Told In The Hills Part 11

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STORM--AND AFTER.

Olapitski yahka ships.

Two weeks later storm-clouds were flying low over the Kootenai hills and chasing shadows over the faces of two equestrians who looked at each other in comic dismay.

"Jim, we are lost!" stated the one briefly.

"I allow we are, Miss Hardy," answered the other, a boy of about fifteen, who gazed rather dubiously back over the way they had come and ahead where a half-blind trail led up along the mountain.

"Suppose we pitch pennies to see what direction to take," suggested the girl; but the boy only laughed.

"Haven't much time for that, Miss," he answered. "Look how them clouds is crowdin' us; we've got to hunt cover or get soaked. This trail goes somewhere; may be to an Injun village. I allow we'd better freeze to it."

"All right. We'll allow that we had," agreed Miss Hardy. "Betty, get around here, and get up this hill! I know every step is taking us farther from the ranch, but this seems the only direction in which a trail leads. Jim, how far do you suppose we are from home?"

"'Bout fifteen miles, I guess," said the boy, looking blue.

"And we haven't found the lost sheep?"

"No, we haven't."

"And we have got lost?"

"Yes."

"Jim, I don't believe we are a howling success as sheep farmers."

"I don't care a darn about the sheep just now," declared Jim. "What I want to know is where we are to sleep to-night."

"Oh, you want too much," she answered briskly; "I am content to sit up all night, if I only can find a dry place to stay in--do you hear that?"

as the thunder that had grumbled in the distance now sounded its threats close above them.

"Yes, I hear it, and it means business, too. I wish we were at the end of this trail," he said, urging his horse up through the scrubby growth of laurel.

The darkness was falling so quickly that it was not an easy matter to keep the trail; and the wind hissing through the trees made an open s.p.a.ce a thing to wish for. Jim, who was ahead, gave a shout as he reached the summit of the hill where the trail crossed it.

"We're right!" he yelled that she might hear his voice above the thunder and the wind; "there's some sort of a shanty across there by a big pond; it's half a mile away, an' the rain's a-comin'--come on!"

And on they went in a wild run to keep ahead of the rain-cloud that was pelting its load at them with the force of hail. The girl had caught a glimpse of the white sheen of a lake or pond ahead of them; the shanty she did not wait to pick out from the gloom, but followed blindly after Jim, at a breakneck gait, until they both brought up short, in the shadow of a cabin in the edge of the timber above the lake.

"Jump off quick and in with you" called Jim; and without the ceremony of knocking, she pushed open the door and dived into the interior.

It was almost as dark as night. She stumbled around until she found a sort of bed in one corner, and sat down on it, breathless and wet. The rain was coming down in torrents, and directly Jim, with the saddles in his arms, came plunging in, shaking himself like a water-spaniel.

"Great guns! But it's comin' down solid," he gasped; "where are you?"

"Here--I've found a bed, so somebody lives here. Have you any matches?"

"I allow I have," answered Jim, "if they only ain't wet--no, by George, they're all right."

The brief blaze of the match showed him the fire-place and a pile of wood beside it, and a great osier basket of broken bark. "Say, Miss Hardy, we've struck great luck," he announced while on his knees, quickly starting a fire and fanning it into a blaze with his hat; "I wonder who lives here and where they are. Stickin' to that old trail was a pay streak--hey?"

In the blaze of the fire the room a.s.sumed quite a respectable appearance. It was not a shanty, as Jim had at first supposed, but a substantial log-cabin, furnished in a way to show constant and recent occupation.

A table made like a wide shelf jutted from the wall under the one square window; a bed and two chairs that bespoke home manufacture were covered by bear-skins; on the floor beside the bed was a buffalo-robe; and a large locked chest stood against the wall. Beside the fire-place was a cupboard with cooking and table utensils, and around the walls hung trophies of the hunt. A bow and quiver of arrows and a knotted silken sash hung on one wooden peg, and added to a pair of moccasins in the corner, gave an Indian suggestion to the occupancy of the cabin, but the furnishing in general was decidedly that of a white person; to the rafters were fastened some beaver-paws and bear-claws, and the skins of three rattlesnakes were pendent against the wall.

"Well, this is a queer go! ain't it?" remarked Jim as he walked around taking a survey of the room. "I'd like to know who it all belongs to.

Did you ever hear folks about here speak of old Davy MacDougall?"

"Yes, I have," answered the girl, sitting down on the buffalo-robe before the fire, to dry her shoulders at the blaze.

"Well, I believe this is his cabin, and we are about ten mile from home," decided the boy. "I didn't think we'd strayed as far north as Scot's Mountain, but I allow this is it."

"Well, I wish he would come home and get supper," said the girl, easily adapting herself to any groove into which she happened to fall; "but perhaps we should have sent him word of our visit. What did you do with the horses, Jim?"

"Put 'em in a shed at the end o' the house--a bang-up place, right on the other side o' this fire-place. Whoever lives here keeps either a horse or a cow."

"I hope it's a cow, and that there's some milk to be had. Jimmy, I wonder if there is anything to eat in that cupboard."

"I've been thinkin' o' that myself," said Jim in answer to that insinuating speech.

"Suppose you do something besides think--suppose you look," suggested the more unscrupulous of the foragers; "I'm hungry."

"So am I," acknowledged her confederate; "you an' me is most alike about our eatin', ain't we? Mrs. Houghton said yesterday I had a terrible appet.i.te."

The boy at once began making an examination of the larder, wondering, as he did so, what the girl was laughing at.

The rain was coming down in torrents through the blackness of the night; now and then the lightning would vie with the fire in lighting up the room, while the thunder seemed at home in that valley of the mountain, for its volleys of sound and their echoes never ceased.

Small wonder that anyone's house would seem a home to the two, or that they would have no compunction in taking possession of it.

"There's coffee here somewhere, I can smell it," announced Jim; "an'

here's rice an' crackers, an' corn-meal, an' dried raspberries, an'

potatoes, an'--yes, here's the coffee! Say, Miss Hardy, we'll have a regular feast!"

"I should say so!" remarked that lady, eyeing Jim's "find" approvingly; "I think there is a bed of coals here at this side of the fire-place that will just fit about six of those potatoes--can you eat three, Jim?"

"Three will do if they're big enough," said Jim, looking dubiously at the potatoes; "but these ain't as good-sized as some I've seen."

"Then give me two more; that makes five for you and three for me."

"Hadn't you better shove in a couple more?" asked Jim with a dash of liberality. "You know MacDougall may come back hungry, an' then we can spare him two--that makes ten to roast."

"Ten it is!" said the girl, burying two more in the ashes as the share of their host. "Jim, see if there is any water in here to make coffee with."

"Yes, a big jar full," reported the steward; "an' here is a little crock half full of eggs--prairie-chicken, I guess--say, can you make a pone?"