Meg of Mystery Mountain

Dan, knowing how deeply humiliating the conversation must be for the girl and wishing to change the subject, exclaimed: “How stupid of me! I brought Bag-o’-Bones down for you to ride. You must be very tired after your wild race to Scarsburg.”

The girl smiled gratefully. “I believe I am very, very tired,” she confessed, “which happens but seldom. I had thought that I was tireless.”

They soon reached the road in front of the Abbotts’ cabin and Meg bade Dan take from the pony’s saddle bags the papers and receipts. Although he pleaded to be permitted to accompany her to her home, she shook her head. “You haven’t had your supper and it is very late.” Then impulsively she reached down her brown hand as she said with an almost tremulous smile: “Good-night, my friend.”

It was early dusk when Jane, still sitting on the porch of their cabin intently listening, heard voices and the clattering of slow-moving horses along the mountain road below the bend. She leaped to her feet, her breath came with nervous quickness, she pressed her hand to her heart. Oh, what if Meg had been too late. Before she could decide what she ought to do, she heard Dan’s voice calling to the mountain girl, who was evidently not stopping. Jane ran to the top of the stone stairway. How ungrateful it must have seemed for her not to have been there to thank Meg for the effort she had made, whether or not it was successful. But Dan was leaping up the steps, two at a time, his face radiant.

Jane thought that all of his joyousness was caused by the message he was shouting to her: “Sister, that wonderful girl reached there on time! Our cabin is saved for us! How can we ever thank her?”

Jane, who had never been so upset by anything before in her protected life, clung to her brother almost hysterically. “Oh, Dan, Dan, I am so thankful! Do you think Meg Heger will ever forgive me? I was so rude to her when she first came.”

The lad was serious at once. “I do not know that she will,” he replied as he recalled that the mountain girl had said the reward she requested was the friendship of all the Abbotts except Jane.

It was hard not to rebuke his sister for her foolish pride, but she was trembling as she clung to him, and so he encircled her with his arm as he said hopefully: “Meg is too fine a girl to hold a grudge when she finds out that your heart has changed.”

Jane said nothing, but she suddenly wondered if, in reality, her heart had changed. Now that the taxes were paid and the hours of anxiety were over, she was not sure that she cared to begin an intimate friendship with a “halfbreed,” merely to show her gratitude, but even as she was conscious of this shrinking, the voice of her soul told her that she was despicable.

The children, who had been on the kitchen porch, hearing Dan’s voice, rushed out, but Jane delayed him long enough to whisper: “They know nothing of what has happened. Please do not tell them.”

Gerald was the first to reach them, and he cried, rebukingly: “Dan, why did you go horseback riding without taking me. I saw you go by an hour ago. I’m just wild to learn to ride that Bag-o’-Bones. Do you think Mr. Heger will let me?”

Dan realized that the younger members of their family thought he had merely been for a horseback ride, and so he made no further explanation, replying gayly: “Indeed I do! But I think you would better take your first lesson on the level. Wait until we go down to the Packard ranch. You remember that good friend of ours told us that he had forty horses and many of them were broken to the saddle.”

Julie clapped her hands as she hopped up and down gleefully. “Me, too!” she cried ungrammatically. “Mr. Packard said he had a little spotted horse, just the right size for me. When are we going down there, Dan?”

The older lad glanced at his sister. “Did you say that we are to go next Sunday?” The girl nodded, but the boy looked perplexed. “But how?” he queried. “If we went to Redfords by the stage, how are we to get to the Packard ranch? And we couldn’t possibly return on the same day.”

Jane thought for a moment, then she looked up brightly. “I recall now. Jean Sawyer said that we would hear from Mr. Packard during the week.” Then she smilingly confessed: “I was so pleased to find the foreman different – I mean – one of our own class – that – ”

Gerald, noting the blushes, pointed a chubby finger at his sister as he sing-songed: “Jane likes Jean Sawyer extra-special.”

It was Julie, knowing that her sister did not like to be teased, who came to the rescue by saying emphatically: “So do I like Jean Sawyer extra-special; and I know what girl you like best, Gerald Abbott. It’s Meg Heger; so now.”

The small boy grinned his agreement. “Bet you I do,” he confessed.

