tell and will not."

"Ohee!" squealed Julie. "How interesting! Gerry and I are wild to find a
mystery to unravel. Why do you think that old mining camp has secrets,
Mr. Packard?"

Smiling at the little girl's eagerness, the rancher replied: "Because it
looks so deserted and haunted." Then to Dan, "You heard what Gabby said
at the depot. Well, he did not exaggerate. A rich vein of gold was found
on the other side of your mountain, and a throng of men came swarming in
from everywhere, and just overnight, or so it seemed, buildings of every
description were erected. They did not take time to make them of
permanent logs, though there are a few of that description. For several
months they worked untiringly, digging, blasting, searching everywhere,
but the vein which had promised so much ended abruptly.

"Of course, when the horde of men found that there was no gold, they
departed as they had come. For a time after that a wandering tribe of Ute
Indians lived there, but the hunting was poor, and as they, too, moved on
farther into the Rockies, where there are many fertile valleys. Only one
old Indian, of whom Gabby spoke, has remained. They call him Slinking
Coyote. Why he stayed behind when his tribe went in search of better
hunting grounds surely is a mystery."

Julie gave another little bounce of joy. "Oh, goodie!" she cried. "Gerry,
there's two mysteries and maybe we'll find the answers to both of them."

"I would rather find something to eat," Jane said rather peevishly. "I
never was obliged to wait so long for my breakfast in all my life. It's
one whole hour since we left the train." She glanced at her wrist watch
as she spoke.

Mr. Packard looked at her meditatively. The other three Abbotts were as
amiable as any young people he had ever met, but Jane was surely the most
fretful and discontented. Although he knew nothing of all that had
happened, he could easily see that she, at least, was in the West quite
against her will.

"Well, my dear young lady," he said as he reached for her bag, "you won't
have long to wait, for even now we are in the town, approaching the inn."

"What?" Jane's eyes were wide and unbelieving. "Is this wretched log
cabin place the only hotel?" She peered out of the stage window and saw
two cowboys lounging on the porch, and each was chewing a toothpick. They
were picturesquely dressed in fringed buckskin trousers, soft shirts,
carelessly knotted bandannas and wide Stetson hats. Their ponies were
tied in front, as were several other lean, restless horses.

Mr. Packard nodded. "Yes, this is the inn and the general store and the
postoffice. Across the road is another building just like it and that has
a room in front which is used as a church on Sunday and a school on
weekdays, while in back there is a billiard room. There are no saloons
now," this was addressed to Dan, "which is certainly a good thing for
Redfords."

"Billiard room, church and a school house all in one building," Jane
repeated in scornful amazement. "But where are the houses? Where do the
townspeople live?"

Mr. Packard smiled at her. "There aren't any," he said. "The ranchers,
cowboys, mountaineers and summer tourists are the patrons of the inn and
billiard rooms. But here we are!" The stage had stopped in front of the
rambling log building and reluctantly Jane followed the others.

Mr. Packard held the screen door open for the young people to pass, then,
taking Jane's arm, he piloted her through the front part of the building,
which was occupied by the postoffice and store, to the room in the rear,
where were half a dozen bare tables. Each had in the center a vinegar
cruet, a sugar bowl, salt and pepper shakers. At least they were clean,
but the dishes were so coarse that had not Jane been ravenously hungry,
she told herself, she simply could not have eaten. Mr. Packard led the
way to the largest table, at which there were six places, and as soon as
they were seated a comely woman entered through a swinging green baize
door.

"Howdy, Mr. Packard?" she said in response to the rancher's cordial
greeting. "Jean Sawyer, your foreman, was in last night an' left your
hoss for yo'. He said as how he was expectin' yo' in some time today.
You've fetched along some visitors, I take it." The woman looked at the
older girl with unconcealed admiration. The blood rushed to Jane's face.
Was this innkeeper's wife going to tell her that she had never seen but
one other girl who was more beautiful? But Mrs. Bently made no personal
comment.

When Mr. Packard explained that his companions were the young Abbotts,
and that they were to spend the summer in a cabin on Redford Mountain,
her only remark was: "Is it the cabin that's been standin' empty so long,
the one that's a short piece down from where Meg Heger lives?"

"Yes, that's it, Mrs. Bently." Then the man implored: "Please bring us
some of your good ham and eggs and coffee and----"

"There's plenty of waffle dough left, if the young people likes 'em." The
woman smiled at Julie, who beamed back at her.

"Oh, boy!" Gerald chimed in. "Me for the waffles!"

The cooking was excellent and even the fastidious Jane thoroughly enjoyed
the breakfast.

When they emerged from the inn, Dan said, regretfully: "The sun is high
up. We've missed our first sunrise."

"We were on the Toboggan Grade when the sun rose," Mr. Packard told them.
He then shook hands with Jane and Dan as he said heartily:

"Here is where we part company. That is my horse over yonder. A beauty,
isn't he? Silver, I call him. By the way, Dan, I want you to meet Jean
Sawyer. He is just about your age, and a fine fellow, if I am a judge of
character. I would trust him with anything I have. In fact, I do. I send
him all the way to the city often, to get money from the bank to pay off
the men. I know he isn't dishonest, and yet, for some reason, he ran away
from his home. You know, we have a code out here by which each man is
permitted to keep his own counsel.

"We ask no one from whence he came or why. We take people for what they
seem to be, with no knowledge of their past."

Then, breaking off abruptly, the older man repeated: "I would, indeed,
like you to meet Jean and tell me what you think of him. Come over to our
place soon, or, better still, since that is a rough trip until you get
hardened to the saddle, I'll send him over to call on you next Sunday."

Dan's face brightened. "Great, Mr. Packard; do that! A chap whom you so
much admire must be worth knowing. Have him take dinner with us. Goodbye,
and thank you for being our much-needed guide."

When their neighbor and friend had swung into his saddle and had ridden
away, Jane said fretfully: "I don't see why you asked that Jean Sawyer,
who may be an outlaw, for all we know, to come over to our place for
dinner." Then, when she saw the expression of troubled disappointment in
her brother's face, again the small voice within rebuked her, and she
implored: "Oh, Dan, don't mind me! I know I am horridly selfish, but I am
so tired, and these people are all so queer. What are we to do next?"

The older lad knew what an effort Jane was making, and he held her arm
affectionately close as he replied: "Mr. Packard said that the stage
would call for us at 8:30. We will have half an hour to purchase our
supplies. Grandmother made out a list of things we would need. Julie has
that. Jane, here is my wallet. I wish you would take charge of our funds.
You won't be climbing around as I will. It will be safer with you."

Together the girls went into the store and purchased the supplies they
would need. Then they rejoined the boys, who had waited outside. Gerry
wanted to look in the school house.

The Abbotts found the door of the rambling log cabin across from the inn
standing open, and they peered in curiously. The room was long and well
lighted by large windows, but it was quite like any other country school.
There were eight rows of benches, one back of the other, with a
shelf-like desk in front of each. These had many an initial carved in
them. The teacher's table and chair faced the others, with a blackboard
hanging on the wall at the back. Near the door was a pail and a dipper.
Dan smiled. "It doesn't look as though genius could be awakened here,
does it?" he was saying, when a pleasant voice back of them caused them
to turn.

"You're wrong there, my friend." The young people saw before them a
withered-up little old man with the whitest of hair reaching to his
shoulders. Noting their unconcealed astonishment, he continued, by way of
introduction, "I am Preacher Bellows on Sunday and Teacher Bellows on
weekdays. Now, as I was saying, having overheard your remark, this little
schoolroom and the teacher who presides over it are proud to tell you
that your statement is not correct. It may not look as though genius
could be awakened here," he smiled most kindly. "I'll agree that it does
not, but that is just what has happened. Meg Heger, one of my mountain
girls, has written some beautiful things. Her last composition, 'Sunrise
From the Rim-Rock,' is truly poetical."

Jane turned away impatiently. Was she never to be through with hearing
about Meg Heger? "Brother," the manner in which she interrupted the
conversation was almost rude, "isn't that the stage returning? I am so
tired, I do want to get up to our cabin." She started to cross the
street. Dan quickly joined her. He did not rebuke her for not having said
goodbye to the teacher.

"He's a nice man, isn't he, Dan?" Gerald skipped along by his brother's
side as he spoke. "He loves mountain people, doesn't he?"

Dan smiled down at the eager questioner. "Why, of course, he must, if he
practices what I suppose he preaches; the brotherhood of man."

"Well, I certainly don't want to claim people like the ones we have met
in Redfords as any kin of mine," Jane snapped as they all crossed to the
stage that awaited them. Again the four white horses drooped their heads
and the driver slouched on his high seat, as though at every opportunity
they took short naps. But the horses came to life when the driver snapped
his long whip and with much jolting they forded the stream.

"Oh, my; I'm 'cited as anything!" Julie squealed. "Wish something,
Gerald, 'cause this is the first time we've ever been up our very own
mountain road."

"There's just one thing to wish for," the small boy said with the
seriousness which now and then made him seem older than his years, "and
that's that Dan will get well. What do you wish, Jane?"

"Why, the same thing, of course," the girl replied languidly.

Gerald continued his questioning. "What do you wish, Dan?"

The boy thought for a moment and then he exclaimed, "I have a wonderful
thing to wish. Wouldn't it be great if we could find the lost gold vein
on our very own ten acres? Then Dad could pay the rest that he owes and
be free from all worry?"

"Me, too," Julie cried jubilantly. "Now, we've all wished and here we go
up the mountain."

The road was narrow. In some places it was barely wide enough for the
stage to pass, and, as Jane looked back and down, she shuddered many
times.

At last, when nothing happened and the old stage did stick to the road,
Jane consented to look around at the majestic scenery, about which the
others were exclaiming. Beyond the gorge-like valley in which was
Redfords, one mountain range towered above another, while many peaks were
crowned with snow, dazzling in the light of the sun that was now high
above them.

The air was becoming warmer, but it was so wonderfully clear that even
things in the far distance stood out with remarkable detail.

At a curve, Gerald pointed to the road where it circled above them.
"Gee-whiliker! Look-it!" he cried excitedly. "How that boy can ride." The
others, turning, saw a pony which seemed to be running at breakneck
speed, but as the stage appeared around the bend, the small horse was
halted so suddenly that it reared. When it settled back on all fours, the
watchers saw that, instead of a boy, the rider was a girl, slender of
build, wiry, alert. She drew to one side close to the mountain, to permit
the stage to pass. She wore a divided skirt of the coarsest material, a
scarlet blouse but no hat. Her glossy black wind-blown hair fluttered
loosely about her slim shoulders. Her dusky eyes looked curiously out at
them from between long curling lashes. Dan thought he had never before
seen such wonderful eyes, but it only took a moment for the stage to
pass.

They all turned to look down the road. The pony was again leaping ahead
as sure-footed, evidently, as a mountain goat, the girl leaning low in
the saddle. Jane's lips were curled scornfully. "Well, if that is their
mountain beauty, I think they have queer taste! She looked to me very
much like an Indian, didn't she to you, Dan?"

The boy replied frankly: "I should say she might be Spanish or French,
but I do indeed think she is wonderfully beautiful. I never saw such
eyes. They seem to have slumbering soul-fires just waiting to be kindled.
I should like to hear her talk."

Jane shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I certainly should not. I have heard
enough of this mountain dialect, if that's what you call it, to last me
the rest of my life. I simply will not make the acquaintance of that--Oh,
it doesn't matter what she is--" she hurried on to add when she saw that
Dan was about to speak. "I don't want to know her, and do please remember
that, all of you!"

