Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions Part 49

was her brief remark. "Without ink we are weaponless."

But she is a creature of resource, and a moment later she emerged from the tent and called to Bill in a cheerful tone.

"No ink, Bill," she said, "but we've got blackberry cordial, and by mixing it with a little soot we may be able to manage."

Aggie demurred loudly, as there are occasions when only a mouthful of the cordial enables her to keep doing. But Tish was firm. When I went to the fire, I found Bill busily carving wooden revolvers, copying Tish's, which lay before him. He had them done well enough, and could have gone for the horses as easy as not, but he insisted on tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them up.

Mine, which I still have, has a buffalo head carved on the handle, and Aggie's has a wreath of leaves running round the barrel.

In spite of Aggie's wails Tish poured a large part of the blackberry cordial into a biscuit pan, and put in a chip of wood.

"It makes it red," she said doubtfully. "I never saw a red revolver, Bill."

"Seems like an awful waste," Bill said. But having now completed the wreath he placed all three weapons--he had made one for himself--in the pan. The last thing I saw, as I started for the horses, was the three of them standing about, looking down, and Aggie's face was full of misery.

I was gone for a half-hour. The horses had not wandered far, and having mounted mine, although without a saddle, I copied as well as I could the whoop Bill used to drive them in, and rounded them up. When I returned, driving them before me, the pack was ready, and on Tish's face was a look of intense satisfaction. I soon perceived the reason.

Lying on a stone by the fire were three of the shiniest black revolvers any one could want. I eyed Tish and she explained.

"Stove polish," she said. "Like a fool I'd forgot it. Gives a true metallic l.u.s.ter, as it says on the box."

Tish is very particular about a stove, and even on our camping-trips we keep the portable stove shining and clean.

"Does it come off?"

"Well, more or less," she admitted. "We can keep the box out and renew when necessary. It is a great comfort," she added, "to feel that we are all armed. We shall need weapons."

"In an emergency," I observed rather tartly, "I hope you will not depend on us too much. While I don't know what you intend to do, if it is anything desperate, just remember that the only way Aggie or I can do any damage with these things is to thrust them down somebody's throat and strangle him to death."

She ignored my remark, however, and soon we were on our horses and moving along the trail toward the pa.s.s.

II

It will be unnecessary to remind those familiar with Glacier Park of the trail which hugs the mountain above timber-line, and extends toward the pa.s.s for a mile or so, in a long semicircle which curves inward.

At the end it turns to the right and mounts to an acre or so of level ground, with snow and rocks but no vegetation. This is the Piegan Pa.s.s.

Behind it is the Garden Wall, that stupendous ma.s.s of granite rising to incredible heights. On the other side the trail drops abruptly, by means of stepladders which I have explained.

Tish now told us of her plan.

"The unfortunate part is," she said, "that the Ostermaiers will not see us. I tried to arrange it so they could, but it was impossible. We must content ourselves with the knowledge of a good deed done."

Her plan, in brief, was this: The sham attacking party was to turn and ride away down the far side of the pa.s.s, up which the Ostermaiers had come. They were, according to the young man, to take the girl with them, with the idea of holding her for ransom. She was to escape, however, while they were lunching in some secluded fastness, and, riding back to the pa.s.s, was to meet there a rescue party, which the Ostermaiers were to meet on the way down to Gunsight Chalet.

Tish's idea was this: We would ride up while they were lunching, pretend to think them real bandits, paying no attention to them if they fired at us, as we knew they had only blank cartridges, and, having taken them prisoners, make them walk in ignominy to the nearest camp, some miles farther.

"Then," said Tish, "either they will confess the ruse, and the country will ring with laughter, or they will have to submit to arrest and much unpleasantness. It will be a severe lesson."

We reached the pa.s.s safely, and on the way down the other side we pa.s.sed Mr. Oliver, the moving-picture man, with his outfit on a horse. He touched his hat politely and moved out on a ledge to let us by.

"Mind if I take you as you go down the mountain?" he called. "It's a bully place for a picture." He stared at Aggie, who was m.u.f.fled in a cape and had the dish towel round her head. "I'd particularly like to get your Arab," he said. "The Far East and the Far West, you know."

Aggie gave him a furious glance. "Arab nothing!" she snapped. "If you can't tell a Christian lady from a heathen, on account of her having lost her hat, then you belong in the dirty work you're doing."

"Aggie, be quiet!" Tish said in an awful voice.

But wrath had made Aggie reckless. "'Dirty work' was what I said," she repeated, staring at the young man.

"I beg your pardon. I'm sure I--"

"Don't think," Aggie went on, to Tish's fury, "that we don't know a few things. We do."

"I see," he said slowly. "All right. Although I'd like to know--"

"Good-morning," said Aggie, and kicked her horse to go on.

I shall never forget Tish's face. Round the next bend she got off her horse and confronted Aggie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The older I get, Aggie Pilkington, the more I realize that to take you anywhere means ruin."]

"The older I get, Aggie Pilkington," she said, "the more I realize that to take you anywhere means ruin. We are done now. All our labor is for nothing. There will be no holdup, no nothing. They are scared off."

But Aggie was still angry. "Just let some one take you for a lousy Bedouin, Tish," she said, "and see what you would do. I'm not sorry anyhow. I never did like the idea."

But Tish dislikes relinquishing an idea, once it has taken hold. And, although she did not speak to Aggie again for the next hour, she went ahead with her preparations.

"There's still a chance, Lizzie," she said. "It's not likely they'll give up easy, on account of hiring the Indians and everything."

About a mile and a half down the trail, she picked out a place to hide.

This time there was a cave. We cleared our saddles for action, as Tish proposed to let them escape past us with the girl, and then to follow them rapidly, stealing upon them if possible while they were at luncheon, and covering them with the one real revolver and the three wooden ones.

The only thing that bothered us was Bill's att.i.tude. He kept laughing to himself and muttering, and when he was storing things in the cave, Tish took me aside.

"I don't like his att.i.tude, Lizzie," she said. "He's likely to giggle or do something silly, just at the crucial moment. I cannot understand why he thinks it is funny, but he does. We'd be much better without him."

"You'd better talk to him, Tish," I said. "You can't get rid of him now."

But to tell Tish she cannot do a thing is to determine her to do it.

It was still early, only half-past eight, when she came to me with an eager face.

"I've got it, Lizzie," she said. "I'll send off Mona Lisa, and he will have to search for her. The only thing is, she won't move unless she's driven. If we could only find a hornet's nest again, we could manage. It may be cruel, but I understand that a hornet's sting is not as painful to a horse as to a human being."

Mona Lisa, I must explain, was the pack-horse. Tish had changed her name from Jane to Mona Lisa because in the mornings she was constantly missing, and having to be looked for.

Tish disappeared for a time, and we settled down to our long wait. Bill put another coat of stove polish on the weapons, and broke now and then into silent laughter. On my giving him a haughty glance, however, he became sober and rubbed with redoubled vigor.