Virginia of Elk Creek Valley Part 2

The Vigilantes had been lovely as they led their horses and walked to the house with her; Aunt Nan, who had had her first lesson with Malcolm Keith that morning, was comforting; Mr. Hunter encouraging; and Donald the finest boy she had ever known in her life. It had really seemed as though, with them all to stand by her, she could mount again the next morning and go on the much-dreamed of getting-acquainted trip to Lone Mountain. But now the time to go had come, and her courage had fled. She had beckoned Virginia from the corral where the men were saddling the horses, and drawn her away to a secluded spot. Virginia did not need Vivian's confession. Her frightened face was quite enough.

"I--I just can't do it, Virginia!" she finished.

Virginia considered for a long moment. Then her clear gray eyes met Vivian's frightened blue ones.

"Vivian," she said, "perhaps you'll be angry with me for speaking so plainly to you, but I've just got to do it. If you don't want the Vigilantes to be dead ashamed of you, here's your chance this minute! I believe way down in my heart that things come to us so that we can show what's really in us--how--how far down we've been putting our roots into good soil, you know. Now this has come to you! There isn't a thing to be afraid of except just Fear, which I admit is a monster; but if you let that control you, you'll spoil your whole life. Jim used to teach me that.

Siwash wouldn't hurt a baby! I rode him when I was four years old. We're just going to trail up the mountain as slowly as can be, and Don will ride with you every minute. When there are really things to be afraid of, people excuse a coward; but when there isn't a thing in this world, they don't! So if you don't come, Vivian, and show us what you are made of, you're a _coward inside_, that's all!"

It was hard, blunt doctrine, built on seventeen years of wholesome life in a land where cowardice has found no room; but at that moment it was just what Vivian Winters needed. From her frightened heart the fear of Siwash fled only to give place to a more dreadful fear, the contempt and scorn of the Vigilantes. Better be thrown by Siwash than despised by Virginia and Priscilla, Mary and the far-away Dorothy. She had no time to tell Virginia that she would go after all, and to ask her to try to forget her cowardice, for the boys called just then that all was ready. But Virginia understood, for as they hurried toward the corral she held Vivian's hand closely in her own, and gave it a final, encouraging squeeze, as Vivian edged a cautious way toward Siwash and the faithful Donald.

After all, it was not so hard. Donald allowed the others to go ahead--the two pack-horses first with tents and provisions, for they were to camp for the night, then Malcolm, Aunt Nan and the others. He and Vivian, riding slowly, brought up the rear. Vivian, determination rising in her soul, was firmly seated and clutching the saddle-horn. She might be thrown, but she would never, never fall again! But old Siwash was faithful to his trust, and Donald was close at hand. Vivian vowed inwardly that she would always bless Donald. Under his calm a.s.surance, her fear gradually went away, and in fifteen minutes she was willing to let go her hold upon the saddle-horn, and to try to follow his instructions. He taught her how to place her feet in the stirrups, how to clutch with her knees, how to rise in the saddle for a trot, how to sit back for a canter; until at length--wonder of wonders!--Vivian, her hair flying in the wind, her eyes filled with triumph, actually _cantered_ with Donald at her side toward the others, who to a rider turned in their saddles and cheered her approach. And pride filled every one's eyes--even the critical ones of Carver Standish III.

So now that the worst was over, no one enjoyed the trip more than Vivian.

She kept wondering what her timid mother would say could she see her daughter in the suit which hours of pleading had with difficulty procured, and on a real Western horse, riding past the grain-fields, up the canyon, and on into the trail that led up the mountain-side.

Only three of the nine had ever ridden through a canyon or followed a mountain trail, and those three experienced the keenest delight in pointing out every object of interest to the others--the blue lupines and pink cranesbill, which made the occasional open s.p.a.ces riotous with color, the forget-me-nots growing in shady places, and the rare orchids, which they discovered after they had penetrated to the heart of the mountain forest.

It was beautiful in among the timber. Great spruces and pines towered above them like masts to the journeying earth. The sunlight fell in shimmering, golden patches upon the moss-grown and leaf-covered ground. In the more open places grew buck-brush and the service-berry, Oregon grape with its holly-shaped leaves, blue lupines, Indian paint-brush and great mountain ferns. It was very still when they stopped their horses to rest.

Only the wind in the great trees above them, the chatter of a squirrel remonstrating against this intrusion into his solitude, a strange sad bird-note farther up the mountain, and the occasional fall of a leaf or creak of a limb as it rubbed shoulders with its neighbor, broke the silence. Once in a clearing a deer and her fawn gazed at them with wondering eyes before leaping through the ferns into the safe shelter of the timber.

Up--up--up they went. The trail wound in and out around the mountain-side, and their sure-footed horses followed it, never daunted by fallen trees or by rocky and precipitous places. More than once every Vigilante save one held her breath as she was carried up a dangerous, almost obliterated path to heights beyond. But Virginia's Pedro, who was far-famed as a trailer, led the way, and his rider called back rea.s.suring words to those behind.

By noon the air was cold. They were near snow, Malcolm said. A few minutes more and they had reached it--a veritable snow-bank in late July. The Vigilantes, reenforced by Aunt Nan, challenged the boys to a snow-ball fight, and they all dismounted for the fray. Then came dinner of Hannah's sandwiches, and bacon and eggs cooked over a little friendship fire beyond the snow.