"Gee, sis," Gerald blurted out, "you don't like the West much, do you? I
s'pose you wish you had stayed at home or gone to that hifalutin watering
place."

Jane bit her lips to keep from retorting angrily. Julie was still
watching the small horse that now and then reappeared as the zigzagging
mountain road far below them came in sight.

"That girl's going to school, I guess. Though I should think it would be
vacation time, now it's summer," she remarked.

"I rather believe that winter is vacation time for mountain schools. It's
mighty cold here for a good many months and the roads are probably so
deep in snow that they are not passable."

Dan had just said this when Gerald, who had been kneeling on the seat,
watching intently ahead, whirled toward them with a cry of joy. "There's
our log cabin on that ledge up there! I bet you 'tis! Gee-whiliker, we're
stopping. Hurray! It's ours."




                              CHAPTER XII.
                            THE ABBOTT CABIN


It was quite evident that the picturesque log cabin which nestled against
the side of the mountain on a wide, overhanging ledge was indeed their
own. The road curved about twenty feet below it, and crude steps had been
hewn out of the rocks. The small boy tumbled out of the stage almost
before it came to a standstill.

"Oh, Julie, look-it, will you! We've got a real stairway leading right up
to our front door. I'll beat you to the cabin."

Julie, equally excited, scurried up after her brother and reached the top
almost as soon as he did. Then they turned and shouted joyfully to the
two below them: "Jane! Dan! Look at us! We're top of the world."

"Oh, boy!" Gerald capered about, unable to stand still. "I'm glad I came.
I bet you, Julie, we'll have a million adventures, maybe more." But Dan
was calling and so they scampered back down the rocky flight of stairs.

The older lad laughed at their enthusiasm. "I know just how you feel," he
told them. "If I weren't afraid of shocking your sedate sister here, I
believe I would--well--I don't know just what I would do."

"Stand on your head," Gerald prompted. "Do it, Dan. I'll dare you."

But the older boy was needed just then to tell the surly driver where the
trunks were to be put. "Let me help you, Mr. Wallace." Dan made an
attempt to take one end of a trunk, but the husky man, with the
unchangeable countenance, merely grunted his dissent, and swinging a
trunk up on his broad shoulders, he began the ascent of the steep stone
stairs quite as though it were not a herculean task.

Dan followed. "Just leave them on the porch until we get our bearings,"
he directed. "We can move them in after we have unpacked." Then, from the
loose change that he had in his pocket, he paid the man. A few moments
later the stage rumbled on its way up the road, which circled the
mountain and then descended to a hamlet in the valley on the other side.

As soon as the four young Abbotts were alone, Dan, slipping an arm about
Jane, exclaimed: "Think of it, sister! Isn't it almost beyond
comprehension that we have such magnificence right in our front
door-yard." He took a long breath. The pine trees, though not large, were
spicily fragrant. Then, whirling toward her, he caught both of her hands,
and there were actually tears in his eyes as he said, "Jane, I'm going to
live! I know that I am!"

Selfish as the girl was, she could not but respond to her brother's
enthusiasm. The younger children had raced away on a tour of discovery.
Their excited voices were heard exclaiming about something they had
discovered beyond the cabin. Clear and high Gerry's voice rang out: "Dan,
Jane, come quick! We've found Roaring Creek, and it isn't making a
terrible lot of noise at all."

But the older boy had noted the extreme weariness on his sister's face.
He well knew that she had sacrificed herself to come to a country which
did not appeal to her; where she had to meet people whom she considered
far beneath her, and she had done it all to help him get well. Instantly
the boy decided that he would make Jane's comfort his first care, that
her stay with him might be as pleasant as possible, and so he called
back: "After a time, Gerald. Come on; I'm going to unlock the door. Don't
you want to see what's on the inside of our cabin?"

"Oh, boy, don't I, though!" Gerry, closely followed by Julie, raced back
to the wide front porch, which was made of logs. Dan took from his
satchel a very large key and holding it up, he called merrily, "The key
to health and happiness."

"You left out something," Gerry prompted. "It's health, wealth and
happiness. Maybe we'll find that lost mine, who knows?"

Dan merely laughed at that. "Now," he said, as he put the key in the
lock, "what do you suppose we'll find on the other side of this door?"

What they saw delighted the hearts of three of the young people. A large
log cabin room with a long window on either side of the door. At the back
was a crude fireplace made of rocks. There was no window on that side of
the room, as a wall of the mountain came so close to the cabin that there
would have been no view.

The rafters were logs with the bark still on, and the furniture had been
made of saplings. There were leather cushions in the chairs, but the
thing that made Gerald caper about, mad with joy, was a bearskin on one
of the walls.

"Oh, look-it, will you, Dan? What kind of a bear is it? Do you think it
is a grizzly, and do you s'pose it's that one Dad said came right down
here to our ledge? Do you, Dan?"

The older boy looked at the rather small bearskin and shook his head.

"No, it isn't a grizzly," he said. "I think it is the skin of a black
bear. But here is another on the floor in front of the fireplace. That's
Dad's bear, I remember now. This old fellow was the grizzly who was
unfortunate enough to come down here to try to help himself to Dad's
supplies."

Jane had dropped wearily into a big chair that really was comfortable
with its leather-covered cushions, and Dan, noting how tired she was,
exclaimed:

"Jane, I'll unlock the packing trunk and get out some of the bedding, and
if you wish, you may lie down for a while. Dad said there were two good
beds here and several cots."

Gerald and Julie had darted through a door at one side and, reappearing,
they beckoned to their big brother.

"We've found one of 'em," the younger lad announced. "It's in a dandee
room! I bet you Jane will choose it for hers."

Then Julie chimed in with: "Jane, please come and see it."

The older girl, who was feeling terribly sorry for herself, rose
languidly and went with the small sister. The boys followed.

"Why, what a nice room this is!" Dan, truly pleased, remarked. Then
anxiously, and in his voice there was a note that was almost imploring,
he asked: "Jane, dear, don't you think you can be comfortable in here?"

The girl's heart was touched by the tone more than the words, and she
turned away that she might not show how near, how very near, she had been
to crying out her unhappiness. It was hardship to her to be in a log
cabin where there were none of the luxuries and conveniences to which she
had been used. She smiled at her brother, but he saw her lips tremble. He
was tempted to tell her to go back to civilization, since it was all
going to be so hard for her, but something prompted him to wait one week.
Inwardly he resolved: "If Jane is not happy here by one week from today,
I am going to insist that she return to Newport and to the friend Merry
for whom she cares so much."

But Jane, too, had been making a resolve, and so when she spoke her voice
sounded more cheerful.

"It is a nice room," she said. "That wide window has a wonderful view of
the mountains and the valley." It was hard to keep from adding, "If
anyone cares for such a view, which I do not."

But instead she looked up at the rafters. "What are those great bundles
that are hanging up there?" she inquired.

Dan laughed. "Why, those bundles, Dad said, contain the mattress and
bedding which he and mother stored away. They are wrapped in canvas and
so he expected that we would find them in good condition."

"But how are we to get them?" Julie wanted to know.

Gerald's quick eyes found the answer to that.

"Look-it!" he cried, pointing. "There's a ladder nailed right against the
back wall. I'll skin up that in two jiffs. Give me your knife, Dan. I'll
cut the ropes."

The boy was soon sliding along a rafter. "Out of the way down below
there!" he shouted the warning. "Here they come!"

There was a soft thud, followed by another as the two great bundles fell
to the floor. An excellent mattress was in one of them and clean warm
blankets in the other.

"Now, I'll get the sheets from the packing trunk and a pillow case, and
in less than no time at all we'll have a fine bed in our lady's chamber."

Dan led Jane to another large comfortable though rustic chair as he said:

"The rest of us are going to pretend that you are a princess today and we
are going to wait upon you. By tomorrow, when you have had a long sleep,
perhaps you will want to be a mountain girl."

Again there was the yearning note in his voice. How he hoped that Jane
would want to stay, but a week would tell.

Jane was quite willing to pretend that she was a princess and be waited
upon, and so half an hour later, when the bed in her room was made, she
consented to lie down and try to make up the many hours of sleep that she
had lost on the train. Hardly had her head touched the pillow before she
was sound asleep. Two of her windows, that swung inward, were wide open
and a soft mountain breeze wafted to her the scent of the pines. Even
though she was not conscious of it, the peace of the mountains was
quieting her restless soul. She had supposed that, as soon as she were
alone, she would sob out her unhappiness, but her weariness had been too
great, and not a tear had been shed.

Julie reported that Jane had gone right to sleep and Dan's face
brightened. Surely his sister-pal would feel better when she awakened and
how could she help loving it all, so high up on their wonderful mountain.

The younger children had gone on another trip of exploration, and soon
burst back into the big living-room with the information that on the
other side of the cabin there were two smaller bedrooms and a real
kitchen.

Dan held up a warning hand and framed the word "quiet" with his lips, and
so the excited children took his hands and dragged him from the deep easy
chair where he had sought to rest for a moment and showed him what lay
behind the two doors on the other side of the cabin. "Aren't these little
bedrooms the cunningest?" Julie whispered. "See the front one has a bed
in it like Jane's and the other has the cot. But there are three of us,
so what shall we do?" Julie's brown eyes were suddenly serious and
inquiring.

"That's easy!" Dan told her. "Dad said there were several cots. See,
there they are, hanging up on the rafters. I shall take one of those and
put it out on the wide front porch. That's where I want to sleep. I don't
want to be shut in by walls. And Julie may have this pretty front room
with the bed and Gerald the other. Now, let's get them made up, just as
quietly as we can. Then we will unpack the supplies that you got from the
store, Julie, and prepare a noon meal."

The cots were untied from the rafters and one was placed on the porch in
the position chosen by Dan, then the bedding was put on all of them and
it was 11 o'clock and the sun was riding hot and high above the mountain
when Julie, suddenly becoming demure, announced that she wanted Dan to go
to sleep also, and that she and Gerald would get the lunch.

The older boy did not require much urging and when he saw the eager light
in the eyes of the little girl, who had in the beginning supposed that
she alone was to be the one to take care of him, he decided to do as she
wished. Julie had had six months' training with her grandmother, who
believed that a girl could not begin too young to learn how to cook, and
she had often boasted that she had a very apt pupil.

He soon heard the children whispering and laughing happily at the back of
the cabin, then a door was closed softly and the lad heard only the
soughing in the pine trees close to the porch and the humming of the
winged insects far and near. Then he, too, fell into a much needed
slumber.




                             CHAPTER XIII.
                            TWO LITTLE COOKS


The kitchen of the log cabin had one window and a door which opened out
into what Gerry called the "back-yard part of their ledge." It was only
about fifty feet to the very edge, and Gerry crept on hands and knees to
look over, that he might see where their "back-yard went." He lifted a
face filled with awe and beckoned his sister to advance with caution.
Lying flat, the two children gazed over the rim of the ledge, straight
down a wall of rock, far below which the road could be seen curving.
"Ohee!" Julie drew back with a shudder. "What if our cabin should slide
right off this shelf that it's built on?"

"It can't, if it wants to," the boy told her confidently. "We're safe
here as anything. That's two ways a bear can't come," he continued; "but
on the other side, where the creek is, and in front, where the stone
steps are, I suppose the bear came in one of those two ways."

The small girl looked frightened. "Oh, Gerry," she said, "what if a bear
should come again? What would we do?"

