Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 20

"Julie, what is it, dear? Are you hurt? What has happened?"

Gerald spoke up: "That's why we came in here. We were headin' down the mountain for the Packard ranch when Julie fell. I guess her ankle is hurt."

Meg at once was on her knees unb.u.t.toning the high shoe. The ankle was swollen, but there were no bones broken.

"It is a bad sprain," she said.

Then, swinging the knapsack which she always carried when on a mountain hike from her back, she took out her emergency kit. She washed the angry looking place with soothing liniment and then wound tightly about it strips of clean white cloth.

"Now," she said, "we will have some refreshments."

This amazed her listeners and greatly pleased at least one of them.

"Gee-golly!" Gerald cried. "I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess I'm starving to death more'n likely."

Meg smiled as she produced a box of raisins. "This may not seem much of a menu, but it is all one needs for several days to sustain life."

The small boy took a generous handful and gobbled it with speed. Then the mountain girl brought out a canteen.

"Bring us some water from the creek," she told him. Jane held out a detaining hand.

"Oh, Meg," she implored, "don't send Gerry to that raging torrent. Don't you remember how we heard it roaring?"

"But you don't hear it now," was the reply. "The water from the cloudburst has long since gone to the valley to be absorbed, much of it, in the coa.r.s.e gravel. You'll find Crazy Creek just as it always is."

"That's where Julie sprained her ankle," Gerald said. "We were trying to reach it to get a drink."

He soon returned with the canteen full of ice-cold water. His eyes were wide.

"Say, girls," he began, "we can't make it home tonight, can we? The sun's going down west of our peak right this minute."

"We didn't expect to," Meg replied. "Gerald, you come with me and we will bring in pine branches or kinnikinick, if we can find any, for our beds."

From her knapsack Meg took a folding knife as she talked.

"Kinnikinick?" the boy gayly repeated. Everything that had happened now appeared to him in the light of a jolly adventure except, of course, Julie's ankle, and she no longer seemed to be in pain. "What sort of a thing is that?"

Meg had led the way out of the cabin.

"Here's some!" she shouted, and the boy raced over to find the girl whom he so admired bending over a dense evergreen vine.

"It's prettier in winter," she told him, "for then it has red berries among the bright green leaves. It makes a wonderful bed. It is so soft and springy."

After half an hour of effort branches of pine and some of the kinnikinick were laid on the floor, Julie was made comfortable, but Jane would not lie down. She sat with her back against the wall holding the small girl's head on her lap. Dan had been right. One could carve oneself after a model. Never, never again would she lose sight, she a.s.sured herself, of her chosen goal, which was to do in all things as her dear mother would have done.

As soon as the sun sank it began to grow dark. Meg had at once barred the door, and also she had examined the floor and walls to be sure that there was no yawning knothole large enough to admit a snake.

The children slept from sheer exhaustion, but Jane and Meg stayed awake through the seemingly endless hours, while night prowlers howled many times close to their cabin.

At the first gray streak of dawn, Julie stirred uneasily and began to cry softly. Meg begged Jane to change positions with her, and, completely worn out, Jane did lie down on the pine boughs which had been so placed that they were springy and comfortable. Almost at once she fell asleep.

Meg removed the bandages that were hot from the little girl's hurt ankle and again applied the cooling liniment. Other fresh strips of cloth were used and then, with the small head pillowed on Meg's lap, Julie again fell asleep. Gerald had not wakened through the night, not even when a curious wolf had sniffed at their doorsill and had then lifted his head to wail out his displeasure.

The sun was high above the peak when Jane leaped up, startled, from her restless slumber. "What was that? I thought I heard a gun shot."

"You did." Nothing seemed to stir Meg from her undisturbed calm. "Someone is coming. Julie, will you sit up against the wall, dear, and I will open the door."

Gerald, half awake, but sensing some excitement, leaped out of the cabin, his small gun held in readiness. "Do you 'spect it's the Utes?" he asked, almost hoping that the answer would be in the affirmative. But Meg laughed. "No," she said. "It is probably someone searching for you." Then she fired in answer. From not far above them came two gun shots in rapid succession.

"Oh, boy!" Gerald leaped to a position where he could see the road as it wound under the pines. "There are two hors.e.m.e.n. Gee! One of 'em is Dan."

"And the other is Jean Sawyer!" his companion told him.