An hour later they reached the mountain-top, and lo! it was spring again.

The ground was covered with early spring flowers--shooting-stars and spring beauties and bearded-tongues. In the sheltered nooks they found dog-toothed violets, and more forget-me-nots--both pink and blue.

It was here that the inexperienced New Englanders longed to camp. They wanted to wake in the morning, they said, and look far across the blue distances, over the tops of the highest trees, to the mountains beyond, like Moses gazing into the Promised Land. But they willingly consented to ride down on the other side to a more sheltered spot and camp by a tiny mountain lake, when Malcolm, aided by Donald and Virginia, explained that a snow-storm was not an unlikely occurrence away up there--even in July!

It was strange to sit around the big camp-fire that night after supper--all alone in a mountain wilderness; strange to rehea.r.s.e school incidents and to listen to Malcolm's stories of hunting for elk and antelope in that very spot; strangest of all to go to sleep on pine boughs and blankets which the boys had spread in their tents. The weird, lonesome cry of the coyotes startled more than one sleeping Vigilante that night, and Vivian nestled closer beneath Aunt Nan's protecting arm. It was not until the next morning when they started for home that they knew of the bear, who, smelling the ham and bacon, had wandered into camp, only to be repulsed by Malcolm and an extra log on the fire.

In that strange, just-before-dawn stillness Virginia awoke to miss Priscilla from her side. She moved the tent flap, and looked out.

Priscilla stood by the entrance, her eyes raised to the distant mountains--great shadows beneath a star-strewn sky. She was learning the old, old secrets of those mountains at night.

"I couldn't help it, Virginia," she whispered, as she crept back a few moments later. "I've wanted so to see what it was like at night, and now I know. It's bigger than ever! I don't believe that any one could look at the mountains and the stars and ever be doubtful about--G.o.d and--and--things like that, do you?"

The next day, perfect as the one before, they went down, down, down the trail, through the canyon, across the prairie, and home once more.

"Mr. Hunter named it just right," Priscilla said to d.i.c.k, who came to take the horses. "I've never felt so well-acquainted in my life!"

CHAPTER IV

THE BEAR CANYON BEAR

"Gee!" cried Alden Winthrop. "I wish I was out there!"

"So do I!" echoed his brother John.

"I wish I _were_, dear," corrected his mother.

"Well, _were_, then, Mother. There isn't much difference in the way you say it. I wish I was there anyway!"

His mother sighed, but Alden's thoughts were far from English grammar.

Instead, they were centering upon the contents of a fat letter from his sister Priscilla, which his father had just read.

"I've got more respect for Priscilla than I ever had in all my life," he continued. "I never supposed she'd have sand enough to go on a bear hunt.

Now, if she'd just shot the bear herself, it would be----"

"Why, Alden!" interrupted his mother. "Imagine Priscilla doing a thing like that! You don't suppose, do you, dear," she continued, turning to Mr. Winthrop, who was reading his daughter's letter for a second time while he finished his breakfast, "you don't suppose Priscilla is really handling a gun herself?"

"Sounds like it to me," said Priscilla's father as he turned the pages.

"She says, 'I can knock a bottle all to pieces at thirty yards. Don't you call that pretty good?'"

"I'd like to know the size of the bottle before replying," commented John.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Winthrop anxiously. "I'm willing she should ride horseback and climb mountains and camp in a perfect wilderness if that's what Western people term pleasure, but I do wish she wouldn't shoot a gun!

I'm afraid I shan't have a minute's real peace till she gets home. Of course I know she's in the best of hands, but accidents are so common.

Just yesterday I was reading where----"

"Now, Mother!" remonstrated the boys.

"Don't worry for a moment, Mother," rea.s.sured Mr. Winthrop. "She'll come home safe and sound. I'll trust those good people out there to look after her." He turned the pages again. "She's certainly having the time of her life! Makes me wish I were young again myself!"

"That skin will look splendid in the library," said Alden. "Read again what she says about sending it, Dad."

"Read it all, Dad!" suggested John. "There's plenty of time."

Priscilla's father willingly complied. He evidently shared his sons' pride in his daughter's achievement.

"'HUNTER RANCH, WYOMING, "'July 26, 19--.

"'Dear Folks at Home:

"'I am covered with dust and dirt and just dead tired, but I can't wash or dress, or even rest until I tell you the most thrilling experience of my whole life! I, Priscilla Winthrop of Boston, Ma.s.sachusetts, have helped to trap and kill a bear! I know shivers are running down your back as you read this. Imagine then what it must have been to live through the _real thing!_ To ride up the trail all eagerness and excitement; to visit the empty traps and turn away disappointed; to see your horse as you neared the third suddenly p.r.i.c.k up his ears and rear----'"

"Dear me!" cried Mrs. Winthrop. "I'm sure, John, those horses out there aren't well-broken!"

Mr. Winthrop nodded rea.s.suringly, and continued:

"'To hear d.i.c.k call back that there must surely be a bear; and, at last, to come upon the infuriated monster, dragging his trap about, gnashing his teeth, and trying to reach you!'"

"Oh, dear!" moaned poor Mrs. Winthrop.