"Why, Dan would shoot it, just the way Dad did," the boy replied with
great assurance. His big brother was his hero, and that he could not
perform any feat required was not to be thought of for one moment.

"But Dan hasn't a gun, has he?" Julie was not yet convinced.

"Indeed he has, silly. Do you s'pose Dad would let us come into this wild
country without guns? Dan has two in his trunk. One's a big fellow! Dad
let me hold it once, and, Oh, boy, I'm telling you it's a heavy one. I
most had to drop it, and I've got bully muscle. Look at what muscle I've
got!"

Gerry crooked his bare arm, but his sister turned away impatiently,
saying: "Oh, I don't want to! You make me feel what muscle you've got
most every day."

Julie returned to the kitchen, but Gerry followed, and, if he were
offended by her lack of interest in his brawniness, he did not show it.
He was far too interested in the subject under discussion. "That big gun
I was telling you about is the very one Dad used when he shot the
grizzly, and if it shot one bear, then of course it can shoot another
bear."

The little girl was convinced. That seemed clear reasoning, but she
interrupted when the boy began again, by saying: "Gerald Abbott, do stop
telling bear stories, and help me clean up this kitchen. Jane won't be
any more use than nothing and we might as well do things and pretend she
isn't here, the way I wish she wasn't."

"I sort of wish she hadn't come, myself," Gerry confessed. "Now, let's
see. Here's a cupboard all nailed up. I guess I can pull out the nails,
but first I'd better make a fire in this old stove. I'll have to fetch in
some wood."

"No, you won't! Not just at first. There's a box full behind the stove.
Big, knotty pieces; pine, I suppose; but maybe we do need some kindling.
Then bring me some water from the creek and I'll wash up everything. Dad
said we'd find some dishes in the cupboard, if they hadn't been stolen."

"Gee, I hope they haven't!" The boy, who was as handy about a home as was
his small sister, soon had a fire in the stove, and then, having found a
pail, he went to the creek, stealing around past the front porch and
under his sister's window as quietly as he possibly could. Although dry
twigs creaked and snapped, the two sleepers did not waken.

Such fun as those youngsters had putting the kitchen in order. In the
cupboard they found all of the dishes which their father had mentioned.
Although the china was coarse, the green fern pattern was attractive.
Gerald, standing on a chair, handed it out, piece by piece, to the small
girl, who put them in hot, sudsy water and then dried them till they
shone. Gerald, meantime, was washing the shelves. Then they replaced the
dishes and stood back to admire their handiwork.

"Oh, aren't we having fun?" Julie chuckled. "Now, we're all ready to get
the lunch."

It was one o'clock when Julie went to waken Jane, and Gerald, at the same
time, went out on the porch where Dan had been sleeping, but the older
boy was sitting up on the edge of his cot drinking in the beauty of the
scene which, to him, was an ever-changing marvel. He sprang up,
wonderfully refreshed, and going to the packing trunk, he procured a
towel.

"Hello, Jane," he called brightly to the tall girl, who appeared in the
open door. Then he gave a long whistle. "Sister," he exclaimed, love and
admiration ringing in his voice, "I hope that Jean Sawyer, who is coming
to dine with us day after tomorrow, has a heart of adamant. I pity him if
he hasn't! I honestly never saw anyone so beautiful as you are, with the
flush of slumber on your cheeks and your eyes so bright."

Jane came out smiling. This was the sort of adulation she desired and
required, but her brother felt a twinge of guilt, for, even as he had
been talking, he had seen in memory a slender, alert little creature with
eyes, star-like in their dusky radiance, gazing out at him from under
dark, curling lashes.

But they were so unlike, these two, he told himself. The one proud,
imperious, ultra-civilized; the other, a wild thing, untamed, or so she
had appeared to him in that one moment's glance, a native of the
mountains.

"Where are you going with that towel?" Jane asked him.

The lad laughingly dived again into the packing trunk and brought out
another. "Let's go to the creek to wash," he suggested. "I haven't even
seen it yet, and I'm ever so eager to feel that cold mountain water dash
into my face." Then in a low tone he whispered close to his sister's ear,
"The children have a surprise for us, Jane, and so let's be very much
surprised and not disappoint them."

Jane shrugged. To her, children and their ways had to be endured, but she
took no interest in what they did or did not do. However, she accompanied
her brother around the house.

She glanced at him with a sense of satisfaction, which was, as usual,
prompted by selfishness. If Dan seemed so much better in one day, he
might be so well by the end of a fortnight that she would not need to
remain with him. If she were sure that all was to be well with him, she
would return to Merry. The lad, not dreaming what her thoughts were,
caught her hand boyishly. "Oh, Jane," he cried as he pointed ahead, "can
you believe it, Sister-pal, that is our very own mountain stream! Isn't
it a beauty?"

The sunlight, falling between the pines, lighted the narrow, rushing,
whirling little mountain brook, which sparkled and seemed to sing for the
very joy of being. Standing on its edge, Dan looked up the mountain along
the course the brook had come. "See," he cried jubilantly, "wherever the
sunlight filters through, it gleams as though it were laughing. Dad said
that it springs out just below the rim rock. Oh, I do hope by next week I
will be able to climb up that high."

Jane's glance followed her brother's up the rough, rocky mountain side
and she shook her head. "I'll never attempt it," she decided, but Dan
whirled, laughing defiance. "I'm going to prophesy that you'll climb the
rim rock before a fortnight is over."

Then kneeling, he splashed the clear, cold water in his face and reached
for the towel that Jane held. Then he implored her to do the same. With
great reluctance she complied, and so cool and restful did she find it,
that she actually smiled, almost with pleasure.

But Dan had the misfortune to say the wrong thing just then. "I suppose
this brook, or one like it, is all the mirror that the mountain girl, Meg
Heger, has ever had," he began, when he sensed a chill in his sister's
reply.

"I certainly do not know, nor do I care." Then she added, as an
afterthought, "And I shall never find out."




                              CHAPTER XIV.
                              FRETFUL JANE


Luckily Dan had succeeded in changing his sister's thought before they
returned to the cabin, and he vowed inwardly that he would never again
mention Meg Heger, since Jane had taken such a strange dislike to her.
How one could dislike a girl one had barely seen was beyond his
comprehension, but girls were hard to understand, all except Julie. She
was just a wholesome, helpful little maid with a pug-nose that was always
freckled.

"Now for the surprise!" Dan said as they neared the cabin.

"Well, I certainly hope it is something to eat," Jane began, with little
interest, but when the two children threw open the front door and she saw
the table in the living-room close to the wide window with four places
set, she delighted the little workers by announcing that it was the best
sight she had beheld that day. Then, when Jane and Dan were seated, Julie
and Gerry skipped to the kitchen and returned with as tempting a lunch as
even Jane could have wished for. There was creamed tuna on toast and jam
and a heaping plate of lettuce sandwiches and two of the Rockyford melons
for which Colorado is famous. Then there was for each a glass of creamy
milk.

"Great!" Dan exclaimed. "I didn't know we were going to be able to get
milk."

Julie nodded eagerly. "It comes from the Packard ranch, fresh to the inn
every day, and Mrs. Bently said she would send us two quarts every time
the stage comes up our road, which usually is three times a week. We can
keep it cool as anything in the creek. Mrs. Bently told us how."

"After lunch can we get out the guns, Dan?" Gerald asked when he had
hungrily gulped down a sandwich.

"Why, I guess so," the older boy laughed good naturedly. "You aren't
expecting a bear to find out this soon, are you, that we have some
supplies that he might wish to devour?"

Julie looked anxiously toward the open door of the cabin. "Don't you
think maybe we'd better keep that door closed when we're eating?" she
asked anxiously. "You know Dad said he and mother were sitting right here
where we are, maybe, one morning at breakfast, when mother looked up and
there was an old grizzly standing in the open door. He had been around to
the kitchen and had eaten up all the supplies he could find and he was
hunting for more."

Gerald chimed in with: "It was lucky Dad kept his big gun always standing
in the corner. I suppose it was right there, near you, Dan, so he could
just grab it and shoot."

The children were watching the door as though they expected at any minute
that another grizzly might appear. Dan laughed at them. "We might as well
have stayed at home if we are going to stay in the cabin and keep the
door closed," he told them. "I'm going to suggest that we put the table
on that nice porch just outside of the kitchen. That will make an ideal
outdoor dining-room, with a big pine tree back of it to shelter us from
the sun. It will be handy to the kitchen, and, what is more, a bear
simply could not scale up that wall beyond the ledge." Then, very
seriously, the older brother addressed the younger two. "Julie, I don't
want you or Gerald to go close to that cliff. It's too dangerous."

Honest Gerald blurted in with, "We did go once, Dan. We squirmed out on
our tummies till we could look 'way down, and I tell you it made us
dizzy. We won't ever want to do it again."

After lunch the children announced that they would do up the dishes if
Dan would give them a lesson in shooting the big gun when they were
through. "Well," the older boy smilingly conceded, "I'll try to teach you
to handle the smaller gun; yes, both of you," he assured Julie, who was
making an effort to attract his attention by motions behind Jane's back.
"You really ought to both know how to use it. You might need to know how
some time to protect yourselves."

"What shall you do, Jane, while we are learning to shoot?" Julie inquired
when the kitchen had again been tidied and the children were ready for
their very first lesson with the small gun.

"Maybe Jane'll want to learn too," Gerald suggested, but the older girl
declared that she simply could not and would not touch one of the
dreadful things.

"Won't you come with us and watch the fun?" Dan lingered, when the two
active youngsters had bounded out of the cabin. But the girl shook her
head. "It wouldn't be fun to me," she said fretfully. "I'd much rather be
left all alone. I want to write a long letter to Merry. She will be eager
to hear from me, just as I am from her." There was a self-pitying tone in
the girl's voice and a slight quiver to her lips. She turned hastily into
her room and closed the door. She did not want Dan to see the tears. The
lad went out on the wide front porch and stood for a moment with folded
arms, his gray eyes gazing across the sun-shimmered valley, but he was
not conscious of the grandeur of the scene. He was regretting, deeply
regretting that he had permitted his sister to come to a country so
distasteful to her. He well knew that she had shut herself in her room to
sob out her grief and disappointment and then perhaps to write it all to
this friend of whom she so often spoke and whom she seemed to love so
dearly.

Once Dan turned toward the door as though to return to the cabin. His
impulse was to go to Jane and tell her not to unpack. The stage would be
passing there again on the following day, and, if she wished she could go
back to the East. In fact, the lad almost believed that if Jane went, it
might hasten his recovery. Her evident unhappiness was causing him to
worry, and that was most detrimental. With a deep sigh of resignation, he
did turn toward the open door, bent on carrying out his resolve, but a
cry of alarm from Julie sent him running around the cabin and up toward
the brook.

He met the children, white-faced, big-eyed, hurrying toward him, Gerald
carrying the small gun.

"What is it, Gerry? What have you seen to frighten you?" He looked about
as he spoke, but saw nothing but the jagged mountain side, the rushing,
whirling brook and the peaceful old pines.

But it was quite evident by the expressions of the two children that they
at least thought they had seen something of a dangerous nature. Gerald
pointed toward a clump of low-growing pines on the other side of the
brook as he said in a tense, half-whispered voice: "Whatever 'twas, Dan,
it's hiding in there." Then he explained: "Julie and I were crossing the
water on those big stones when, snap, something went. I whirled to look.
Honest, I expected to see a grizzly, but there wasn't anything at all in
sight. Julie and I stood just as still as we could; we didn't even make a
sound! Then we saw those bushy trees moving, though there wasn't a bit of
wind, so we know whatever 'tis, it's in there."

