Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 24

Turning back, she looked thoughtfully at the cabin, then said, "Dan, will you help me bar the door that no wild creature can get in? The windows were long ago boarded up. The old Ute shall have it for his tomb."

When this was done, a solemn group of young people rode away. Meg said little, and Dan, riding at her side, understood her thoughtfulness. When the Abbott cabin was reached, Meg said goodbye to the friends who were to remain there, but Dan insisted upon accompanying her to her home.

When they were quite alone the lad rode close to her, and placed a hand on hers as he said, "Meg, dear, how much, how very much this means to you."

Such a wonderful light there was in the dusky eyes that were lifted to his. "O, Dan, _now_ I can feel that I have a right to accept your friendship; yours and Jane's." But with sincere feeling the lad replied: "It is for your sake only that I am glad. Your parentage mattered not at all to me, nor, of late, has it to Jane." Then, although Dan had not planned on speaking so soon, he heard himself saying: "Meg, you are all to me that my most idealistic dreams could picture for the girl I would wish to marry. Do you think that some day you might care for me if I regain my health and am able to make a home for you?"

There was infinite tenderness in the dark eyes, but the girl shook her head. "Your companionship means very much to me, Dan, but I must teach. I want to care for the two old people who took me in out of the storm and who have given me all that I have had."

"You shall, dearest girl. That is, _we_ shall, if you will let me help you."

Then before Meg could refuse, Dan implored, "Don't answer me yet. I can wait if you will _try_ to love me." They had reached the cabin and saw Ma Heger, wiping sudsy hands on her ap.r.o.n, hurrying out to greet them. Dan detained the girl. "Promise me that you will try to care," he pleaded. "I won't have to try," she said, then turned to greet the angular woman who had been the only mother she had ever known.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

HUNTING FOR THE BOX

Jean Sawyer, troubled indeed, because Jane Abbott continued to avoid him, changed his plan and decided not to remain at the cabin until late afternoon; and so, bidding them goodbye, he went down the road toward Redfords, leading the string of horses. The other young people climbed the stone stairway.

"Oh, Jane, what a perfectly adorable place," Merry exclaimed when the door had been unlocked and the young people had entered the long rustic living-room. "I like it so much better than those elaborately furnished cottages at Newport. They are too much like our own homes, but this cabin savors of camping out. It's a wonderful spot for a real vacation."

"It surely is different," Jane agreed as she led her friend into the comfortable front bedroom which they were to share. Then she confessed: "I do like it much more than I had supposed that I would when I first came. Honestly, Merry, I feel differently inside. When I believed that those poor little children had been driven out of their home by my temper, and might never be found, something inside of me snapped; something that had been holding me tense, I can't explain it, and I felt as though I had been set free from--well, free from myself. Self, that is it," she continued bitterly, "planning for oneself, living for oneself, living for one's selfish pleasure and comfort, slowly but surely deadens sympathy and love and understanding." Then taking from the table near the wide window a delicate miniature, Jane handed it to her companion. "That is my mother's portrait."

"How beautiful she must have been." Merry glanced from the sweet pictured face to that of the girl at her side. "You are so alike. It is only the expression that is different. I am sure that anyone in sorrow would have gone to your mother for comfort."

Jane nodded. "I am not like that--yet; but Dan thinks that if we choose a model and keep it ever in thought, we will grow to be like that person or ideal, and I have chosen my mother."

Silently Merry kissed her friend and then replaced the miniature on the table. Jane had indeed changed that she could talk, even with her best friend, of these things of the soul.

A moment later there came a jolly rapping on their closed door, and Bob called: "Come and see where I am going to hang out, or hang up rather."

Merry and Jane went out on the front porch with the lad, who was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with enthusiasm. "Oh, aren't you afraid a bear will devour you in the night?" his sister inquired, when she saw a hammock hung between two pines.

"Hope one will," Bob replied jubilantly. "What a yarn that would be to tell when I get back to college."

Practical Julie was wide-eyed. "Why, Bob Starr," she exclaimed, "how could you tell about it after you were all eaten up?"

"Which reminds me," Bob said irrelevantly, "of a story about the South Sea Islanders. A missionary was teaching them that they must take great care of their bodies, as they were to rise on the last day, and one native asked what would become of his poor brother who had been eaten by a tiger."

"Bob, dear," Merry rebuked, "you ought not to joke about such things. It does not matter what we believe ourselves, or how outlandish we consider the beliefs of others, we ought to treat them with respect."

"Yes'm," Bob pretended to be quite contrite. "I'm willing to change the subject if the next subject is something to eat."

"I'll get the lunch." Julie, leaning on the staff Dan had cut for her, limped toward the kitchen, but her sister caught her and put her on the porch cot and piled pillows under her head. "Indeed not, little lady."

Jane kissed her affectionately. "It's your turn now to pretend you are a princess and I will be your maid of waiting."

Impulsively Julie threw her arms about her sister's neck and clung to her as she whispered: "Oh, Janey, I love you so!" And Jane, when she arose, felt in her heart a greater happiness than had ever been there when she had received the adulation of the admiring girls at Highacres.

