Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 27

Merry indeed regretted that she had asked Jane to send the letter which was causing her so much unhappiness. "Try to forget about it, Janey, just for today," she implored, "while we are celebrating your eighteenth birthday." Then an inspiration came to her and she asked: "What would your mother have done if she had had a sorrow that would sadden others if they knew about it?"

Jane sat up on the side of the bed, and, after glancing at the miniature on the table near, she turned and looked thoughtfully out of the wide window and into the sun-shimmering valley. Merry wondered what her reply would be. A moment later she knew, for Jane sprang up and after kissing the golden-haired girl impulsively, she caught her by the hand, saying: "I'm going out to the brook to wash my face in that clear, cold water, just as Dan and I did the first day that we came. And I'll try to wash away all selfish grievings and to think, if I can, only of the happiness of the guests at my birthday party. That's what my mother would have done. I am so glad that Dan told me that we can choose a model or an ideal and carve our own characters like it and I'm grateful to you for having recalled it to me, because, for the moment, I had forgotten." The girls took their towels and hand in hand they skipped around to the brook. Jane knelt by the big boulder and splashed the cold spring water over her tear-stained eyes. When she looked up her wet cheeks were rosy.

And later, when they had gone back to the bedroom to complete their preparations for the party, Merry begged Jane to wear a wine-colored dress which was especially becoming to her. It was of soft, clinging crepe de chine and had a deep collar of Irish crochet. Then they went into the living-room to await the coming of their guest. Merry, whose dainty blue summer dress made her lovely eyes the color of a June sky, sat smiling admiringly at her friend. "Jane," she said, "you are wonderful. But there is just one more touch needed to make you look a bit more partified. I will get it."

Springing up, Merry went into their bedroom, took from her suitcase a box which contained a beautiful scarlet rose with satin and velvet petals.

This she pinned into Jane's soft, dark hair just above her left ear.

Standing off to note the effect, Merry declared that her friend was certainly the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. A short month before Jane would have considered this praise her just due, but, so greatly had she changed, her reply was given in entire sincerity: "I may be the most beautiful to you, because you love me, but Meg Heger is really the more beautiful." Before Merry could reply, there was an excited shouting without. Both girls leaped to the open door. They saw Meg Heger riding on her spotted pony, while Dan on the big brown mare was at her side, but they were conversing quietly. The halloos came from the brook. Turning to look in that direction, the girls saw Julie, Bob and Gerald racing toward them as fast as they could over the rocky way, and it was quite evident that they were all very much excited. "I wonder what they have seen?"

Jane said.

Before the children and Bob could reach the cabin, Meg and Dan had climbed the stairway and had been greeted by the two girls.

The trapper's daughter wore a simply fashioned Scotch plaid gingham dress in which many colors were mingled.

They all turned toward the brook when the three, who were racing toward them, neared.

"What, ho!" Dan called gayly, and Jane noted that never before had she seen in her brother's face an expression of such radiant happiness. "Did you three see a bear? It never will do for us to go back East without having at least sighted a grizzly."

To the surprise of the four who awaited them, the newcomers became suddenly embarra.s.sed, and even Bob acted as though he hardly knew what to say, which was quite unusual in so straightforward and impulsive a lad.

"Dan," he said, "may I speak with you a moment?"

The older boy walked away from the curious group of girls.

"We did not know that Meg Heger had come," Bob began, "and we were just going to call out that we had found another place where we would like to look for the lost box. It's such a queer place, Dan, but it is one that as yet we have not investigated. Can't we get away from the girls somehow? Gerald and Julie and I want to show the spot to _you_ at least."

"Why, I presume so," Dan agreed, and after explaining to the three older girls that Bob and the youngsters wished to show him something, he followed them back along the brook. It was the way that he had gone on that day when he had first visited the Heger cabin. When they reached the waterfall which Dan had thought so pretty, they climbed down to the red rock basin into which it fell. Excitedly, Gerald pointed back of the tumbling water.

"Look-it, Dan!" he fairly shouted. "See that little cave opening in there! Doesn't it look to you as if it had been made with a pickaxe? Bob thinks it does."

Dan looked through the transparent sheet of hurrying water and smilingly shook his head as he replied:

"I don't suppose that a human being has ever been through that crevice, and, moreover, I don't quite see how we can investigate, do you, Bob?"

Dan, noting the disappointed expression on his small brother's face, turned toward the older boy.

"We sort of had it figured out that Gerald could stand back of the waterfall and then he could see better whether that is just a crevice in the rocks or the mouth of a cave."

