Meg of Mystery Mountain

“Now for the surprise!” Dan said as they neared the cabin.

“Well, I certainly hope it is something to eat,” Jane began, with little interest, but when the two children threw open the front door and she saw the table in the living-room close to the wide window with four places set, she delighted the little workers by announcing that it was the best sight she had beheld that day. Then, when Jane and Dan were seated, Julie and Gerry skipped to the kitchen and returned with as tempting a lunch as even Jane could have wished for. There was creamed tuna on toast and jam and a heaping plate of lettuce sandwiches and two of the Rockyford melons for which Colorado is famous. Then there was for each a glass of creamy milk.

“Great!” Dan exclaimed. “I didn’t know we were going to be able to get milk.”

Julie nodded eagerly. “It comes from the Packard ranch, fresh to the inn every day, and Mrs. Bently said she would send us two quarts every time the stage comes up our road, which usually is three times a week. We can keep it cool as anything in the creek. Mrs. Bently told us how.”

“After lunch can we get out the guns, Dan?” Gerald asked when he had hungrily gulped down a sandwich.

“Why, I guess so,” the older boy laughed good naturedly. “You aren’t expecting a bear to find out this soon, are you, that we have some supplies that he might wish to devour?”

Julie looked anxiously toward the open door of the cabin. “Don’t you think maybe we’d better keep that door closed when we’re eating?” she asked anxiously. “You know Dad said he and mother were sitting right here where we are, maybe, one morning at breakfast, when mother looked up and there was an old grizzly standing in the open door. He had been around to the kitchen and had eaten up all the supplies he could find and he was hunting for more.”

Gerald chimed in with: “It was lucky Dad kept his big gun always standing in the corner. I suppose it was right there, near you, Dan, so he could just grab it and shoot.”

The children were watching the door as though they expected at any minute that another grizzly might appear. Dan laughed at them. “We might as well have stayed at home if we are going to stay in the cabin and keep the door closed,” he told them. “I’m going to suggest that we put the table on that nice porch just outside of the kitchen. That will make an ideal outdoor dining-room, with a big pine tree back of it to shelter us from the sun. It will be handy to the kitchen, and, what is more, a bear simply could not scale up that wall beyond the ledge.” Then, very seriously, the older brother addressed the younger two. “Julie, I don’t want you or Gerald to go close to that cliff. It’s too dangerous.”

Honest Gerald blurted in with, “We did go once, Dan. We squirmed out on our tummies till we could look ’way down, and I tell you it made us dizzy. We won’t ever want to do it again.”

After lunch the children announced that they would do up the dishes if Dan would give them a lesson in shooting the big gun when they were through. “Well,” the older boy smilingly conceded, “I’ll try to teach you to handle the smaller gun; yes, both of you,” he assured Julie, who was making an effort to attract his attention by motions behind Jane’s back. “You really ought to both know how to use it. You might need to know how some time to protect yourselves.”

“What shall you do, Jane, while we are learning to shoot?” Julie inquired when the kitchen had again been tidied and the children were ready for their very first lesson with the small gun.

“Maybe Jane’ll want to learn too,” Gerald suggested, but the older girl declared that she simply could not and would not touch one of the dreadful things.

“Won’t you come with us and watch the fun?” Dan lingered, when the two active youngsters had bounded out of the cabin. But the girl shook her head. “It wouldn’t be fun to me,” she said fretfully. “I’d much rather be left all alone. I want to write a long letter to Merry. She will be eager to hear from me, just as I am from her.” There was a self-pitying tone in the girl’s voice and a slight quiver to her lips. She turned hastily into her room and closed the door. She did not want Dan to see the tears. The lad went out on the wide front porch and stood for a moment with folded arms, his gray eyes gazing across the sun-shimmered valley, but he was not conscious of the grandeur of the scene. He was regretting, deeply regretting that he had permitted his sister to come to a country so distasteful to her. He well knew that she had shut herself in her room to sob out her grief and disappointment and then perhaps to write it all to this friend of whom she so often spoke and whom she seemed to love so dearly.

Once Dan turned toward the door as though to return to the cabin. His impulse was to go to Jane and tell her not to unpack. The stage would be passing there again on the following day, and, if she wished she could go back to the East. In fact, the lad almost believed that if Jane went, it might hasten his recovery. Her evident unhappiness was causing him to worry, and that was most detrimental. With a deep sigh of resignation, he did turn toward the open door, bent on carrying out his resolve, but a cry of alarm from Julie sent him running around the cabin and up toward the brook.