Julie had wanted to see what was going on, so hopping on one foot, she appeared in the doorway, supported by Jane. The two lads uttered whoops of joy when they saw the group awaiting them. Dan at once caught Gerald in his arms and then glanced tenderly toward the two in the doorway.

Little did Jane guess that in that moment, white and worn as she was, she had never looked so beautiful to her brother. And as for Jean Sawyer, he saw in the face which had charmed him, a softer expression, and he knew that some great transformation had taken place in the soul of the girl.

Leaping forward, he said with deep solicitude: "Oh, Miss Jane, how you have suffered!"

Dan lifted Julie most carefully to the back of his horse as he said: "Meg, can you ride in front of this little miss and I will walk at your side?" Then he smiled, and Jane, glancing at him anxiously, rejoiced to note he was not ill as she had feared he would be, though he did look very tired. The lad continued: "You see, Jean and I expected to find you all here. Intuitive knowledge, if you wish to call it that, and so we planned what we would do. Jane is to ride on Silver, which Mr. Packard loaned us, and Jean will lead the way."

"But where are we going?" his older sister inquired.

"Down to the ranch," Jean replied. "I had strict orders to bring you back with me, all of you, for that visit that you were to have paid at the weekend."

Meg was about to demur, but the lad hastened to say: "I told your father that I would telephone the forest ranger as soon as you all were located.

He is waiting there for a message, and I cannot until I get you to the ranch."

Still Meg thought she ought to climb back to her own home, but Jane implored: "Oh, don't leave me! I do _so_ want you to go with us." That settled it and though the girl from the East little dreamed it, there was a warm glow of joy in the heart of the mountain girl who had so wanted a friend of her own age.

Jane shuddered as they rode down the old trail of the deserted mining camp. Shacks in all degrees of ruin stood about, machinery was rusting where it had been left. The beauty of the mountain had been marred by dark tunnels, outside of which stood heaps of orange and blue-gray refuse. Even in the more substantial log huts, made of aspen poles, windows were broken and doors hung on one hinge. "The desolation of the place will haunt my dreams forever," the girl from the East said.

"And all this," Jean made a wide sweep with his arm, "because the paying vein they had been so frantically following was lost. It might have been found, Mr. Packard told me, but another rich strike was made on Eagle Head Mountain and the inhabitants of this camp, to a man, deserted it and flocked to that new mine, and from there they probably followed other lures, ending, I suppose, as poor, or poorer, than when they began."

Dan was interested. "Then the lost vein may still be here, who knows?" he commented with a backward glance at the deserted camp they had left. And yet, was it deserted? As soon as the young people were gone a stealthy figure appeared, slinking out of one of the huts. It was the old Ute Indian and since he carried a pick and shovel, it was quite evident that he had started out to dig. Was it the lost vein or some other treasure that he sought?

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE GREEN HILLS RANCH

s.h.i.+elded from the fury of the storms by gently sloping foothills, the rambling Packard ranch house presented a very inviting appearance to the young people as the two big horses carefully picked their way down the last steep trail.

"O, how beautiful!" was Jane's involuntary exclamation when the level road, having been reached, she felt freer to look about and admire the scene.

"I had no idea that a mere ranch could be so attractive." A great change was evident in the Eastern girl, and Jean Sawyer had been quick to notice it. Not once that morning had she seemed to be posing that she might appear more charming to him. She was just sweetly, sincerely natural. The reason, perhaps, was that Jane had suffered so much since his last visit that she had changed her estimate of real values. She was so happy, so at peace deep in her heart. She had learned that her mother's little ones were dearer to her than all else, and so the impression she might make had dwindled in importance. If Jean had thought her beautiful on the day of their first meeting, he thought her more lovely now, although her face showed evidence of a great weariness and the hours of anxiety through which she had pa.s.sed. He smiled up at her as he walked at her side, one hand resting on the horse's bridle. "Mr. Packard and I have tried out many schemes to make our home more beautiful," he told her. "That little artificial lake surrounded by cottonwood trees and willows we made quite by ourselves. A mountain stream flows into it. Indeed, there are many springs in these foothills and that is why they have such a soft, velvety-green appearance when the desert and mountains are so dry." They were pa.s.sing through a vegetable garden where a beaming Chinaman, hoe in hand, nodded to them.

Then came the flower gardens and Meg's enthusiasm, though expressed in her usual quiet way, was very evident. "How you do love flowers," Dan said, smiling up at her.