Dan said nothing, but by the warm glow in his heart at the mention of the mountain girl’s name, he knew that he also liked Meg Heger extra-special.

CHAPTER XXIII

JANE HUMILIATED

The next morning Jane arose early with the determination to walk up the mountain road and meet Meg Heger on her way to the Redfords school. And so, directly after breakfast, she started away alone. She asked Dan to detain the children in the kitchen that they might not see her go and perhaps wish to accompany her.

The older lad, recalling the incident of the mountain lion, wondered if he ought to permit her to go alone, but the trapper had assured him that the occurrence had been a most unusual one, that the lions, and other wild creatures usually remained far from the haunts of man, and that in the ten years that Meg had ridden up and down that mountain road to the Redfords school, she had never encountered a dangerous animal of any kind.

The sun, even at that early hour, was so warm Jane was glad that most of the mile she was to climb was in the shadow. She found herself scanning the roadside with great interest, stopping to watch a scaly lizard that was lying on a rock gazing at her intently with small back eyes, believing himself to be unseen because his coat was the color of his surroundings. He had not stirred, even when she started away.

It was a still morning and out of many a cool green covert a bird-song pealed. Again and again Jane paused to listen to some clear rising cadence. She wondered why she had never before heard the singing of birds. Of course, she must have heard them many, many times. They had often awakened her in her home, and at Highacres, but she had felt disturbed rather than pleased. She never before had listened to a single song, like the one which some hidden bird was singing. It would be interesting to know what kind of a bird it was. She would ask Meg Heger. Surely the mountain girl would know. Jane Abbott had not been in so susceptible a mood, at least not since her long ago childhood, and it was with a sense of eager anticipation that she at last drew to one side of the road to await the coming of the small horse and rider that she could hear approaching.

Meg Heger was indeed surprised to see the sister of Dan Abbott in the road so evidently awaiting her, but she experienced no pleasure from the meeting. She well knew that the city girl, who had snubbed her on the day before, would again do so, if it were not that she considered it her duty to express gratitude for what Meg had done.

She drew rein, merely because Jane Abbott had stepped forward and had held up her hand. The expression in the dusky eyes of the mountain girl was at that moment as proud and cold as had been the expression in the eyes of Jane on the day previous. Before the girl in the road could speak, Meg said: “Miss Abbott, I know that you have come to thank me for having ridden to Scarsburg, but let me assure you at once that I did not do it for your sake. I did it for Julie and Gerald, chiefly, because they are my friends. You owe me nothing. Good morning!”

The pony, feeling the urging of his mistress’ heel, started away so suddenly that Jane found herself standing in a whirl of dust. Her face grew crimson as her anger rose. She, Jane Abbott, had actually been snubbed by a halfbreed. It had been only natural that she, a city girl of family and culture, should have snubbed Meg Heger. But she had supposed that the mountain girl would be pleased, indeed, when she condescended to be friendly. As she walked slowly back toward their cabin, she did not hear the song of the birds, nor see the beauty that lay all about her. She was wrathfully deciding that she would pack at once and leave a place where it was possible for her to be snubbed by a halfbreed Indian.

Then that persistent voice, deep within her, asked: “Didn’t you deserve it, Jane? Would you admire a girl who would fall upon your neck after you had been rude to her?”

And Jane had to acknowledge that the soul-voice was right.

But, though Jane had seemed to have a change of heart toward Meg Heger, she still felt most irritable toward Julie. Nothing that small girl could do pleased her. She had at once retired to her room, wishing to be alone. True, she had decided to try to win the friendship of the mountain girl, but after the first few hours she found herself questioning if she really wanted it. Of course she did not. She wanted only friends of her own kind. She flung herself down on her bed and in her heart was a growing anger at herself and at everyone. Dan had gone for the daily climb which he believed would aid the recovery of his strength, as indeed everything seemed to be doing in a most miraculous manner. Julie and Gerald were cleaning house and were dragging the heavy pieces of furniture about in the living-room with shouts and laughter. Jane sprang up and threw open her door.

“I do wish you children would try to keep quiet,” she blazed at them. Gerald faced her defiantly. “Come and do the cleaning yourself if you want it done different. There’s no reason why we should do it at all, only Julie said, being as it hadn’t been done right since we came, we’d ought to get at it.”

