Meg of Mystery Mountain

Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree’s life and so she began eagerly: “Miss – I mean – do you want us to call you Meg?” she interrupted herself to inquire.

The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. “Haven’t you any more patients?”

Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like beds.

“Only just Mickey Mouse. He’s a little cripple! His left foot was cut off in a trap, but he gets around nicely on one stump. That’s his hole over there. I put grain and bits of cheese in front of it. Keep ever so still and I’ll put a kernel of corn right by his door. Then perhaps you’ll see his bright eyes.” And that is just what happened. As soon as the corn kernel rolled in front of the hole, out darted a sharp brown nose with twitching whiskers and two beady black eyes appeared just long enough for their owner to drag his supper into the safe darkness of his particular box.

Meg laughed happily. “He’s the cunningest, Mickey is! I sometimes take him with me in my pocket. He likes to ride there, or so it seems. At any rate he is just as good as he can be. Often he goes to sleep, but at other times, he stands right up and looks out of the pocket, just as though he were enjoying the scenery.”

At that moment a sharp, almost impatient cry from the small creature she held recalled to the head doctor of the hospital the fact that she had started out to feed the baby lions. She brought milk from a cave-like room, only the front wall of which was wood, the rest being in the mountain. “That’s our cooler,” she told Gerald, whom she could easily observe was interested in all the strange things he saw. Dipping one corner of her handkerchief into the milk, she put it in the mouth of her tiny lion and the children were delighted to see how readily and joyfully the creature seemed to feast upon it. Having gathered courage, Julie wished to feed the other baby lion and then Meg suggested that they be put in a soft lined box on the rocks near, since they were used to being high up. The baby lions, being no longer hungry, cuddled down and went to sleep. Gerald’s conscience was troubling him. “We’ll have to be going,” he said. “Nobody knows where we are.” Then he hesitated. He knew that it would be polite to ask the mountain girl to call upon them, but he was afraid that Jane would not treat her kindly, so, in his embarrassment, he caught Julie by the hand and fairly dragged her away as he called, “Goodbye, Meg, I’m coming up often.” When they were on the down-road, the boy cautioned Julie to say nothing whatever of their adventure to their sister, but just to Dan.

CHAPTER XVIII

A YOUNG OVERSEER

Sunday dawned gloriously, and Dan declared that he felt better than he had supposed that he ever would again. Jane, too, though she did not voice it, was conscious of feeling more invigorated than she had been in the East, and yet, of course, she was very glad that she was going back again on the following Tuesday. She would go directly to Newport to visit Merry Starr, as had been their original plan. Her conscience would not trouble her, since it was Dan’s wish that she be the one to leave.

The two children, on the evening before, had failed to confide that they had visited the cabin up the mountain road. They were wild to tell Dan, but they wished to get him off by himself before they did so. They dragged him out into the kitchen after the Sunday morning work was done and asked him if he would go with them for a hike up along the brook to a natural bridge that they could see from their door-yard.

The older lad hesitated. “I’ll ask Jane if she would like to go,” he began, but the immediate disappointment expressed by the two freckled faces made him turn back to add, “Or, rather, I’ll ask Jane if she minds our going, just for a little while.” This suggestion was far more pleasing to the children.

They all entered the living-room where Jane sat reading. “My goodness, don’t go far,” she said petulantly. “Don’t you remember that the terrible overseer from the Packard ranch is coming to take dinner with you today? I intend to shut myself in my room and stay there until he is gone.”

“Hm!” Dan snapped his fingers as he ejaculated. “Queer I’d forget that visit, since I have been looking forward to it so eagerly.” Then he queried: “Why do you say that he is terrible, Jane? A foreman on a vast cattle ranch is not necessarily an uncouth specimen of humanity.”

The girl flung herself impatiently in the chair as she emphatically replied: “Of course he’ll be terrible! A big, rawboned creature who will speak with a dreadful dialect, or whatever you call it; and he will be so embarrassed at meeting people from the city, that he will stutter more than likely.”

Dan laughed at the description. “Maybe you are right, sister of mine, but we’ll be home to prepare the meal for our guest, long before the hour he is to arrive. Goodbye! Fire off the gun if you are frightened at anything.”