"And I will be your aide!" Merry, who had gone to the top of the stone stairway to look down at the road, skipped back to say, and, then, arm in arm, these two friends went, and from their merry laughter it was quite evident that Jane's efforts as head cook were being mirthfully regarded by both of them. However, when the others were called to the back porch, where the table was set, they found as appetizing a lunch as could be desired. But underneath all her apparent pleasure Jane was sorrowing. She never again could be Jean Sawyer's friend. He would not want her friendship if he knew how she had felt about her father's sacrifice, but he must never, never know.

Jane glanced often at Dan during the lunch. Never had she seen him look so wonderfully happy. He had expressed his regret that Jean had departed before his return and exclaimed: "But the horse I rode also belongs to Mr. Packard. I wonder why he did not wait for it."

"Mr. Packard told him to leave one horse with us," his sister explained, "and more if we wished, but I thought one would be all you would want to care for." Dan was pleased.

He said: "We have made good friends since we came here. It is hard to realize that it is not yet a fortnight ago." Julie chimed in with: "Yep, haven't we?" Then, beginning with one small thumb to count, "First there's Meg Heger. Next to Janey, she's the nicest girl I guess there is." Merry pretended to be quite offended. "Little one, you surely are honest. You ought always to say present company excepted."

"Oh, I do like you, Merry, awful much. You can be third. Will that be all right?" The golden haired girl laughed gaily: "Of course, I was only teasing, dear. Now who comes next?"

"Jean Sawyer and Mr. Packard and then the little spotted pony, and then my mountain lion baby." The small girl put down her hand as she concluded. "I guess that's all the new friends I've made here in the mountains."

Bob suddenly thought of something. "Say, Dan, there is a sort of mystery about that trapper's daughter, isn't there? I understand that at first the old Ute Indian pretended he was her father in order to get the girl to give him money, and that this morning when he was dying he confessed that he was not."

Dan nodded. Then turning to Jane, he said: "I am sure that Meg would not wish it kept a secret from any of us and so I will tell you what the old Indian said. His speech was almost incoherent, but we understood him to say that Meg's father had died long ago. He must have told the squaw in Slinking Coyote's hearing that he had hidden a box which he wished given to his little girl when she was older, but he must have died before he could tell where he had placed the box."

"How I wish it could be found," Jane said earnestly, "for without doubt it would contain identification papers. Although it is a great joy to Meg to know that she is not that old Ute's daughter, she will have to seek out the squaw who took her to the Heger cabin before she can know who her father really was."

"And even then I doubt if she would discover much," Dan remarked. "My theory is that Meg's father was a miner who had brought the three-year-old little girl to Crazy Creek Camp and had remained there for a time, even after the exodus. In fact, he must have stayed until the Indian tribe took possession of the otherwise deserted camp. Perhaps just after they came he was seized with a fatal illness and left his little one with the kindly old squaw, probably telling her to give the child to a white family, since that is what she did."

"I believe you are right," Jane agreed. "It all sounds very reasonable to me. But why do you suppose Meg's father remained at the camp after everyone else had left? Do you think he had some clue to the whereabouts of the lost vein?"

"That we cannot tell," Dan said. "He may have remained to hunt for it."

Then, rising, he smiled around at the group. "What shall we do this afternoon, or do you want to just rest?"

"Nary for me!" was energetic Bob's reply. "I want to hunt for Meg Heger's hidden box. Who will go with me and where shall we begin the search?"

Bob's enthusiasm was contagious. "I believe that I now understand the real reason why the Ute Indian hung around the Crazy Creek Camp," Dan told them. "He knew that the miner had hidden a box, an iron one, of course it must be, and he has been searching for it, probably believing it to contain whatever money Meg's father had."

"Of course," Bob agreed. "That's as clear as daylight. We have clues enough, but the thing is to try to reason out _where_ would be a likely place for the miner to have hidden it."

Gerald, not wishing to be left out of so interesting a discussion, wisely contributed, "Maybe under the floor-boards in the cabin where he lived, or some place like that."

Dan smiled down into the chubby freckled face of his small brother as he replied: "One naturally might suppose so, but I do believe, Gerry, that the old Ute suspected the same thing and has been ransacking those cabins all these years. I would be more inclined to look in some of the dug-outs or tunnels where, if he were a miner, Meg's father may have been searching for the lost vein."

While the boys talked Jane and Merry had been washing and wiping the lunch dishes. When they joined the excited group on the front porch, Bob stood up, saying, "Shall we start now?"

Jane also arose, but, happening to glance down at Julie, she saw tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g the small girl's eyes and that her lips were quivering.

Instantly the older girl sat on the cot beside her, and, putting her arms about her little sister, she said compa.s.sionately: "Is your ankle hurting again, dearie? Since you cannot go, I will stay here with you and read to you. Don't feel badly, Julie. Your foot will soon be well; long before they find the box, I am sure of that."

The small girl leaned happily against her sister and looked up at her with adoration in her dark violet eyes. Then Merry announced: "This is a boys' adventure anyway. We girls will sit on the porch and have the best kind of a time all together."

And so the boys departed, armed with stout staffs and guns and calling that they would surely be back by supper time.

But when at last they did return, they had discovered nothing, and Bob was eager to start at dawn the next day and search everywhere around the Crazy Creek Camp.

Merry shuddered. "Goodness, don't!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "It was ghostly enough before, but now that we know that old Ute is entombed in one of those cabins, you couldn't get me within a mile of the place."