“You’re just hateful, both of you! I wish you would clear out of my sight and never come back!” With this angry remark, Jane closed her door with a bang.

With a dark glance in that direction, Gerald caught Julie by the hand. “Come on, sis,” he said. “You’n I’ll clear out and we’ll stay away till that Jane Abbott goes back East, that’s what we’ll do.” The boy snatched up his small gun and put the cartridges in his pocket. He took his cap and handed Julie her hat and then led her out of the door.

“Why, Gerald Abbott, where are we going?” the small girl held back, feeling sure that they ought not to leave their cabin home in this manner.

“First off we’re going to find Dan and tell him just what happened. Then, second off, I don’t ’zactly know what we will do, but I just won’t stay here and have that horrid old Jane saying mean things to you all the time and us waiting on her and doing the work she ought to be doing. That’s what.”

The boy led his small sister along so rapidly that she tripped and would have fallen had he not turned and caught her. “Gee, I guess we’ll have to go slower,” he confessed as they started to climb the steep rocks that formed the outer edge of the mountain brook which tumbled in a series of little waterfalls, now and then tossing a mist of spray over them.

Julie began to glow with the pleasurable sense of adventure, supposing, of course, that Gerald knew where Dan had gone. At last she inquired.

“I sort o’ think we’ll find him up at the rim-rock,” Gerald said stoutly. “I’m pretty sure we will. He told me that’s where he goes for his constitootional. That means a hike to make him get strong, constitootional does.”

The girl’s freckled face was aglow. “Oh, goodie!” she cried. “I’d love to climb ’way up there.” Then she asked, a little anxiously: “Aren’t you skeered we might meet a wildcat or a lion or a bear?”

Her small brother’s courage was reassuring. “I hope we will. That’s what! I’m a sharpshooter, I am, and the wildcat that meets us will wish he hadn’t.” Julie clung to his hand with a secure feeling that she was well protected. “Oh, look-it, will you?”

Gerry pointed ahead and above. “There’s a tree that has fallen right across our brook. That’s a nice bridge and if we can get up there we can go across on it.”

“Is the rim-rock on the other side of our brook?” Julie inquired. Now Gerald had never climbed that high on their mountain before, and so he had no real knowledge of the exact location of the rock about which Dan had told them, but since it was on the very top, the small boy knew that if they kept on climbing, in time they would surely reach it.

The fallen tree was lying across the brook at a very steep ascent and it was with great difficulty that Gerald boosted his sister to the narrow ledge on which it rested. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “I’ll get you across all right and then we’ll begin calling for Dan.”

CHAPTER XXIV

JULIE AND GERALD LOST

It was nearly noon when Dan returned to the cabin. He gave a long whistle of astonishment when he saw the disordered living-room and heard no one about. Jane at once appeared in her doorway. Her face still showed evidence of her anger. “Dan,” she said coldly, “my trunks are all packed. Please put out a flag or whatever you should do to stop the stage. It passes about one, does it not, on the way to Redfords?”

The lad went to the girl with outstretched hands. “Jane, dear, what has happened? Have you and the children had more trouble? Is it so hard for you to love them and be patient with their playfulness? You know it is nothing more.” The girl’s lips curled scornfully. “Love them?” she repeated coldly. “I feel far more as if I hated them. I don’t believe love is possible to me. I even hate myself! Dan, there’s something all wrong with me, and I’m going back East to Merry, who is about the only person living who can understand me.”

There was an expression of tender rebuke in the gray eyes that were gazing at her. “You are wrong,” the lad said seriously. “Father and I love you dearly, not only because we know that you are different from what you seem to be, but for Mother’s sake.” Then, turning and glancing again at the confusion, the lad said, “Tell me just what happened.”

Jane did so, adding petulantly: “My head was beginning to ache. I had had an unpleasant encounter with your Meg Heger.” Dan felt a sudden leaping of his heart. How strange, he thought, that for the first time in his life the name of a girl should so affect him. He had heard of love at first sight, but he had never believed in it. With an effort he again listened to Jane’s indignant outpouring of words. “Don’t say I deserved just such treatment,” she protested. “No one knows it better than I do. I acknowledge that I am despicable and I hate myself. Honestly, Dan, I do, but I don’t know how to change. I don’t seem to really want to be different.”