He met the children, white-faced, big-eyed, hurrying toward him, Gerald carrying the small gun.

“What is it, Gerry? What have you seen to frighten you?” He looked about as he spoke, but saw nothing but the jagged mountain side, the rushing, whirling brook and the peaceful old pines.

But it was quite evident by the expressions of the two children that they at least thought they had seen something of a dangerous nature. Gerald pointed toward a clump of low-growing pines on the other side of the brook as he said in a tense, half-whispered voice: “Whatever ’twas, Dan, it’s hiding in there.” Then he explained: “Julie and I were crossing the water on those big stones when, snap, something went. I whirled to look. Honest, I expected to see a grizzly, but there wasn’t anything at all in sight. Julie and I stood just as still as we could; we didn’t even make a sound! Then we saw those bushy trees moving, though there wasn’t a bit of wind, so we know whatever ’tis, it’s in there.”

While the small boy had been talking, Dan had been loading the gun. “You’d better let me go alone,” he said to the children, but their disappointed expressions caused him to add: “At least let me go ahead, and if I think best for you to come, I’ll beckon.”

Dan crossed the brook on the big stones and went toward the clump of small stubby pines. Then he stood still, watching the dense low trees intently. His heart beat rapidly, not from fear, for he almost hoped that it might be a grizzly, and yet, would it not be unwise to shoot at it with a small gun? It might infuriate a huge beast, and so endanger all of their lives. But, although he waited, watching and listening for many minutes, no sound was heard. He began to believe that the children had imagined the stealthy noise they thought they had heard, for, after all, they had not really seen anything, and so he beckoned them to join him. They leaped across the brook and were quickly at his side.

“Wasn’t it a bear, or a wildcat, or anything?” Gerald asked eagerly. Dan shook his head, as he replied with a laugh: “Don’t be too disappointed, youngsters, even if you don’t see everything on the first day. This time it was just a false alarm.”

But Dan was mistaken, for, from a safe hiding place, the old Indian, Slinking Coyote, was watching their every move.

“Why don’t we shoot into that pine brush anyway?” Julie suggested. “We might scare out whatever is hiding there.” But Dan didn’t wish to do this. He felt that it would be safer to have the larger gun with him before he started beating up hidden wild creatures of any kind.

“Come along, youngsters, let’s get back on the home-side of our brook and set up a target,” the older boy suggested as he crossed the brook, followed by the children.

In their door-yard Dan paused and looked about meditatively. “I want to set up a target near enough to be within call, and yet far enough away to keep from disturbing Jane too much with our racket.”

“Oh, I know!” Gerald cried. “Over there, just above where the road bends! That’ll be a dandee place. Won’t it, Dan?”

The older boy smiled his agreement. “I do believe it will do as well as any place.” They went toward the spot indicated and Dan continued: “Suppose we choose a cone on that lowest pine branch. If a bullet hits it, the cone will surely fall. Now, Gerald, just to be polite, shall we let Julie try first?”

The boy nodded, his eyes shining with eagerness. “Sure! How many tries do we each get? Three?”

“Any number you wish is all right with me.” Then Dan placed the small gun in the position that Julie was to hold it, showed her how to look along the barrel, and how to take aim.

“Hold it steady! One, two, three, go!” But no report was heard.

“What’s the matter, chick-a-biddie?” Dan was surprised to see how white the small girl’s face had become, and to note that her arm was shaking so that she could hardly hold the gun. “I’m scared,” she confessed. “I don’t know why, but I am, Dan.” She dropped the gun and ran to his arms. Then she smiled up through her tears. “I guess I’m afraid to hear the noise.”

“Pooh, pooh! That’s just like a girl,” said Gerry almost scornfully. “Anyhow, you don’t need to learn to shoot. Dan or I’ll always be around to protect you’n Jane. Can I have a try now, Dan? Can I?”

The older lad turned to the small girl. “Suppose we let Gerald practice today, and later, when you feel that you would like to try again, you may do so?”

This plan seemed quite satisfactory to Julie, who seated herself upon a rock which overhung the curving mountain road, and was about twenty feet above it. Gerald, instead of dreading the noise that the small gun would make, was eager to hear it, and after repeated trials, he managed to dislodge the brown cone. “Hurray! I did it! Bully for me! I’m a marksman now! Isn’t that what I am, Dan? Now I’ll pick out another one, and I bet you I’ll hit it first shot.”