The youngest boy looked up eagerly. "You know, Dan, I fetched along my bathing suit. Mayn't I go back to the cabin and put it on? Mayn't I, Dan?"

"Why, of course, if you wish, but perhaps you had better say nothing to the girls about it. I do not like to have Meg know that we are searching for that box, since there is no real likelihood of our finding it."

Luckily the girls were not in sight, and so no questions were asked of the small boy, who dived into his own room, donned his bathing suit and raced away, without having been seen. Dan held the younger boy's hand in a tight clasp as Gerald went down into the clear, cold pool.

"Now, hold your breath and step up on that ledge back of the waterfall,"

the older brother advised.

Julie watched wide-eyed, almost frightened.

"Oh, Danny," she suddenly exclaimed, "couldn't there be something terrible hiding in that crack?"

But before Dan could a.s.sure her that it was not likely, Gerald had leaped back into the rock basin, crying: "It's a cave in there! Oh, boy! Shall I go in it, Dan; shall I?"

"Not alone!" The older boy was almost sorry that the crevice had been found. "Bob," he said, turning to the lad who stood meditatively looking at the waterfall, "I don't believe that it would be wise to permit Gerald to go into that cave. He might suddenly drop into a pit filled with water. Let's give it up, shall we, and go back to the girls?"

It was plain to see that Bob was disappointed, but his reply was: "Of course, Gerald ought not to go into that cave, if it is one. I had no intention of permitting him to do more than see if it really is an opening. I also have a bathing suit and a flashlight. I never will be satisfied unless I investigate, but of course I will not take a step inside unless it is solid rock."

Against his better judgment, Dan said, "Well, go ahead, Bob, if you want to."

The girls had evidently sauntered away from the cabin, for Bob did not see them when he went there to don his bathing suit. He rejoined the others in a very short time. Having been an athlete in college, he swung himself down and back of the waterfall without aid. Then flashing the light into the crevice, he sang out: "There's a solid floor, all right, Dan, but I think Gerald had better not come."

For a long five minutes the group on the outside waited, listening with ever-increasing anxiety. Dan thought that he would be sincerely glad when this foolhardy adventure was over. At last he called:

"Bob, haven't you investigated enough? Come on out!"

But there was no reply. Another five minutes elapsed and Dan was just about to have Gerald again climb back of the waterfall to look through the crevice, when Bob appeared, carrying a pickaxe and a shovel, rusted and dirt encrusted.

"What do you say to that?" he exulted, as he plunged through the fall and waded out of the red rock pool.

Dan was amazed. "Bob," he exclaimed, "you were right about one thing at least. The cave was made with a pick. Was it large?"

"No; that is, not wide. It is a narrow tunnel which stops abruptly. I found these tools at the very end."

Dan lifted his shovel and looked at the handle. Then he examined it more closely. Picking up a stone, he knocked away the dirt with which it was crusted. A name was carved in the handle. Letter by letter was deciphered and Dan wrote each in his small notebook. When they had reached the last, Bob asked: "Is it a message telling where the box is?"

"No," Dan replied, "merely the name and address of the owner of the shovel and pick, I judge. A French name, Giguette. Yes, that is it, Franc Giguette."

"But there is more to it, Danny." Gerald was trying to see the pad.

"What's the rest?"

"Where the miner lived, I suppose," Dan told him. "Cabin 10, I think it is."

Bob leaped around wild with joy. "Talk about a clue! Why, that's the number of the cabin at Crazy Creek where this miner lived. Can't we go right over and hunt for it, Dan? Do you suppose that the girls would care if Gerald and I go? We aren't at all necessary to the birthday party. You and Julie are."

"Of course, you may do as you wish," Dan acquiesced. "It's a long way to the camp, though."

"Not if we can ride," Gerry put in. "You and Meg came down on the horses.

Where are they?"

"Back at the Heger cabin by this time," the older brother replied. "Meg turned her pony's head up the mountain road and said, 'Go home, Pal,' and the brown mare seemed to be quite content to follow. Perhaps you will overtake them."

Bob caught hold of Gerald's hand as he said: "We'll have to hustle, old man, if we get back before dark."

Gerry glanced at Julie to see if she were terribly disappointed, but the small girl smiled, though a bit waveringly. Dan, noting this, spoke for her: "Julie and I will stay at the cabin. It would hardly do for us all to leave Jane on her birthday."

These two sauntered slowly along the brook, and before they reached the cabin they saw Bob and Gerald, fully clothed, starting to run up the mountain road.

Dan had little expectation that they would find the box of which the old Indian had told Meg, but he knew that Bob would not be able to enjoy the quiet party when be might be out following a clue.