“That’s just it, Jane.” The boy had grown very serious. “Just as soon as you desire to be different you will at once begin to change. We are the sculptors of our own characters. We can set before ourselves a model of what we would like to be and carve accordingly.” Then, as the clock was striking twelve, the lad suddenly inquired, “Jane, when did all this trouble with the children occur? I left at nine. You think it was about an hour after that?”

The girl nodded, then, glancing out of the wide front door, she exclaimed: “I wonder why they don’t come back. I supposed, of course, that they had gone to find you. Gerald knew where you were going, didn’t he?”

Dan shook his head. “He could not have known, for I did not myself. Yesterday and the day before I climbed up to the rim-rock and planned doing it every morning as a strength restorative measure, but today, after we had been wondering how we were to get to the Packard ranch, I thought I would cross the mountain to the other side and look down into the valley, and see if I could, how much nearer was the trail which Jean Sawyer took on Sunday. But I found that it would be much too rough and hard for you, and so we will wait until we receive directions from Mr. Packard. If you will prepare the lunch, I will go out and put up a white flag. Surely Mr. Wallace will know that I wish to speak to him. Then I will call the children to come home. They may be close, but since you told them that you wished you would never see them again, they are probably hiding, hoping that you are to go on the afternoon stage.”

Jane was indeed miserable. Her flaring anger had often caused her to say things that afterwards she deeply repented. “Perhaps if I would go with you and call they would know that I did not mean all that I said,” she ventured. But Dan was insistent that she, at least, prepare a lunch for herself.

“You must not start for the East without having a good hearty noon meal,” he told her. As he spoke he was fastening an old pillow case to a pole. Leaving the house, he placed it at the top of the stairway.

Then going to the brook, he began a series of halloos, but a hollow, distant echo was all that responded.

Dan, after a fruitless effort to call to the children, returned to the cabin, his face an ashen white. “Jane,” he said, and his voice was almost harsh, “you will have to attend to stopping the stage if it comes soon. Mr. Wallace can carry your baggage down without my assistance. I am going to hunt for those poor little youngsters who felt that they were turned out of their home. Goodbye.”

Jane, with a low cry of agony, leaped forward with arms outstretched, but Dan had not given her another look, and by the time she reached the brook he was out of sight. The girl sank down on a boulder and sobbed bitterly.

“If they’re lost I shall never forgive myself. Oh, how selfish, how unkind I have been, thinking only of Jane Abbott and her comfort. I can’t go away now, and not know what has become of Julie and Gerald.”

Then another thought caused her to rise and go slowly to the cabin. “They want me to go, all of them, even Dan. Perhaps it would be the best thing for me to do, and when they come back they will be glad to find that I have gone.”

Almost unconsciously Jane began to put the living-room in order. She smoothed rugs and dragged the heavy furniture into the places it had formerly occupied. Then she went to the kitchen to prepare lunch. If Julie and Gerald had been climbing the mountains all the morning they would be starved, as she well knew. Again Jane Abbott pared potatoes and after studying upon the subject for some moments she made a fire in the stove and put on a kettle of water. In the midst of these preparations she was startled by the shrill blast of the horn carried by the stage driver. Oh, she could not go just then. She was nowhere near ready. Jane snatched up a letter that she had that morning written to Merry and hurried down the stone steps. The surly driver took it with a grunt which seemed to express displeasure, although, as Jane knew, taking the mail to town was one of his duties.

When the big creaking stage had rocked around the corner, Jane suddenly felt as though a great load had been lifted from her heart. She had not really wanted to go at all. She wanted to be sure that all was well with the children, and more than that, she did so want to see Jean Sawyer again. But her pleasure was short lived, for, with a sense of oppression, she again recalled that they would all be disappointed to find her there, even Dan.

As the water in the tea kettle had not yet started to boil, Jane went to her room to change her dress to one more suitable for the work she had undertaken. Upon opening her trunk she saw, lying on top, a miniature picture delicately colored in a dainty frame of silver filigree. The girl lifted it and looked long into the truly beautiful face. Then with a half-sob she said aloud, “My mother!”

Instantly she recalled what Dan had said: “We are each of us sculptors of our own characters. We can choose a model and carve ourselves like it.” The girl sank on her knees, the picture held close to her cheek.