While the small boy had been talking, Dan had been loading the gun.
"You'd better let me go alone," he said to the children, but their
disappointed expressions caused him to add: "At least let me go ahead,
and if I think best for you to come, I'll beckon."

Dan crossed the brook on the big stones and went toward the clump of
small stubby pines. Then he stood still, watching the dense low trees
intently. His heart beat rapidly, not from fear, for he almost hoped that
it might be a grizzly, and yet, would it not be unwise to shoot at it
with a small gun? It might infuriate a huge beast, and so endanger all of
their lives. But, although he waited, watching and listening for many
minutes, no sound was heard. He began to believe that the children had
imagined the stealthy noise they thought they had heard, for, after all,
they had not really seen anything, and so he beckoned them to join him.
They leaped across the brook and were quickly at his side.

"Wasn't it a bear, or a wildcat, or anything?" Gerald asked eagerly. Dan
shook his head, as he replied with a laugh: "Don't be too disappointed,
youngsters, even if you don't see everything on the first day. This time
it was just a false alarm."

But Dan was mistaken, for, from a safe hiding place, the old Indian,
Slinking Coyote, was watching their every move.

"Why don't we shoot into that pine brush anyway?" Julie suggested. "We
might scare out whatever is hiding there." But Dan didn't wish to do
this. He felt that it would be safer to have the larger gun with him
before he started beating up hidden wild creatures of any kind.

"Come along, youngsters, let's get back on the home-side of our brook and
set up a target," the older boy suggested as he crossed the brook,
followed by the children.

In their door-yard Dan paused and looked about meditatively. "I want to
set up a target near enough to be within call, and yet far enough away to
keep from disturbing Jane too much with our racket."

"Oh, I know!" Gerald cried. "Over there, just above where the road bends!
That'll be a dandee place. Won't it, Dan?"

The older boy smiled his agreement. "I do believe it will do as well as
any place." They went toward the spot indicated and Dan continued:
"Suppose we choose a cone on that lowest pine branch. If a bullet hits
it, the cone will surely fall. Now, Gerald, just to be polite, shall we
let Julie try first?"

The boy nodded, his eyes shining with eagerness. "Sure! How many tries do
we each get? Three?"

"Any number you wish is all right with me." Then Dan placed the small gun
in the position that Julie was to hold it, showed her how to look along
the barrel, and how to take aim.

"Hold it steady! One, two, three, go!" But no report was heard.

"What's the matter, chick-a-biddie?" Dan was surprised to see how white
the small girl's face had become, and to note that her arm was shaking so
that she could hardly hold the gun. "I'm scared," she confessed. "I don't
know why, but I am, Dan." She dropped the gun and ran to his arms. Then
she smiled up through her tears. "I guess I'm afraid to hear the noise."

"Pooh, pooh! That's just like a girl," said Gerry almost scornfully.
"Anyhow, you don't need to learn to shoot. Dan or I'll always be around
to protect you'n Jane. Can I have a try now, Dan? Can I?"

The older lad turned to the small girl. "Suppose we let Gerald practice
today, and later, when you feel that you would like to try again, you may
do so?"

This plan seemed quite satisfactory to Julie, who seated herself upon a
rock which overhung the curving mountain road, and was about twenty feet
above it. Gerald, instead of dreading the noise that the small gun would
make, was eager to hear it, and after repeated trials, he managed to
dislodge the brown cone. "Hurray! I did it! Bully for me! I'm a marksman
now! Isn't that what I am, Dan? Now I'll pick out another one, and I bet
you I'll hit it first shot."

Julie, having wearied of the constant report of the small gun, had
wandered away in search of wild flowers. The boys saw her running toward
them, beckoning excitedly. "Dan," she said in a low voice, "Come on over
here and look down at the road. The queerest man seems to be hiding. I
was so far up above him, he didn't see me. He's hiding back of some rocks
watching the road. Who do you suppose he is?"

Dan looked troubled. He thought at once that it might be the old Ute
Indian who had not gone with his tribe when they went in search of better
hunting grounds, nor was he wrong. Very quietly, the three went to the
rim of their ledge. About twenty feet below they beheld a most uncouth
creature crouching behind a big boulder. Evidently he was intently
watching the road as it wound up from Redfords. His cap was of black fur
with a bushy tail hanging down at the back. They could not see his face
as they were above him. Julie clung fearfully to her brother. "Oh, Dan,"
she whispered. "What do you suppose he's watching for?"

Before Dan could decide what he ought to do, a pounding of horse's feet
was heard just below the bend, and a wiry brown pony leaped into view.
The old Indian sprang from his hiding place so suddenly that the small
horse reared, but the rider, her dark face flushed, her wonderful eyes
flashing angrily, cried: "What did I tell you last time you stopped me?
Didn't I say I'd shoot? You know I pack a gun, and I _never_ miss. I
can't give you any more money. I'm saving all I can to go away to school.
I've told you that before, and if you _are_ my father, as you're always
telling me that you are, you'd ought to be glad if I'm going to have a
chance."

The old Indian whined something, which Dan could not hear. Impatiently
the girl took from her pocket a coin and tossed it to him. "I don't
believe you're hungry. You don't need to be, with squirrels as thick as
they are. You'll spend all I give you on fire-water, if you can get it."

Already the old Indian, evidently satisfied with what he had received,
had started shambling down the road in the direction of the town, but the
girl turned in the saddle to call after him: "Mind you, that's the last
time I'll give you money. I don't believe that you are my father, and
neither does Mammy Heger."

She might have been talking to the wind for all the attention the old
Indian paid. His pace had increased as the descent became steeper.

Dan felt guilty because he had overheard a conversation not meant for his
ears, and he drew the children away toward the cabin, and so heard,
rather than saw, the girl's rapid flight up the road.

The chivalry of the ages stirred in his heart. "It's a wicked shame that
she hasn't a brother to protect her," he thought. "A young girl ought not
to be tormented by such a coward. Slinking Coyote, that's what he is.
Blackmailing, it would be called in civilized countries." Dan's
indignation increased as he recalled how wonderfully beautiful the girl
had looked when her dark eyes had flashed in anger. "I'd be far more
inclined to think her a daughter of noble birth."

His thoughts were interrupted by Julie, who, believing that they were a
safe distance from the road, asked anxiously, "Who was the awful looking
man, Dan? Will he hurt us?"

The same question had presented itself to Dan, but he made himself say
lightly, "Oh, no! That old Indian isn't at all interested in us. He
evidently is just a beggar. He was asking the mountain girl for money and
she gave it to him." Then, as an afterthought, he cautioned, "Don't
mention having seen him to Jane, will you, children?"

Willingly they agreed. They were indeed pleased to share a secret with
their big brother.

Julie chattered on, "Dan, I'd like to go up and see that nice girl. Do
you think she'd let me ride on her pony? May Gerald and I go up there
tomorrow?"

Dan forced himself to smile. He did not want either of his companions to
know that he was troubled. "Yes, we'll go up there tomorrow. I would like
to meet the trapper who is, I believe, the father of that little
horsewoman." But even as he spoke Dan recalled that the slinking Indian
had insisted that he was her father, and that the girl did not believe
it.

When he reached the cabin, Jane was still shut in her room. The children
declared that they were hungry as wolves and that they would get the
evening meal, and so the older lad seated himself on the edge of the
front porch to think over all that he had seen and heard, and decide what
it would be best for him to do. Perhaps, after all, he had been unwise to
bring either of the girls to a place so wild. Perhaps he ought to send
them both home. He and Gerald could protect themselves if there were to
be trouble of any kind. He decided that the very next day, as soon as the
mountain girl had gone to the Redfords school, he would climb up the road
to the cabin, which he believed was just about a mile above them. Then he
could discover from the trapper if any real danger might lurk on the
mountain for the two Eastern girls.




                              CHAPTER XV.
                               MEG HEGER


To the surprise of the young people, almost as soon as the sun had set,
night descended upon them. Dan had helped the children clean the lamps
and lanterns. Their grandmother, at their father's prompting, had
remembered to put kerosene on their list and also candles.

Jane chose one of the latter to light her to bed. She simply detested
kerosene lamps, she declared when Dan had asked if she didn't want to sit
up with them a little while and read some of the books their father and
mother had left in the cabin. "No, thank you!" had been the emphatic
refusal. "The nights here are bitterly cold. In bed at least I can keep
warm."

"Gee-whiliker," Gerald said when the girl to whom everything seemed
distasteful had retired. "Ain't she a wet blanket?"

Before Dan could rebuke him for criticizing his elders, Julie burst in
with, "Why, Gerry Abbott, didn't you promise Dad you wouldn't ever say
ain't, and there you said it."

The boy squirmed uncomfortably. "It's an awful long time since I said it
before," he tried to excuse himself. "I bet you I won't do it again. You
see if I do."

Dan was looking at the empty hearth. "We should have cut some wood and
had a roaring fire tonight. Let's do it tomorrow and make it more
cheerful for Jane, if----" He paused as though he had said more than he
had intended, but his alert companions would not let a sentence go
unfinished.

"If what, Dan?" Julie asked curiously.

The boy was not yet ready to tell, even these two, that he might think it
best to start Jane and Julie on their homeward way the next day. He knew
that the older girl would be overjoyed, but the younger would be so
disappointed that it seemed almost a cruel thing to contemplate. "I'll
tell you tomorrow noon," he compromised, when he saw both pairs of eyes
watching him as though awaiting his answer.

In a very short time the children were nodding sleepily and Dan was glad
when Julie took a candle and Gerry a lantern and bade him good-night.

"We're going to get up to see the sunrise," Julie said.

"If you wake up," Dan laughingly told them. Then, putting out the
remaining lights, he, too, retired to his cot on the porch. He placed his
loaded gun in the corner, back of him, where it could not be reached by
anyone else without awakening him.

For long hours he lay with wide eyes watching the sky, which seemed to be
a canopy close above him, brilliant with stars. A slight wind kept the
mosquitos away and, as it rustled through the pine boughs that were so
near, a sense of peace stole into his heart--his fears were banished and
he seemed to know that all was well.

It was long after sunrise when he wakened and no one else was astir in
the cabin. Very quietly he arose and dressed. Then he went to the
kitchen, and a fragrance of coffee was what finally awakened the two
children. They bounded from bed, ashamed of their laziness, and when they
joined their big brother he had a good breakfast spread on the table in
their out-of-door dining-room.

"Julie, will you see if Jane is awake?" the older lad asked, and the
small girl cautiously opened the door into her sister's room. Then she
entered and went to the bedside. "You've got one of your dreadful
headaches, haven't you, Janey?" The younger girl was all compassion. She
knew well how Jane suffered when these infrequent headaches came. What
she did not know was that they always followed a spell of anger or of
worry. "I'll draw the curtains over this window so the sun can't come in
and I'll fetch you your breakfast."

Julie liked nothing better than to be mothering someone, but Jane showed
no sign of appreciation. Her only comment was, "Have the coffee hot."

Dan was sorry to hear that Jane had neuralgia, and, from past experience,
he knew that she would be unable to travel that afternoon, and so she
would be obliged to wait until the following Tuesday, when the stage
would again pass that way. He felt elated at the thought, but first he
must find out if it were safe for the girls to remain. Directly after
breakfast he drew Gerald aside and asked him if he would stay at the
cabin while he (Dan) went up the mountain road to interview the trapper.
Although the small boy would much rather have accompanied Dan, he always
wanted to do his share, and so he consented to remain.