Julie, having wearied of the constant report of the small gun, had wandered away in search of wild flowers. The boys saw her running toward them, beckoning excitedly. “Dan,” she said in a low voice, “Come on over here and look down at the road. The queerest man seems to be hiding. I was so far up above him, he didn’t see me. He’s hiding back of some rocks watching the road. Who do you suppose he is?”

Dan looked troubled. He thought at once that it might be the old Ute Indian who had not gone with his tribe when they went in search of better hunting grounds, nor was he wrong. Very quietly, the three went to the rim of their ledge. About twenty feet below they beheld a most uncouth creature crouching behind a big boulder. Evidently he was intently watching the road as it wound up from Redfords. His cap was of black fur with a bushy tail hanging down at the back. They could not see his face as they were above him. Julie clung fearfully to her brother. “Oh, Dan,” she whispered. “What do you suppose he’s watching for?”

Before Dan could decide what he ought to do, a pounding of horse’s feet was heard just below the bend, and a wiry brown pony leaped into view. The old Indian sprang from his hiding place so suddenly that the small horse reared, but the rider, her dark face flushed, her wonderful eyes flashing angrily, cried: “What did I tell you last time you stopped me? Didn’t I say I’d shoot? You know I pack a gun, and I never miss. I can’t give you any more money. I’m saving all I can to go away to school. I’ve told you that before, and if you are my father, as you’re always telling me that you are, you’d ought to be glad if I’m going to have a chance.”

The old Indian whined something, which Dan could not hear. Impatiently the girl took from her pocket a coin and tossed it to him. “I don’t believe you’re hungry. You don’t need to be, with squirrels as thick as they are. You’ll spend all I give you on fire-water, if you can get it.”

Already the old Indian, evidently satisfied with what he had received, had started shambling down the road in the direction of the town, but the girl turned in the saddle to call after him: “Mind you, that’s the last time I’ll give you money. I don’t believe that you are my father, and neither does Mammy Heger.”

She might have been talking to the wind for all the attention the old Indian paid. His pace had increased as the descent became steeper.

Dan felt guilty because he had overheard a conversation not meant for his ears, and he drew the children away toward the cabin, and so heard, rather than saw, the girl’s rapid flight up the road.

The chivalry of the ages stirred in his heart. “It’s a wicked shame that she hasn’t a brother to protect her,” he thought. “A young girl ought not to be tormented by such a coward. Slinking Coyote, that’s what he is. Blackmailing, it would be called in civilized countries.” Dan’s indignation increased as he recalled how wonderfully beautiful the girl had looked when her dark eyes had flashed in anger. “I’d be far more inclined to think her a daughter of noble birth.”

His thoughts were interrupted by Julie, who, believing that they were a safe distance from the road, asked anxiously, “Who was the awful looking man, Dan? Will he hurt us?”

The same question had presented itself to Dan, but he made himself say lightly, “Oh, no! That old Indian isn’t at all interested in us. He evidently is just a beggar. He was asking the mountain girl for money and she gave it to him.” Then, as an afterthought, he cautioned, “Don’t mention having seen him to Jane, will you, children?”

Willingly they agreed. They were indeed pleased to share a secret with their big brother.

Julie chattered on, “Dan, I’d like to go up and see that nice girl. Do you think she’d let me ride on her pony? May Gerald and I go up there tomorrow?”

Dan forced himself to smile. He did not want either of his companions to know that he was troubled. “Yes, we’ll go up there tomorrow. I would like to meet the trapper who is, I believe, the father of that little horsewoman.” But even as he spoke Dan recalled that the slinking Indian had insisted that he was her father, and that the girl did not believe it.

When he reached the cabin, Jane was still shut in her room. The children declared that they were hungry as wolves and that they would get the evening meal, and so the older lad seated himself on the edge of the front porch to think over all that he had seen and heard, and decide what it would be best for him to do. Perhaps, after all, he had been unwise to bring either of the girls to a place so wild. Perhaps he ought to send them both home. He and Gerald could protect themselves if there were to be trouble of any kind. He decided that the very next day, as soon as the mountain girl had gone to the Redfords school, he would climb up the road to the cabin, which he believed was just about a mile above them. Then he could discover from the trapper if any real danger might lurk on the mountain for the two Eastern girls.

CHAPTER XV

MEG HEGER

To the surprise of the young people, almost as soon as the sun had set, night descended upon them. Dan had helped the children clean the lamps and lanterns. Their grandmother, at their father’s prompting, had remembered to put kerosene on their list and also candles.