“Oh, mother, mother!” she sobbed, “I choose you for my model. Help me; I am sure you can help me to be more like you.”

A strange sense of strength came to her as she arose. She had been struggling without a definite goal. She had known, the small voice within had often told her, that she was despicable, but she had not found a way to change, but surely Dan’s suggestion would help her. She clearly remembered her mother, gentle, courageous and always loving.

With infinite tenderness Jane again addressed the miniature:

“Oh, mother, if you had only lived, you would have helped me carve a character more lovely, but alone I have made of it an ugly thing, but now, dearest one, I’ll begin all over.”

But even as the girl spoke she feared that it might be too late to ask Julie and Gerald to forgive her and try to love her.

CHAPTER XXV

JANE’S RESOLVE

The lunch was prepared, the potatoes had cooked quite to pieces, but still the children did not return. Jane was becoming terrorized. She was startled when there came a sharp rapping at the front door. Running into the living-room, her hand pressed to her heart, she saw standing there a tall, uncouth-looking mountaineer. She believed, and rightly, that it was the trapper who lived near them.

He began at once: “Dan Abbott came to our place nigh an hour ago sayin’ the young ’uns was lost. Meg and me wasn’t to home, but my woman said she’d tell whichever of us come fust and we’d help hunt. Ben’t they back yet?”

Jane shook her head. “Oh, Mr. Heger,” she cried, “what do you suppose has happened to them? Do you suppose they have been harmed?”

It was unusual for the kind face of the man to look hard, but at that moment it did so. His voice was stern. “Dan Abbott said ’twas you as let them young ’uns go to hunt for him, not knowin’ whar he was. Wall, Miss, I’ll tell ye this: If ’tis they ever come back alive, yo’d better keep them young ’uns a little closer to home. Thar’s no harm if they stay on the road. Nothin’s likely to happen thar, but ’way off in the wilderness places, wall, thar’s no tellin’ what may have happened. I’ll bid you good day.”

Here was still another of her fellow men who scorned her. Of course, Dan had not told him the whole truth, that she had said she hoped she never again would see the children. Oh, why had she said it? She knew, even in her anger, that she had not meant it.

She sank down on the porch and buried her face in her hands. Would this torture never end? The odor of something burning reached her and, leaping to her feet, she ran to the kitchen and pushed back the kettle of potatoes that had started to scorch. There was no one to eat the lunch she had spread on the table and at two o’clock she began to mechanically put things back in their places, when she heard a step on the porch. Running into the living-room, hardly able to breath in her great anxiety, she saw her brother stagger in and fall as one spent from a long race on the cot-bed they were using as a day lounge. For a moment he lay white and still, his eyes closed. Jane knelt at his side and held his limp hand. “Brother. Brother Dan,” she sobbed, “you are worn out. Oh, won’t you stay here and let me be the one to hunt? I would give my life to save the children. Dan, brother, open your eyes and tell me that you forgive me and believe me.” A tightening of the clasp of the limp hand was the only answer she received. Jane, rising, brought water, cold from the brook, and when she returned the lad was sitting up, his elbows on his knees, his face bent on the palms of his hands.

He looked at her as she handed him the goblet of water and when he saw the lines of suffering in her face, his heart, that had been like adamant, softened.

“Sister,” he took her hand as he spoke, “I well know we none of us mean what we say in anger, and yet the results are often just as disastrous. I have sent word to the Packard ranch for them to be on the lookout for our little ones. Luckily, high on the mountain, I came upon the cabin of a forest ranger where there was a telephone to Redfords and Mrs. Bently said she would relay the message to Mr. Packard.” Then he rose, coughing in the same racking way that he had on the train. “Now I am rested, I must start out again.”

Jane clung to him, trying to detain him. “Oh, brother, please eat something. I had lunch all ready. Even yet it is warm.” The lad smiled at her wanly, but shook his head. “I couldn’t swallow food, and there are springs wherever I go.”

Then turning back in the doorway and noting that Jane had flung herself despairingly on the lounge, he said kindly: “Jane, dear, we often are taught much-needed lessons through great suffering. You and I will each have learned one of these if our little ones are found.” Then, holding to a staff for support, he again started away.