Dan waited until he was sure that Meg Heger had passed on her way to the
Redfords school before he began the ascent of the mountain road. He could
not have explained to himself why he did not want to meet the girl. It
might have been a feeling that he had lacked in chivalry on the day
before, when he had listened to the conversation in which she had
probably revealed a secret which she would not wish strangers to share.
He sauntered along by the brook, his gun over his shoulder, stopping
every few feet to examine some rock or growth or just to gaze out over
the valley, seeing new pictures at each changed position.

It was a glorious morning, but with the invigorating chill yet in the
air. He breathed deeply and walked with shoulders thrown back. Birds sang
to him, squirrels in the pine boughs over his head, or scurrying among
the dry soft carpet of needles, chattered at him; some were curious, many
were scolding, but he laughingly told them that he was a comrade. He
stopped on a level with one protesting bushy-tailed fellow to say, "Mr.
Bright-Eyes, I wouldn't harm you, not for anything! This gun is merely to
be used on something that would harm me, if it got the chance first. I
don't believe in taking life from a little wild creature that enjoys
living just as much as I do." Then, as he continued his walk, he thought,
"I must tell Gerry not to kill any harmless creature unless we need it
for food."

Coming to a sudden sharp descent of about fifteen feet, he saw that the
brook became a waterfall and just below it was a large pool which would
make an excellent swimming hole. The water was as clear as crystal and
was held in a smooth, red rock basin. After standing for some time,
watching the joyous waterfall on which broken sunlight flashed, the lad
glanced at his watch. It was after nine and so he could safely take to
the road without fear of encountering the mountain girl. She was surely,
by now, reciting to that kindly old man, Teacher Bellows. After another
downward scramble, the road was reached. The ascent was gradual and Dan's
thoughts wandered on without his conscious direction. He wondered how
that mountain girl had happened to have a thirst for knowledge. That, in
itself, proved to him that the old Ute was not her father, but, if he
were not, why did he pretend that he was? What could be his reason? To
obtain what money he could by making her think it her duty to help care
for him. Dan had just decided this to be the most plausible explanation
of the whole thing, when he was greatly startled by hearing the sudden
report of a gun from the high rocks at his right. He looked up and beheld
the girl about whom he had been thinking, every muscle tense, a smoking
gun still against her shoulder. It was pointed at the bushes directly at
his left. "Don't you move!" she shouted the warning. "Maybe I didn't kill
it."

Dan whirled toward the rocks and low-growing bushes at his left and what
he saw reassured him. A mountain lion lay there, evidently dead, its
position showing that it had been just about to spring upon him. He
turned to thank the girl, but she had disappeared. She, too, had
evidently been convinced that the animal was dead. On examining it
closer, the boy saw that the bullet had entered the creature's head at a
most vulnerable spot, and being thus assured that it was not playing
possum, he went on his way.

Already Meg Heger had won a right to his chivalry. She had saved his
life. How he wished that in turn he might do something to save her from
her tormentor.




                              CHAPTER XVI.
                          THE TRAPPER'S CABIN


Dan felt a glow of pleasure as he neared the log cabin which nestled
against the mountain, sheltered by rock walls on the side from which the
worst storms always came.

Eagerly he looked ahead, hoping that he would see the girl. He wanted to
thank her for having saved his life, but no one was in sight.

It was a pleasant, home-like place, with chickens clucking cheerfully in
a large, wired-in yard. Goats climbed among the rocks at the back, and a
washing fluttered on a line at one side, while, to the boy's delight,
masses of wild flowers, showing evidence of loving care, carpeted the
earth-filled stretches between boulders, and some of them that trailed
along the ground hung over the cliff in vivid bloom. It was Meg's garden,
he knew, without being told.

He rapped on the closed front door, but a voice from outside called to
him. "Whoever 'tis, come around here. I'm washin'."

Dan did as he was told and saw a thin, angular woman, who stood up very
straight and looked at him out of keen blue eyes, as she wiped her sudsy
hands on her gingham apron. Then she brushed back her graying locks.

Her smile was a friendly one. "You're Dan Abbott's son, ain't you?" she
began at once. "Hank Wallace, him as drives the stage, stopped in for
dinner to our place yesterday and he told us all about having fetched you
up. Pa and I knew your pa, and your ma, too, years back, afore any of you
children was living, and long afore I had Meg." The woman nodded toward
the wooded mountain beyond. "Meg's out studyin' some fandangled thing she
calls bot'ny." Then she waved a bony hand toward the glowing gardens.
"Them's what she calls her specimens. Queer things they get to larnin' in
schools nowadays. I didn't have much iddication. None at all is more like
the real of it. But pa, he went summers for a spell, and learned readin',
writin' and 'rithmetic. All a person needs to know in these mountains;
but Meg, now, she's been goin' ever since she could talk, seems like.
Notion Pa Heger took. He got talked into doin' it by Preacher Bellows."
Then, before saying more, the woman cautiously scanned the woods and the
road. Feeling sure that there was no one near enough to hear her, she
confided: "You see, we ain't dead sure who Meg is. She was about three
when one of the Ute squaw women fetched her, all done up in one of them
bright-colored blankets they make. It was a terrible stormy night.
There'd been a cloudburst, and the thunder made this old mountain shake
for true. Pa Heger said he heard someone at the door, and I said 'twas
the wind. He said he knew better, and he went to see. There stood a Ute
squaw, and she grunted something and held out the blanket bundle. Pa took
it, bein' as he heard a cry inside of it. That squaw didn't stop. She
shuffled away and Pa shut the door quick to keep the storm out.

"'Well, Ma,' he says, turning to me, 'what d' s'pose we've got here?'

"'Some Indian papoose,' I reckoned 'twas.

"'Well, if 'tis,' said he, 'I can't throw it out into this awful storm.
We'll have to keep it till it clears, an' then I'll pack it back to the
Utes.'

"They was over at the Crazy Creek camp then, but when that storm let up,
and Pa did go over, there wa'n't a hide or hair left of that Ute tribe.
They'd gone to better huntin' grounds, the way they allays do, and we've
never seen 'em since. None of 'em 'cept ol' Slinkin' Coyote. It's queer
the way he sticks to it that he's Meg's pa, but my man won't listen to
it. Gets mad as anythin' if I as much as say maybe it's true. He'll rave,
Pa will, an' say: 'Look at our Meg! Does she look like a young 'un of
that skulkin' old wildcat?' Pa says, an' I have to agree she don't. But
he pesters her, askin' for money. That is, he used to afore Pa Heger set
the law on him. Pa has a paper from the sheriff, givin' him the right to
arrest that ol' Ute if he ever sets eyes on him.

"But I declare to it! Here comes Pa Heger himself. He'll be glad to meet
you, bein' as he knew your pa so well."

The lad turned eagerly. He was always glad to meet someone who had known
his father in the long ago years, when he had come West, just after
leaving college, hoping to win a fortune.

Then, as the boy waited for the man to come up, he wondered why Meg did
not return. Didn't she care to make his acquaintance?

"Pa Heger," as he liked to be called, was a pleasant-faced man whose
deeply wrinkled, leathery countenance showed at once that he had
weathered wind and storm through many a long year in the mountains.

As Ma Heger had done, he seemed to know intuitively who the visitor was.
But before he could speak, his talkative spouse began:

"Pa, ain't this boy the splittin' image of Danny Abbott, him as used to
come over to set by our fire and hear you spin them trappin' yarns o'
yourn? That was afore he went away an' got married. 'Arter that he wa'n't
alone when he come climbin' up the mountain, but along of him was the
sweetest purtiest little creature I'd ever sot my eyes on. The two of 'em
were a fine lookin' pair."

Dan shook hands with the silent man, who showed his pleasure more with
his smiling eyes than with words. He was quite willing to let his wife do
most of the talking. The lad was pleased with the praise given his father
and mother, when they were young, and he at once told Mrs. Heger that his
sister Jane, who was with him, very closely resembled that bride of long
ago.

"Wall, now," the good woman exclaimed, "how I'd like to see the gal.
She'n my Meg ought to get on fine, if she's anyhow as friendly as her ma
was. Mis' Abbott used to come right out to my kitchen. She'd been goin'
to some fandangly cookin' school, the while she was gettin' ready to be
married, and she larned me a lot of things to make kitchen work easier.
I'm doin' some of 'em yet, and thinkin' of her often."

Dan did not comment on the possibility of his proud sister becoming an
intimate friend of the mountain girl, but, for himself, he found that he
very much wanted to know more about their adopted daughter.

"Mr. Heger," he turned to the man, who stood shyly twirling his fur cap,
"your daughter has just saved my life."

His listeners both looked very much surprised.

"Why, how come that?" Mrs. Heger inquired. "You didn't say as how you'd
seen Meg, all the time I was talkin' about her."

Dan might have replied that he had not had an opportunity to say much of
anything. But to an interested audience he related the recent occurrence.

"Pshaw, that's queer now!" Pa Heger scratched his gray head back of one
ear, which Dan was to learn was a habit with him when he was puzzled.

"You say the mountain lion was crouched to spring at you? Then it must o'
been that she had some young near. They're cowards when it comes to
humans, them lions are. They kill sheep an' calves an' deer, an' all the
little wild critters, but they don't often attack a man. They'll trail
'em for hours, curious, sort of, I reckon, keepin' out of sight. Makes
you feel mighty uncomfortable to know one of them big critters is
prowlin' arter you, whatever his intentions may be. But that 'un, now,
you was mentionin', I'll walk back wi' you, when you go, an' take a look
at it. Thar's a bounty paid for 'em by the ranchers. An' if young air
near by, there'll be no time better for puttin' an end to 'em."

Ma Heger glanced often toward the wooded mountain beyond Meg's "Bot'ny
Gardens." Then to her husband she said: "I reckon Meg knows thar's
company, an' that's why she's stayin' so long. She said to me, 'Ma, I
ain't agoin' to school today,' says she. 'I reckon I'll get some more
specimens.'"

At that the man looked up quickly, evident alarm in his clear blue eyes.

"Did she say anything about havin' seen that skulkin' Ute? Has he been
pesterin' her? The day arter she's given him money, she don' dare go to
school, fearin' he'll be rarin' drunk wi' fire-water an' waylay her. If
ever I come up wi' that coyote, I'll--I'll----"

The wife tried to quiet the increasing anger of her spouse.

"Pa Heger," she said, "you're alarmin' yerself needless. That Ute knows
the sheriff gave you power to jail him, an' he's mos' likely gone to whar
his tribe is."

Dan stood silently, wondering what he ought to say. He knew that Meg had
given the old Indian money, and he realized that was why she had been at
home to save his life.

"I shall be glad to have you walk back with me, Mr. Heger," he said.

Dan wanted to be alone with the mountaineer. When they had started down
the mountain road, the man at Dan's side was silent, a frown gathering on
his leathery forehead. Suddenly he blurted out: "This here business has
got to stop. That slinkin' ol' Ute's got to prove that my Meg is his gal.
In the courts, he's got to prove it, or I'll have him strung up. Jail's
too good for him. Pesterin' a little gal to get her to give up her
savin's that she's been puttin' by this five year past, meanin' to go to
school in the big city and larn to be a teacher. That's what Meg's
figgerin' on, and that skulkin' Ute drainin' it away from her little by
little. I made her pack a gun, an' tol' her to shoot him on sight, but I
reckon she ain't got the heart to take a life, though I'd sooner trap him
than I would a--well, a coyote that he's named arter."