Jane chose one of the latter to light her to bed. She simply detested kerosene lamps, she declared when Dan had asked if she didn’t want to sit up with them a little while and read some of the books their father and mother had left in the cabin. “No, thank you!” had been the emphatic refusal. “The nights here are bitterly cold. In bed at least I can keep warm.”

“Gee-whiliker,” Gerald said when the girl to whom everything seemed distasteful had retired. “Ain’t she a wet blanket?”

Before Dan could rebuke him for criticizing his elders, Julie burst in with, “Why, Gerry Abbott, didn’t you promise Dad you wouldn’t ever say ain’t, and there you said it.”

The boy squirmed uncomfortably. “It’s an awful long time since I said it before,” he tried to excuse himself. “I bet you I won’t do it again. You see if I do.”

Dan was looking at the empty hearth. “We should have cut some wood and had a roaring fire tonight. Let’s do it tomorrow and make it more cheerful for Jane, if – ” He paused as though he had said more than he had intended, but his alert companions would not let a sentence go unfinished.

“If what, Dan?” Julie asked curiously.

The boy was not yet ready to tell, even these two, that he might think it best to start Jane and Julie on their homeward way the next day. He knew that the older girl would be overjoyed, but the younger would be so disappointed that it seemed almost a cruel thing to contemplate. “I’ll tell you tomorrow noon,” he compromised, when he saw both pairs of eyes watching him as though awaiting his answer.

In a very short time the children were nodding sleepily and Dan was glad when Julie took a candle and Gerry a lantern and bade him good-night.

“We’re going to get up to see the sunrise,” Julie said.

“If you wake up,” Dan laughingly told them. Then, putting out the remaining lights, he, too, retired to his cot on the porch. He placed his loaded gun in the corner, back of him, where it could not be reached by anyone else without awakening him.

For long hours he lay with wide eyes watching the sky, which seemed to be a canopy close above him, brilliant with stars. A slight wind kept the mosquitos away and, as it rustled through the pine boughs that were so near, a sense of peace stole into his heart – his fears were banished and he seemed to know that all was well.

It was long after sunrise when he wakened and no one else was astir in the cabin. Very quietly he arose and dressed. Then he went to the kitchen, and a fragrance of coffee was what finally awakened the two children. They bounded from bed, ashamed of their laziness, and when they joined their big brother he had a good breakfast spread on the table in their out-of-door dining-room.

“Julie, will you see if Jane is awake?” the older lad asked, and the small girl cautiously opened the door into her sister’s room. Then she entered and went to the bedside. “You’ve got one of your dreadful headaches, haven’t you, Janey?” The younger girl was all compassion. She knew well how Jane suffered when these infrequent headaches came. What she did not know was that they always followed a spell of anger or of worry. “I’ll draw the curtains over this window so the sun can’t come in and I’ll fetch you your breakfast.”

Julie liked nothing better than to be mothering someone, but Jane showed no sign of appreciation. Her only comment was, “Have the coffee hot.”

Dan was sorry to hear that Jane had neuralgia, and, from past experience, he knew that she would be unable to travel that afternoon, and so she would be obliged to wait until the following Tuesday, when the stage would again pass that way. He felt elated at the thought, but first he must find out if it were safe for the girls to remain. Directly after breakfast he drew Gerald aside and asked him if he would stay at the cabin while he (Dan) went up the mountain road to interview the trapper. Although the small boy would much rather have accompanied Dan, he always wanted to do his share, and so he consented to remain.

Dan waited until he was sure that Meg Heger had passed on her way to the Redfords school before he began the ascent of the mountain road. He could not have explained to himself why he did not want to meet the girl. It might have been a feeling that he had lacked in chivalry on the day before, when he had listened to the conversation in which she had probably revealed a secret which she would not wish strangers to share. He sauntered along by the brook, his gun over his shoulder, stopping every few feet to examine some rock or growth or just to gaze out over the valley, seeing new pictures at each changed position.

It was a glorious morning, but with the invigorating chill yet in the air. He breathed deeply and walked with shoulders thrown back. Birds sang to him, squirrels in the pine boughs over his head, or scurrying among the dry soft carpet of needles, chattered at him; some were curious, many were scolding, but he laughingly told them that he was a comrade. He stopped on a level with one protesting bushy-tailed fellow to say, “Mr. Bright-Eyes, I wouldn’t harm you, not for anything! This gun is merely to be used on something that would harm me, if it got the chance first. I don’t believe in taking life from a little wild creature that enjoys living just as much as I do.” Then, as he continued his walk, he thought, “I must tell Gerry not to kill any harmless creature unless we need it for food.”

