Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 25

Bob retorted: "Well, we hadn't invited you girls, had we? So you need not refuse with such gusto! We're going to take the horse, so that Dan can ride most of the way." But that lad interrupted: "You mean that we will take turns riding. Although I have been in the Rockies so short a time my cold is entirely cured, and, as my lungs had not really been affected, I am soon to be as husky as you, Bob."

"Of course you are, old man," Bob put a hand on his friend's shoulder, "but soon isn't now. I won't go unless you will ride, when I think it is the best for you to do so."

"All righto! Anything to be agreeable." Dan sank down on the porch step as though he were rather tired after the climb they had just completed.

Bob then turned to the girls. "You maidens fair need not awaken. We'll be as quiet as--as----" Dan smilingly offered: "How would Santa Claus do? He steals around very softly, or so tradition has it." Bob laughed. "I was going to say as a thief in the night, but I don't like to use a simile which suggests an unpleasant picture, and it's the wrong time of the year for Santa Claus."

"A mouse is awful quiet," Julie put in.

"Or a cat. They have cushions on their feet," Gerald added.

"We'll be as quiet as all of them," Bob said, "and tomorrow, young ladies, we are going to bring home the box."

When the boys returned from Crazy Creek Camp they were weary and disappointed, but not discouraged, or so Bob a.s.sured the girls. It was quite evident that they were much excited, however, but what had caused it they would not reveal. When Merry asked if their search had taken them close to the tomb of the old Ute Indian, Bob had looked over at Dan and had asked, "Shall we tell?"

The older boy nodded. "Why, yes, we might as well. Sooner or later they are likely to find it out."

The young people were seated about the hearth in the living-room of the cabin resting and visiting before they retired for the night. Gerald's eyes glowed with excitement. "Julie won't sleep a wink if she knows about it. She'll be skeered as anything, Julie will."

The small girl nestled closer to Jane and looked up at her inquiringly.

"What does Gerry mean, Janey?" she asked. "Are they trying to tease us?"

But Dan replied seriously, "No, it is the truth that something has occurred since we were last at the Crazy Creek Camp, and the discovery of it did startle us. Although we planned to give the tomb-cabin a wide berth, we at once went to a position where we could look at it. You girls can imagine our surprise, and I'll confess it, horror, when we saw the front door standing wide open."

"Oh-oo, how dreadful!" Jane shuddered. "What did it mean? Had someone opened the door out of curiosity, do you suppose, and what a shock it must have been when they found that dead Indian on the floor."

Dan and Bob exchanged curious glances. Then the latter spoke up: "It is just possible that the old Ute was not really dead and that he revived and left the cabin."

"But how could he?" Merry looked thoughtfully into the fire. "As I remember, the door was barred on the outside."

"True!" her brother replied, "but we also found a loose board on the floor, which had been lifted, leaving a hole large enough for the Ute to have crawled through. After that he may have opened the door to procure his pick-ax and shovel, as both were gone."

Julie glanced fearfully at the dark windows of the room, and Gerald said, almost gloatingly: "There, I told you so! Julie is skeered. She thinks the old Ute may be prowling around our cabin this very minute."

"Mr. Heger ought to be told about this," Dan had started to say, when Gerry grabbed his arm. "What's that noise?" he whispered. "Someone is outside. I hear 'em coming."

Dan and Bob were on their feet at once. There was indeed the sound of footsteps outside the cabin, then there came a rap on the door. Julie implored: "O Dan, don't! don't open it! Get your gun first!"

The older boy hesitated for a moment, but in that brief time his own fears were set at rest, for a familiar voice called, "Daniel Abbott, may I speak with ye?"

The boy's tenseness relaxed and he threw open the door with a welcoming smile. "Mr. Heger, we're mighty glad to see you! Come in, won't you?"

The mountaineer glanced at the group about the fire, but shook his head.

"No, I thank ye. I jest came down to ask if a big brown mare I found whinnyin' around my corral is the one Mr. Packard loaned ye? I would have asked Meg hed she been to home, but she went, sudden-like, to Scarsburg, along of some school-work, and she'll put up at the inn there for several days."

Dan thanked the mountaineer for the trouble he had taken, adding, "There really is no place here to keep the horse. I suppose that is why it wandered up to you. As soon as Jean Sawyer comes again, I will send it back."

The mountaineer a.s.sured the boy: "No need to do that, Danny, if you'd like to keep it. I'll jest let it into my corral along of Bag-o'-Bones.

They seem to be actin' friendly enough." The man was about to leave, when Dan said, "Mr. Heger, we boys have been over to Crazy Creek Camp today and we are rather puzzled about something."

He then told what they had seen, ending with, "We're afraid that old Ute came to life, and that he will continue to blackmail Meg."

The mountaineer shook his head, saying: "No, Danny, Slinkin' Coyote'll never more be seen in these parts, lest be it's his ghost. Arter Meg tol'

me what had happened, I went down to put the sheriff wise. He reckoned 'twouldn't do, no-how, to leave the body unburied, and that the county'd have to tend to it."

The girls uttered sighs of relief. Jane rose, when the mountaineer had departed, saying, "Well, now, I guess we can all sleep without fear of a visit from Slinking Coyote."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

JANE'S BIRTHDAY

For the next two days the boys searched high and low, far and near, without finding the box. On the morning of the third, which was Sat.u.r.day, Jane announced at breakfast that, as it was her birthday, she wished to go down to the inn and get the mail. The stage would not come up that way until the following Monday. Instantly there was an uproar. Julie, whose foot was nearly well again, hopped around the table and threw her arms about her big sister's neck without fear of being rebuked because the fresh muslin collar might be crushed. The older girl slipped an arm lovingly about the child, who stood with her cheek pressed against the soft dark hair.