Dan could be quiet no longer. "Mr. Heger," he said, "it was about that
very Indian that I came up here to talk to you this morning. I saw him in
hiding near our cabin. Yesterday afternoon he frightened the children,
although he did not come out into the open; then about two hours later we
saw him hiding behind boulders on the road below us. He waylaid your
daughter, just as you fear. Also she gave him money." While the boy had
been talking, the man's great knotted hands had closed and unclosed and
cords swelled out on his reddening face. "I knew it," he cried. "Dan
Abbott, I want you to help me catch that Ute. Meg won't. She ain't sure
but what he is her pa, an' it's agin nature to ask her to harm him. I
won't let on that you tol' me, but, Dan, we've got to trap him. You
needn't be afraid of him. He won't harm you or your family. He's too
cowardly for that. What's more, he's paralyzed in one arm; it's all
shriveled up so he can't hold a gun."

Dan felt greatly relieved upon hearing this, and wishing to change the
conversation to something pleasanter, he inquired how soon Meg expected
to be able to go away to school. But the subject evidently was not
pleasant to the old man. "Next fall's the time, an' me and ma can't bring
ourselves to think on it. Snowed in all winter without Meg's 'bout as
pleasin' as bein' shet in a tomb." The anger had all died out of the
leathery, wrinkled face and in the blue eyes there shone that wonderful
love-light that is the most beautiful thing the world holds. "Queer, now,
ain't it, how a slip of a baby girl could fill up two lives the way Meg
did our'n from the start. An' she cares for us jest as much as we for
her, I reckon. 'Pears like she does." The old man's voice had become
tender as he spoke.

"I'm sure of it," Dan said heartily. Then, after a pause, Pa Heger
continued slowly: "That gal of our'n has the queerest notions. One's the
way she takes to flowers." Then, looking up inquiringly, "Did Ma tell you
how she earned the money she's savin' for her iddication?" Dan shook his
head, and so the old man continued: "Teacher Bellows 'twas got her
started on it. He's what folks call a naturalist, an' when he used to
stay up to our cabin for weeks at a time an' he'd take Meg wi' him
specimen huntin'. Seems like thar's museum places all over this here
country that wants specimens of flowers growin' high up in the Rockies.
So Teacher Bellows and Meg would hunt for days, startin' early every
mornin' and late back in the arternoon, till they had a set of specimens.
They'd press 'em till they was dry as paper, then mount 'em, as they call
it, an' send 'em off to a museum, and along come a check. Arter Teacher
Bellows went back to his school, Meg kept right on doin' it by herself,
him helpin' now an' then, an' she's saved nigh enough for the two years'
schoolin' she'll need to be a low grade schoolmarm. She's got another
queer notion, Meg has. I wonder if Ma tol' you about that?" The old man
looked up inquiringly, and Dan, finding himself very much interested in
the notions of this girl whom he did not know, said that he would very
much like to hear about it.

The old man removed his fur cap and scratched his gray head again. His
voice grew even more tender. "You know what it says in that good book
Preacher Bellows is allays readin' out of, how a little child shall lead.
Wall, that's sartin what Meg's done for me and Ma Heger. When she was
about six year old, or maybe, now, she was seven, it was curious how
friendly even the skeeriest little wild critters was toward her. She
could feed 'em out of her hand, arter a little coaxin', an' how she loved
'em! You see, they was all the playmates she's ever had. Then 'twas she
started her horspital for hurt critters, an' she's kept it goin' ever
sence. Got one now, but, plague it, I can't remember what kind of
patients she's got into it. She won't keep nothin' captive arter they're
well enough to fight for themselves out in the forest. Wall, as I was
sayin' back a piece, Meg was about seven as I recollect, when she sort of
sudden like seemed to realize how 'twas I made my livin', trappin' wild
animals and sellin' their skins at the tradin' post.

"But even then, she didn't fully sense what it meant, seemed like, till
the day we couldn't find her nowhar. She'd never gone far into the
mountains afore that, but when she didn't come home at noonday, Ma asked
me to go an' hunt for her. It was late arternoon afore I come upon her,
an' I'll never forget that sight as long as I'm livin'.

"My habit was to set them powerful steel traps to catch mountain lions
and the fur animals I wanted for pelts. Then, every few days, I'd go the
round and shoot the critters that had been caught in 'em. Wall, as I was
goin' toward whar one of them big traps was. I heard sech a pitiful
cryin'. Good God, but I was wild wi' fear, an' I ran like wolves was
arter me. I'd a notion our baby gal was catched in it. An' thar she was,
sure enough, but not hurt. Instead she was down on the ground wi' her
arms around a little black bear cub that had been catched hours before
and was all torn and bleedin'.

"The fight was gone out o' him, but he wa'n't dead yet. It was our little
Meg who was doin' the cryin'. Clingin' to the little fellow, not heedin'
the blood, her sobbin' was pitiful to hear. I picked her up, an' I ain't
'shamed to be tellin' you that I was cryin' myself along about that time.

"'Take him out, Pa,' my little gal was beggin'. 'Maybe he'll get well,
Pa.'

"So I opened the great steel jaws of that trap and took out the little
cub bear. He was too small to be worth anything for a pelt, an' we
fetched him home, but he died soon arter, and Meg, she had me bury him.
But she couldn't get over what she had seen. She had a ragin' fever for
days. I sot up every night holdin' her little quiverin' body close in my
arms, an' prayin' God if he'd let my little gal live, I'd never set
another of them cruel steel traps to catch any of His critters as long as
I'd breath in my body.

"Wall, boy, sort of a miracle took place. That little gal of mine had
fallen asleep while I sat holdin' her, but jest as I made that promise,
silent to God, she lifted up her little hand and put it soft like on my
face, an' says, still asleep, seemed like--'I love you, Pa Heger.' An'
when she woke up next mornin', the fever was gone, and she was well as
ever.

"I kept my promise," he went on grimly. "I went all over the mountain an'
I took them steel traps, one by one, unsprung 'em and dropped 'em down
into that crack some earthquake had split into Bald Peak. It's
bottomless, seems like, an' what goes into that crack never does no more
harm. Now, when I kill a critter that needs killin', I shoot an' they
never know what hits 'em. Meg is a sure-shot, too, though she'd never
pack a gun if 'twant that I make her."

They had reached the spot where the mountain lion still lay, and the old
man stooped to examine it. "I reckon that was a sure shot, all right."
Then he shouldered the limp creature. "Thar's fifty dollars bounty, so I
might as well have it. I'll hunt for the cubs tomorrer. So long. Hit the
trail up our way often."

As Dan walked slowly down the mountain road toward his home cabin, he
found that he was more interested in this unknown Meg than he had ever
before been in any girl.

Jane's headache was better when Dan returned, but her disposition was
worse, and poor Julie was about ready to cry. She had been spoken to so
sharply when she had really tried to help. Gerald was angry and
indignant. He had at first urged his small sister and comrade to pretend
that Jane was being pleasant, but, after a time, even he had decided that
such a feat was too much for anyone to accomplish. Then he had
intentionally slammed a door and had declared that he hoped it would make
"ol' Jane's" head worse.

It was well that Dan returned just when he did. He entered the cabin
living-room calling cheerily, "Good, Jane, I'm glad to see you are up."
Then he looked from one to the other. Julie, tearful, rebellious, stood
near the kitchen door, and Gerald, with clenched fists, had evidently
been saying something of a defiant nature. "Why, what's the matter? What
has gone wrong?"

Dan was indeed dismayed at the picture before him. Jane, who had seated
herself in the one comfortable chair in the room, said peevishly:
"Everything is the matter. Dan, you can see for yourself what a mistake I
made in coming to this terrible place, and trying to live with these two
children who have had no training whatever. They are defiant and
rebellious."

Even as Jane spoke, a memoried picture presented itself of Julie's sweet
solicitude for her earlier that morning, but she would not heed, so she
hurried on: "I have been lying in there with this frightful headache
thinking it all out, and I have decided that either the children must go
back or I will." A hard look, unusual in Dan's face, appeared there and
his voice sounded cold. "Very well, Jane, I will help you pack. The stage
passes soon. If we hurry, we may be ready." The children could hardly
keep from shouting for joy. Something which Julie was cooking, boiled
over and so she darted to the kitchen, followed by Gerald, who stood upon
his head in the middle of the floor. But they had rejoiced too soon, for
Gerry, who a moment later went to the brook for water, returned with the
disheartening news that the stage was passing down their part of the
road. Julie plumped down on the floor and her mouth quivered, but before
she could cry, Gerald caught her hands, pulled her up and said
comfortingly: "Never mind, Jule. The stage will be going past again on
Monday. Me and you'll stay on the watch and tell Mister Sourface to stop
for Jane when he goes back to Redfords on Tuesday. That is not so awful
long. Oh, boy, then won't we have the time of our lives?"

Julie agreed that they would indeed and decided to be very patient during
the remaining two days. So she went back to her cooking and, with
Gerald's help, soon had the lunch spread.

Jane ate but little, and again shut herself up in her room for all that
afternoon. Dan was almost as glad as were the children that she was to go
back to the East, but Jane, strangely enough, was deeply hurt because her
brother, who had been her playmate when they were little, and her pal in
later years, had actually chosen the younger children in preference to
herself. That proved how much he really cared for _her_ and, as for his
health, he seemed to be recovering remarkably. He had coughed a while the
evening before, and for a shorter time that morning.

Then he had evidently been on a long hike. Of all that had happened Dan
had said nothing, knowing that Jane would not wish to hear about the
mountain girl, toward whom she felt so unkindly.

That afternoon Dan gave the children another lesson at shooting cones
from an old pine, far enough from the cabin to keep from disturbing Jane.
Julie grew braver as she watched Gerald's success, and at last she too
tried, and when, after many failures, she sent a brown cone spinning, she
leaped about wild with joy.

"Now we are both sharpshooters," Gerald cried generously. Then, glancing
over at the cabin, he added: "There's Jane sitting out on the porch. She
does look sort of sick, doesn't she?"

Dan's heart was touched when he saw the forlorn attitude of the sister he
so loved. "You youngsters amuse yourselves for a while," he suggested, "I
want to have a quiet talk with Jane." Dan neglected to tell the children
not to wander away.




                             CHAPTER XVII.
                             QUEER KITTENS


Left alone, Julie and Gerald scrambled to the road and looked both up and
down. "Which way will we go?" Julie inquired.

"We've been down--or, I mean, we've been up the down road." Then the boy
laughed. "Aw, gee! You know what I mean. We came up the road yesterday in
the stage; so now, let's go on further up."

Julie hopped about, clapping her hands gleefully. "Ohee, I know what!
Let's see if we can find that cabin the innkeeper lady said was about a
mile up the mountain road from our place. Wouldn't that be fun? And maybe
that nice girl will be at home from school, and, if she is, I just know
she'll let me ride her pony."

Gerald, nothing loath, fell into step by his sister's side, the gun over
his shoulder. After the fashion of small brothers, he could not resist
teasing. "I bet you couldn't stay on that pony, however hard you tried.
It's a wild Western broncho sort, like those we saw at Madison Square
Garden that time Dad took us to Buffalo Bill's big circus." Then, in a
manner which seemed to imply that he did not wish to boast, he added: "I
sort of think I could ride it easy. Boys get the knack, seems like,
without half trying."

They had rounded the bend and were nearing the very spot where the
mountain girl had shot the lion, when Julie clutched her brother's arm
and drew him back, whispering excitedly: "Gerry! Hark! What's that noise
I hear?"