Coming to a sudden sharp descent of about fifteen feet, he saw that the brook became a waterfall and just below it was a large pool which would make an excellent swimming hole. The water was as clear as crystal and was held in a smooth, red rock basin. After standing for some time, watching the joyous waterfall on which broken sunlight flashed, the lad glanced at his watch. It was after nine and so he could safely take to the road without fear of encountering the mountain girl. She was surely, by now, reciting to that kindly old man, Teacher Bellows. After another downward scramble, the road was reached. The ascent was gradual and Dan’s thoughts wandered on without his conscious direction. He wondered how that mountain girl had happened to have a thirst for knowledge. That, in itself, proved to him that the old Ute was not her father, but, if he were not, why did he pretend that he was? What could be his reason? To obtain what money he could by making her think it her duty to help care for him. Dan had just decided this to be the most plausible explanation of the whole thing, when he was greatly startled by hearing the sudden report of a gun from the high rocks at his right. He looked up and beheld the girl about whom he had been thinking, every muscle tense, a smoking gun still against her shoulder. It was pointed at the bushes directly at his left. “Don’t you move!” she shouted the warning. “Maybe I didn’t kill it.”

Dan whirled toward the rocks and low-growing bushes at his left and what he saw reassured him. A mountain lion lay there, evidently dead, its position showing that it had been just about to spring upon him. He turned to thank the girl, but she had disappeared. She, too, had evidently been convinced that the animal was dead. On examining it closer, the boy saw that the bullet had entered the creature’s head at a most vulnerable spot, and being thus assured that it was not playing possum, he went on his way.

Already Meg Heger had won a right to his chivalry. She had saved his life. How he wished that in turn he might do something to save her from her tormentor.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAPPER’S CABIN

Dan felt a glow of pleasure as he neared the log cabin which nestled against the mountain, sheltered by rock walls on the side from which the worst storms always came.

Eagerly he looked ahead, hoping that he would see the girl. He wanted to thank her for having saved his life, but no one was in sight.

It was a pleasant, home-like place, with chickens clucking cheerfully in a large, wired-in yard. Goats climbed among the rocks at the back, and a washing fluttered on a line at one side, while, to the boy’s delight, masses of wild flowers, showing evidence of loving care, carpeted the earth-filled stretches between boulders, and some of them that trailed along the ground hung over the cliff in vivid bloom. It was Meg’s garden, he knew, without being told.

He rapped on the closed front door, but a voice from outside called to him. “Whoever ’tis, come around here. I’m washin’.”

Dan did as he was told and saw a thin, angular woman, who stood up very straight and looked at him out of keen blue eyes, as she wiped her sudsy hands on her gingham apron. Then she brushed back her graying locks.

Her smile was a friendly one. “You’re Dan Abbott’s son, ain’t you?” she began at once. “Hank Wallace, him as drives the stage, stopped in for dinner to our place yesterday and he told us all about having fetched you up. Pa and I knew your pa, and your ma, too, years back, afore any of you children was living, and long afore I had Meg.” The woman nodded toward the wooded mountain beyond. “Meg’s out studyin’ some fandangled thing she calls bot’ny.” Then she waved a bony hand toward the glowing gardens. “Them’s what she calls her specimens. Queer things they get to larnin’ in schools nowadays. I didn’t have much iddication. None at all is more like the real of it. But pa, he went summers for a spell, and learned readin’, writin’ and ’rithmetic. All a person needs to know in these mountains; but Meg, now, she’s been goin’ ever since she could talk, seems like. Notion Pa Heger took. He got talked into doin’ it by Preacher Bellows.” Then, before saying more, the woman cautiously scanned the woods and the road. Feeling sure that there was no one near enough to hear her, she confided: “You see, we ain’t dead sure who Meg is. She was about three when one of the Ute squaw women fetched her, all done up in one of them bright-colored blankets they make. It was a terrible stormy night. There’d been a cloudburst, and the thunder made this old mountain shake for true. Pa Heger said he heard someone at the door, and I said ’twas the wind. He said he knew better, and he went to see. There stood a Ute squaw, and she grunted something and held out the blanket bundle. Pa took it, bein’ as he heard a cry inside of it. That squaw didn’t stop. She shuffled away and Pa shut the door quick to keep the storm out.