Dan reached a hand across the table. "Jane, so it is! This is the wonderful day on which you are eighteen. I congratulate you!"

Gerry, with a whoop, had pounced upon her, even as Julie had done, without fear of rebuke. The older girl had been so consistently loving during the past few days that, childlike, they had accepted the change as being natural and permanent. Dan smiled happily at the group and in his eyes there was a tenderness that his sister rejoiced to see. But the lad who had been her chum since little childhood also knew that Jane's heart held a sorrow which she was not sharing with him. That it had something to do with Jean Sawyer he surmised, but believed that it was because Jane still thought Mr. Packard's overseer liked Merry especially well.

"Let's have a party!" Gerald shouted as he capered about the room unable, it would seem, to otherwise express his enthusiasm. "That would be sport!" Dan agreed. Julie slipped from Jane's encircling arm. Clapping her hands, she sang out: "Goodie! We're going to have a party and maybe there'll be ice-cream."

"There probably isn't any to be had nearer than Scarsburg," Dan remarked.

Then he grew thoughtful, wondering how long the girl he loved would be detained at the county seat, "along of school-work."

As though voicing his thought, Gerald ceased his antics to say earnestly: "It won't be a party unless Meg is at it."

"And Jean Sawyer, too!" Julie put in. "Let's ask Meg and Jean to our party. You want them, don't you, Janey?"

The other girl smiled as she arose to clear the breakfast table; then turned away, but not quickly enough to hide the sudden tears from Dan.

The boy's heart was sad. He also believed that Jean Sawyer especially liked Merry, and, if this were true, there was nothing for Jane to do but to try _not_ to care.

Bob suggested that he and Dan go up to the Heger place to get the horse.

"Then the girls can take turns walking and riding," he ended. Merry seemed to be very eager to go to the village, far down in the valley. "I, also, am expecting some mail," was all that she would tell the others.

"I'm glad it's such a shiny day," Julie chirped. "Birthdays ought to be all gold and blue, hadn't they ought to be, Janey?"

"What a tangled up sentence that is, dearie!" The older girl tried to hide her own sorrow that she need not depress the others who were all in a holiday mood. "But I _do_ believe that birthdays _ought_ to be sunny, for they are a chance to start life all over." Merry looked up brightly.

"I love beginnings!" she said, as she rolled her sleeves preparing to wash the dishes. "Whatever the mistakes or faults of the past have been, I feel that on New Years and birthdays, and even on Mondays, I can clean off the slate, so to speak, and start all over." When the two girls were alone in the kitchen, Merry slipped an arm about her companion as she said, "Dear Jane, I wish you would act more friendly toward poor Jean Willoughby. I know that your seeming to avoid him the other day, hurt him deeply." But Jane shook her head and in her eyes there was an expression of suffering. "I can't! Oh, I can't!" she said miserably. "Some day he might find out how I had acted about father's renouncing his fortune, and then he would scorn me! I couldn't endure it, Merry. Oh, indeed, I couldn't! I'm going back East with you next week, and then I shall never see Jean Sawyer."

An hour later the young people started down the mountain road, Julie riding on the horse as the other two girls, dressed in their natty hiking costumes, declared that they would rather walk. They had decided to have lunch at the inn, for Mrs. Bently was an excellent cook.

Jane covered her aching heart so well that Dan believed after all he had been mistaken in thinking that she was sorrowing for Jean. Her loving devotion to her best friend plainly proved to him that she was not at all jealous of Merry. Deciding that he must have been wrong, he entered wholeheartedly into the joyousness of the occasion and a jolly procession it was that wended its way down the circling road toward the hamlet of Redfords. At every turn Dan glanced down to see if, by any chance, Meg Heger might be returning to her home cabin. Her foster-father had not known how long she would have to stay at the Normal, where Teacher Bellows had sent her for a time of intensive preparatory work, but the lad hoped and believed that, even if Meg would have to return to Scarsburg on the following Monday, she would visit her home over the week-end. Nor was he wrong, for, at the bend, just above the village, Gerald, who had been racing ahead, turned to shout through hands held trumpet-wise: "Say kids, Meg Heger's coming. Gee-golly! Now she can come to the party!"

Luckily no one glanced at Dan, for his sudden brightening expression would have revealed the secret he wished to share with none but Meg. In another few moments the girl, riding slowly up the mountain road on her spotted pony, heard a chorus of shouts, and glancing up, saw the young people on the bend above waving caps and kerchiefs. What a warmth there was in the heart of the girl who, through all the years, had been without a companion of her own age. And when at last they met, Jane was the first to hurry forward with outstretched hands. "We've missed our nearest neighbor and we're so glad you came home today," she said in her friendliest manner.

The beautiful girl looked from one to another of the group and seeing in each face a joyful expression, she asked: "What is it? Some special occasion?" Gerald shouted, "Yo' bet it is! It's ol' Jane's birthday!"

Instantly he remembered the time in the orchard at home when he had called his sister "Ol' Jane" and how scathingly he had been rebuked, and he looked quickly, anxiously at the girl, but she was laughingly saying, "You're right, Gerald! Eighteen _is_ old! I feel as ancient as the hills." Then taking Meg's free hand, for Julie was clinging to the other, Jane said, "Won't you turn about and take lunch with us at the inn? It's the first of the birthday celebrations." But the mountain girl shook her head, smiling happily into her friend's eyes as she replied: "Ma Heger is expecting me this noon and will have the things baked up that I like best. I couldn't disappoint her nor dear old Pap, either."