The boy listened and then crept cautiously toward the bushes. He also
heard queer little crying sounds that were almost plaintive. "Huh!" he
said boldly. "'Tisn't anything that would hurt us. Sounds to me like
kittens crying for their mother."

A joyful shout from the girl, closely following him, turned into "Gerry!
That's just what they are! Great big kittens! See how comically they
sprawl? They haven't learned to walk yet. Their little legs aren't strong
enough to stand on. See, I can pick one right up. He doesn't seem to mind
a bit." The small girl suited the action to the word, and it was well for
her that the mother lion had been killed, or Julie would soon have been
badly torn, despite the fact that her brother still carried his small
gun.

The boy had lifted the other weak creature, which had not been alive many
days, and, with much curious questioning as to what kind of "pussy cats"
they might be, they continued their walk and soon reached the cabin.

Meg Heger, who had remained long in the forest that day, having sought a
rare lichen high on the mountain, was just descending from the trail that
led into her "botany gardens" when she saw the two children entering the
front yard of her home cabin. Unbuckling the basket which she carried
much as an Indian squaw carries a pappoose, the girl leaped down the
rocks and exclaimed: "Oh, children, where did you find those darling
little mountain lion babies?"

Luckily she took the one Julie was holding in her own arms as she spoke,
for if she had not, that particular "baby" would have had a hard fall,
for when the small girl from the East heard that she was actually holding
a mountain lion, she uttered a little frightened scream and let go her
hold. But Gerald, being a boy, realized that even a future fierce wild
animal was harmless when its legs were too weak for it to stand on, and
so he continued to hold his pet, even venturing to admire it.

"It's a little beauty, ain't--I mean, isn't it?" He glanced quickly at
Julie, but the slip had evidently not been observed, for she was intently
watching the mountain girl, who was caressing the little creature she
held as though she loved it, as she did everything that lived in all the
wilderness.

But as Meg Heger held that helpless, hungry baby her heart was sad, for
well she knew that it was unprotected and perhaps starving because she
had shot and killed its mother. Of course she had to kill the lion to
save the life of the lad who had gone too close to the place where the
mother had her young; but, nevertheless, she felt that, in a way, her act
had made her responsible for these helpless little wild creatures, since
they had been brought to her.

Brightly she turned to the children. "Don't you want to come with me to
the hospital?" she invited. "We'll give them some supper."

She did not ask who the children were, nor from whence they had come.
Perhaps she remembered having seen them the day before on the stage; or
Sourface Wallace may have told her.

Julie and Gerald followed, wondering what the "hospital" might be.

Back of the cabin, on a rocky ledge, the children saw a queer assortment
of wooden boxes, small cages and little runways. "This is the hospital."
Meg flashed a merry smile at them over her shoulder. "There aren't many
patients just now. Most of them have been cured. Here's one little
darling, and I'm afraid he never will be well. Some prowling creature
caught him and had succeeded in breaking a wing when it heard me coming.
Why it dropped its prey when it ran, I don't know, but I brought the
little fellow home and Pap helped me set its wing. It's ever so much
better, but even yet can't fly, but it can scuttle along the ground just
ever so fast."

Gerald was much interested.

"What kind of a bird is it, Miss Heger?" he began, very politely, when
the girl's musical laughter rippled out. "Don't call me that!" she
pleaded. "It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher
Bellows told our class about. It's a little quail bird, dearie. You'll
see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of
cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage
have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the grass rather
than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so
many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain
quail; it is one of the largest cousins. The one that lives in the South
is called a partridge."

Gerald listened politely to the life history of the pretty bird, but his
attention had been seized and held by what Meg had said about the very
ancient pine. "Was there ever a tree that lived a thousand years?" he
asked with eager interest. The girl nodded. "Indeed, there are many that
have lived much longer, but this pine was blown over, and Teacher Bellows
was allowed to cut it up to read its life history. He found that it had
been in two forest fires, and about five hundred years ago an Indian
battle had been fought near it, for there were arrow heads imbedded in
the rings that indicated that year of its life."

Then Meg concluded with her bright smile: "Some day, when Teacher Bellows
is up here, I'll have him tell you the names and probable ages of all our
neighbor trees! It's a fascinating study."

Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree's life and so she
began eagerly: "Miss--I mean--do you want us to call you Meg?" she
interrupted herself to inquire.

The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express
bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. "Haven't you any more patients?"

Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like
beds.

"Only just Mickey Mouse. He's a little cripple! His left foot was cut off
in a trap, but he gets around nicely on one stump. That's his hole over
there. I put grain and bits of cheese in front of it. Keep ever so still
and I'll put a kernel of corn right by his door. Then perhaps you'll see
his bright eyes." And that is just what happened. As soon as the corn
kernel rolled in front of the hole, out darted a sharp brown nose with
twitching whiskers and two beady black eyes appeared just long enough for
their owner to drag his supper into the safe darkness of his particular
box.

Meg laughed happily. "He's the cunningest, Mickey is! I sometimes take
him with me in my pocket. He likes to ride there, or so it seems. At any
rate he is just as good as he can be. Often he goes to sleep, but at
other times, he stands right up and looks out of the pocket, just as
though he were enjoying the scenery."

At that moment a sharp, almost impatient cry from the small creature she
held recalled to the head doctor of the hospital the fact that she had
started out to feed the baby lions. She brought milk from a cave-like
room, only the front wall of which was wood, the rest being in the
mountain. "That's our cooler," she told Gerald, whom she could easily
observe was interested in all the strange things he saw. Dipping one
corner of her handkerchief into the milk, she put it in the mouth of her
tiny lion and the children were delighted to see how readily and joyfully
the creature seemed to feast upon it. Having gathered courage, Julie
wished to feed the other baby lion and then Meg suggested that they be
put in a soft lined box on the rocks near, since they were used to being
high up. The baby lions, being no longer hungry, cuddled down and went to
sleep. Gerald's conscience was troubling him. "We'll have to be going,"
he said. "Nobody knows where we are." Then he hesitated. He knew that it
would be polite to ask the mountain girl to call upon them, but he was
afraid that Jane would not treat her kindly, so, in his embarrassment, he
caught Julie by the hand and fairly dragged her away as he called,
"Goodbye, Meg, I'm coming up often." When they were on the down-road, the
boy cautioned Julie to say nothing whatever of their adventure to their
sister, but just to Dan.




                             CHAPTER XVIII.
                            A YOUNG OVERSEER


Sunday dawned gloriously, and Dan declared that he felt better than he
had supposed that he ever would again. Jane, too, though she did not
voice it, was conscious of feeling more invigorated than she had been in
the East, and yet, of course, she was very glad that she was going back
again on the following Tuesday. She would go directly to Newport to visit
Merry Starr, as had been their original plan. Her conscience would not
trouble her, since it was Dan's wish that she be the one to leave.

The two children, on the evening before, had failed to confide that they
had visited the cabin up the mountain road. They were wild to tell Dan,
but they wished to get him off by himself before they did so. They
dragged him out into the kitchen after the Sunday morning work was done
and asked him if he would go with them for a hike up along the brook to a
natural bridge that they could see from their door-yard.

The older lad hesitated. "I'll ask Jane if she would like to go," he
began, but the immediate disappointment expressed by the two freckled
faces made him turn back to add, "Or, rather, I'll ask Jane if she minds
our going, just for a little while." This suggestion was far more
pleasing to the children.

They all entered the living-room where Jane sat reading. "My goodness,
don't go far," she said petulantly. "Don't you remember that the terrible
overseer from the Packard ranch is coming to take dinner with you today?
I intend to shut myself in my room and stay there until he is gone."

"Hm!" Dan snapped his fingers as he ejaculated. "Queer I'd forget that
visit, since I have been looking forward to it so eagerly." Then he
queried: "Why do you say that he is terrible, Jane? A foreman on a vast
cattle ranch is not necessarily an uncouth specimen of humanity."

The girl flung herself impatiently in the chair as she emphatically
replied: "Of course he'll be terrible! A big, rawboned creature who will
speak with a dreadful dialect, or whatever you call it; and he will be so
embarrassed at meeting people from the city, that he will stutter more
than likely."

Dan laughed at the description. "Maybe you are right, sister of mine, but
we'll be home to prepare the meal for our guest, long before the hour he
is to arrive. Goodbye! Fire off the gun if you are frightened at
anything."

The girl merely shrugged her shoulders, and when they were gone she
decided, since it really was very lovely out-of-doors, to take her book
to the porch, and so she dragged thither the comfortable chair with the
leather pillows. She was soon reading the story, which interested her so
greatly that she did not notice the passing of time until she heard a
step near by. Jane supposed that her family was returning, and did not
glance up until she heard a pleasant, well-modulated voice saying:

"Pardon me if I intrude, but is this the cabin occupied by the Abbott
family?"

Looking up in astonishment, Jane saw before her a handsome youth whose
wide Stetson hat was held in one hand. He wore a tan-colored shirt of
soft flannel, and his corduroys, of the same shade, were tucked into
high, laced boots. Even before she spoke, Jane was conscious that the
youth with the clean-shaven face, strong square chin, pleasant mouth,
blue eyes with clear, direct gaze was not in the least embarrassed by her
presence. He was indeed the kind of a lad she had always met in the homes
of her best friends, the kind that Dan was. But that of which she was
most conscious was the fact that he was very good looking, and that in
his eyes there was an expression of sincere admiration for her.

Graciously Jane rose and held out a slim white hand. "We are the
Abbotts," she began; then, laughingly confessed that, unfortunately, she
was the only one at home, as the others had gone on a hike--she really
had not inquired where.

The lad did not seem to consider it unfortunate. "Please be seated again,
Miss Abbott, and I'll occupy the door-step, if you don't mind. I'd heaps
rather meet strangers one by one. It's easier to get acquainted."

Then, as he thought of something, he exclaimed: "I hope I have not come
over much earlier than I was expected. I hiked all the way. I thought it
might be easier to come cross-lots, so to speak, than to ride horseback
to Redfords and then up your mountain road."

"Was it?" Jane asked, wishing to appear interested.

"It was great! I adore mountain climbing, don't you, Miss Abbott?"

Then, not waiting for her reply, he continued with boyish enthusiasm: "I
tell you, it means a lot to me to have you Abbotts here. I love the West,
but I've missed my friends. We'll have great times! How long are you
going to stay?"

Jane hesitated. She should have replied that she was leaving on Tuesday,
but now she was not sure that she wished to go.

For a merry half hour these two chattered. The lad seemed to be quite
willing to talk of everything but his home, and Jane was too well bred to
ask questions. Jean told of his college life, and when she asked if he
regretted that his days of study were over, he laughingly declared that
they never would be. "Mr. Packard is a great student," he looked up
brightly to say, "and our long winter evenings, that some chaps might
call dull, are the most interesting I have ever spent. We take one
subject after another and go into it thoroughly. We're most interested in
experimental inventions and we have rigged up all sorts of labor saving
contrivances over on the ranch." Recalling something which for the moment
had been forgotten, Jean exclaimed: "Mr. Packard wished me to invite you
all to visit us as soon as you are quite settled here."

Then with that unconscious admiration in his eyes, he concluded: "For
myself I most eagerly second the invitation." Jane's vanity was indeed
gratified. She laughed a happy musical laugh which sounded natural,
although it had really been cultivated. "I am greatly flattered that you
should be so anxious to entertain the Abbotts," she told him, "since I am
the only one of us whom you have met."

"True!" he confessed, merrily, "but you know we scientists can visualize
an entire family from one specimen. How could the other three be
undesirable when one is so lovely? Maybe it's because I am a blonde that
I admire the olive type of beauty."

Just why she said it Jane could not have told, unless the memory of what
that awful Gabby at the station had said still rankled. Be that as it
may, almost without her conscious direction she heard herself saying: "I
suppose, then, that you must be a great admirer of Meg Heger?" There was
a note in the girl's voice which made the lad look up a bit puzzled. What
he said in reply was both pleasing and displeasing to his companion. With
a ring of sincerity he assured his listener that there were few girls
finer than Meg Heger.

"I do not know her personally very well," he told Jane. "She seems to
shun the acquaintance of all young people. I sometimes think that she may
believe her friendship would not be desired since she is supposed to be
the daughter of that old Ute Indian, but this is not true. We in the West
ask not the parentage but the sincerity of our friends. It's through her
foster-father that I know the girl, really. I often go with him to the
timber line and above it, when I am not needed on the ranch. It's a
beautiful thing to hear him tell how Meg has enriched their lives."

Then, as his direct gaze was again lifted to the olive-tinted face of the
girl near him, he said frankly: "Many of the cowboys and others of our
neighbors rave about Meg's beauty. But I do not admire the Spanish or
French type as much as I do our very own American girl."

Jean did not say in words which American girl he thought wonderfully
lovely to look upon, but his eyes were eloquent.

Jane could have sat there basking in the lad's evident admiration for
hours, but the position of the sun, high above them, suggested to her
that something must be amiss. "I wonder why Dan and the children do not
return," she said, rising to look up the brook trail. Jean leaped to his
feet and together they went around the cabin and scanned the
mountain-side and the lad yodeled, but there was no response.

"Of course, nothing could have happened to them all," Jane assured him.
"They have gone farther than they planned, I suppose." Then, turning with
a helpless little laugh, she said in her most winning way (and Jane could
be quite irresistible when she wished), "I have a terrible confession to
make. You will have to starve if they do not return, for I have never
learned to cook."

"Great! I'm glad you haven't, because that will give me an opportunity of
shining in an art at which I excel." The lad seemed brimming over with
enthusiasm. Jane smiled up at him. He stood a head taller than she, with
wide, square shoulders that looked so strong and capable of carrying
whatever burden might be placed upon them.

"How did you happen to learn how to cook?" the girl inquired, and then
wondered at the sudden change of expression in his handsome face. The
joyful enthusiasm of the moment before was gone and in its place was an
expression both tender and sad. "The last year of my little mother's life
we two went alone to our cabin on the Maine coast. Mums wanted to take
our Chinaman, but I begged her to let me have her all alone by myself,
and so under her direction I learned to cook. Miss Abbott," the boy
turned toward her, seeming to feel sure of her understanding sympathy,
"that was the happiest summer of my life, but it had the saddest ending,
for, try as I might to keep her, my little mother faded away and left
us." Then abruptly he exclaimed, as though he dared not trust himself to
keep on: "Won't you lead me to the kitchen, and when the wanderers return
we will have a feast ready for them."




                              CHAPTER XIX.
                               A NEW COOK


Such a pleasant half hour was spent by these two who seemed content just
to be together, Jane, with a twinge of regret, realized that the youth
was idealizing her. He constantly attributed to her qualities that she
well knew that she did not possess. He told her that he could understand
why she had not learned to cook simply because for years she had been
away at a fashionable seminary. "But now is your golden opportunity, and
I am indeed lucky to be your first teacher." That he was pleased was
quite evident. "I am sure you agree with me, Miss Abbott, that cooking is
as essential in a young woman's education as painting or singing." Then
he laughed boyishly. "I'm afraid, when I am hungry that I would far
rather have a beautiful girl cook for me than sing to me. Now, what is
the menu to be?"

Jane looked about the kitchen helplessly. She did not wish to confess to
Jean Sawyer that she had not before been in there except to pass through
it to their outdoor dining-room.

"Julie and Dan were planning the meal. I really don't know." The
situation was relieved by Jean's asking: "May I prepare anything I can
find?"

"Oh, yes, do please! It really doesn't matter which of our supplies are
used first." The girl was glad to have the problem thus easily solved.
After a few moments of ransacking, the lad looked up from a box as he
asked: "Miss Jane, will you pare the potatoes?"

She shrank away before she realized what she was doing. "Oh, wouldn't
they stain my hands terribly?" Then, with her most winning smile, she
held them both out to him. "You see, they haven't a stain on them yet,
and I did hope they never would have." The boy made a move as though to
take the hands in his. But he stooped quickly over the box of potatoes
and said earnestly: "Right you are, Miss Abbott. They are far too lovely
to mar."

Perhaps because of associated ideas it was that he recalled a poem that
went somewhat in this way: "Beautiful hands are those that do work that
is useful, kind and true." What he said was: "Suppose you set the table.
I'll make the fire and have a pot of goulash in no time. That is my
favorite camp menu, perhaps because it is the simplest."

Everything was in readiness when merry voices were heard without, and
Julie, evidently believing they were unheard, said in a stage whisper:
"Don't tell Jane that we've been up to see Meg Heger's hospital, will
you, Dan? She'd be mad as anything." The older lad was opening the
kitchen door at that moment, and the two, who had been keeping so still
in the kitchen that the surprise might be complete, could not but hear.
Vaguely Jean Sawyer wondered why Jane would be "mad" because the rest of
her family had been to call upon a neighbor. Glancing at her proud,
beautiful face, he saw a scornful curl to the mouth which he had thought
so lovely, and it was not pleasant to behold. But a moment later he had
forgotten it, in the excitement that followed his discovery. Dan advanced
with glowing eyes and outstretched hand. "Jean Sawyer! How glad we are to
have you with us. These are the youngsters, Julie and Gerald." The little
girl made a pretty curtsy and Gerry thrust out a chubby, freckled hand,
smiling his widest as he looked admiringly at the cowboy's costume.
"Gee!" he confided, "I'd like awful well to have one of those rigs. Dan,
don't you s'pose they make 'em small enough for boys?"

But it was Jean who answered. "They do, indeed, and what is more, there
is one over at the Packard ranch more typical than mine, which I am
pretty sure will fit you. A grandson of Mr. Packard's was with us last
summer, but he isn't coming this year and he'd be glad to have you wear
it." Then, smiling at the older girl, he said to Dan: "Your sister, Miss
Jane, has agreed to bring you all over to our place to spend next Sunday.
That is a week from today." Julie, upon hearing this, was about to blurt
out her disappointment by saying, "How can she, if she's going back East
on Tuesday?" But a cold glance from her sister's eyes made the small girl
turn away with quivering lips. After all Jane was going to stay and their
summer would be spoiled. Jean Sawyer had also witnessed this by-play and
he felt a sense of great disappointment.

It was quite evident that Jane Abbott's beauty was only skin deep.

When Jean Sawyer took his departure that afternoon, Dan accompanied him
part way "cross-lots," as the former lad had called it.

They crossed the brook and after climbing many a jagged boulder, began
the descent on the side of the mountain nearest the wide valley in which
was located the fertile Packard ranch.

These two lads, so near of an age, found that they were most congenial.
When Dan confessed that his dearest desire was to become a writer of
purpose fiction, Jean heartily applauded. "Great! I'd give anything if I
had the ability to do something fine for this old world of ours, but,
just at present, I believe I will continue being Mr. Packard's foreman.
Really, Dan, reading and studying with that man is as good as having a
post-graduate course at college."

Then apropos of nothing (or so it seemed), Jean said: "What a beautiful
girl your sister is. What a pity that she has not had the love and
direction of a mother. I had such a wonderful mother myself, Dan, I well
know what girls and boys have missed when they lost their mothers while
they were very young."

Dan grew serious at once. Then he confessed:

"Jean, I feel as though I had known you for a long time, and so I am
going to tell you my greatest problem. My sister Jane is beautiful, and
before she went away to that fashionable Highacres Seminary she was as
sweet and lovable a girl as any you could find, but for some reason she
learned there much that was not in the curriculum. Pride of family,
snobbishness, and because of our father's position, many of her
companions were so deferential to her that she has come to expect it
from everyone. How I wish I knew how to save Jane from herself."

It was just as Jean had feared. He surprised himself by saying: "If she
would chum with Meg Heger a while, I believe it would help her to
overcome those artificially acquired qualities, for Meg is sincerely
natural. But your sister would have to make the advances. Meg never will.
She keeps apart by herself, and will probably continue doing so until it
is proven that she is not that Ute Indian's daughter. I know that you
have met Meg, for I overheard your little sister saying that you had been
there this morning."

"Yes, we were. The children pleaded so hard that I go and see their baby
lions."

Then he told the story of the death of the mother lion to an interested
listener. "I wondered why Meg Heger disappeared directly after having
saved my life. Nor would she come to her home while she know that I was
there. It is too bad that she shuts herself away from people who would
gladly be her friends."

Jean nodded. "That is just what she does. Last year, as I was telling
Gerald, Mr. Packard's daughter, Mrs. Delbert, and her young son were with
us. When Mrs. Delbert heard the story of Meg's devotion to her
foster-parents and how she is trying to become a teacher that she might
make life easier and pleasanter for them, she at once wished to make
Meg's acquaintance. We hiked up to the Heger cabin one Saturday morning,
and although Meg willingly showed Mrs. Delbert her botany gardens, and
her hurt animal hospital, she was so reserved and shut away from us, that
we realized at once that she did not wish our friendship. Mrs. Delbert
invited Meg to spend a day with her at the ranch, but the girl never
came, nor have I seen her since."

The other lad understood.

"With me she is also distant and reserved," he said, "but when she talks
to Julie and Gerald she is very different."

Then, returning to a remark made earlier, he concluded: "My sister Jane
would be greatly helped if she could see how much more naturalness is
admired than cultivated poses, but she will never learn from Meg Heger,
whom she considers greatly beneath her." Then, stopping, he held out his
hand. "Jean," he said seriously, "I hope I have not given you a wrong
opinion of my beautiful sister. I honestly believe that the girl she used
to be still lives beneath all this artificial veneer that she has
acquired at the fashionable seminary and my most earnest wish is to find
a way by which that other girl, who was my dearly loved sister-pal, can
be returned to me. I would not have spoken of this were it not that I am
as greatly troubled for Jane's sake as my own."

"I am glad you told me, Dan. I, too, have faith in her. Goodbye till next
Sunday."

Dan walked slowly back to the cabin, pleased, indeed, with his new
friend.

Dan found his sister Jane alone with her book on the front porch of their
cabin. She looked up with a smile of welcome. "I was agreeably surprised
in our guest," she began at once, "and so, before you tease me for having
described him as raw-boned and illiterate, I will make the confession
that I never met a better looking or nicer mannered youth."

"Tut! Tut!" her brother, sinking to the doorstep where earlier in the day
Jean had sat, merrily shook a finger at his sister, "That is extreme
praise, and I may take offense, since I consider myself good looking and
nice mannered."

The girl laughed happily. Her brother reflected that, not in many a day,
had he seen her brow unclouded with frown or fretfulness.

Suddenly he said: "Jane, have you changed your mind about going East next
Tuesday?" He looked up inquiringly, eagerly.

The girl flushed, then said with an effort at indifference: "I thought
perhaps it is hardly fair to decide that I do not like the mountain life,
after having been here for such a few days. Shall you mind if I postpone
my departure until a week from Tuesday?" The lad caught the hand that
hung near him and pressed it with sudden warmth to his cheek. "Jane," he
said, "I'm desperately lonesome for the comrade that my sister used to
be

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