The girl merely shrugged her shoulders, and when they were gone she decided, since it really was very lovely out-of-doors, to take her book to the porch, and so she dragged thither the comfortable chair with the leather pillows. She was soon reading the story, which interested her so greatly that she did not notice the passing of time until she heard a step near by. Jane supposed that her family was returning, and did not glance up until she heard a pleasant, well-modulated voice saying:

“Pardon me if I intrude, but is this the cabin occupied by the Abbott family?”

Looking up in astonishment, Jane saw before her a handsome youth whose wide Stetson hat was held in one hand. He wore a tan-colored shirt of soft flannel, and his corduroys, of the same shade, were tucked into high, laced boots. Even before she spoke, Jane was conscious that the youth with the clean-shaven face, strong square chin, pleasant mouth, blue eyes with clear, direct gaze was not in the least embarrassed by her presence. He was indeed the kind of a lad she had always met in the homes of her best friends, the kind that Dan was. But that of which she was most conscious was the fact that he was very good looking, and that in his eyes there was an expression of sincere admiration for her.

Graciously Jane rose and held out a slim white hand. “We are the Abbotts,” she began; then, laughingly confessed that, unfortunately, she was the only one at home, as the others had gone on a hike – she really had not inquired where.

The lad did not seem to consider it unfortunate. “Please be seated again, Miss Abbott, and I’ll occupy the door-step, if you don’t mind. I’d heaps rather meet strangers one by one. It’s easier to get acquainted.”

Then, as he thought of something, he exclaimed: “I hope I have not come over much earlier than I was expected. I hiked all the way. I thought it might be easier to come cross-lots, so to speak, than to ride horseback to Redfords and then up your mountain road.”

“Was it?” Jane asked, wishing to appear interested.

“It was great! I adore mountain climbing, don’t you, Miss Abbott?”

Then, not waiting for her reply, he continued with boyish enthusiasm: “I tell you, it means a lot to me to have you Abbotts here. I love the West, but I’ve missed my friends. We’ll have great times! How long are you going to stay?”

Jane hesitated. She should have replied that she was leaving on Tuesday, but now she was not sure that she wished to go.

For a merry half hour these two chattered. The lad seemed to be quite willing to talk of everything but his home, and Jane was too well bred to ask questions. Jean told of his college life, and when she asked if he regretted that his days of study were over, he laughingly declared that they never would be. “Mr. Packard is a great student,” he looked up brightly to say, “and our long winter evenings, that some chaps might call dull, are the most interesting I have ever spent. We take one subject after another and go into it thoroughly. We’re most interested in experimental inventions and we have rigged up all sorts of labor saving contrivances over on the ranch.” Recalling something which for the moment had been forgotten, Jean exclaimed: “Mr. Packard wished me to invite you all to visit us as soon as you are quite settled here.”

Then with that unconscious admiration in his eyes, he concluded: “For myself I most eagerly second the invitation.” Jane’s vanity was indeed gratified. She laughed a happy musical laugh which sounded natural, although it had really been cultivated. “I am greatly flattered that you should be so anxious to entertain the Abbotts,” she told him, “since I am the only one of us whom you have met.”

“True!” he confessed, merrily, “but you know we scientists can visualize an entire family from one specimen. How could the other three be undesirable when one is so lovely? Maybe it’s because I am a blonde that I admire the olive type of beauty.”

Just why she said it Jane could not have told, unless the memory of what that awful Gabby at the station had said still rankled. Be that as it may, almost without her conscious direction she heard herself saying: “I suppose, then, that you must be a great admirer of Meg Heger?” There was a note in the girl’s voice which made the lad look up a bit puzzled. What he said in reply was both pleasing and displeasing to his companion. With a ring of sincerity he assured his listener that there were few girls finer than Meg Heger.

“I do not know her personally very well,” he told Jane. “She seems to shun the acquaintance of all young people. I sometimes think that she may believe her friendship would not be desired since she is supposed to be the daughter of that old Ute Indian, but this is not true. We in the West ask not the parentage but the sincerity of our friends. It’s through her foster-father that I know the girl, really. I often go with him to the timber line and above it, when I am not needed on the ranch. It’s a beautiful thing to hear him tell how Meg has enriched their lives.”

Then, as his direct gaze was again lifted to the olive-tinted face of the girl near him, he said frankly: “Many of the cowboys and others of our neighbors rave about Meg’s beauty. But I do not admire the Spanish or French type as much as I do our very own American girl.”

Jean did not say in words which American girl he thought wonderfully lovely to look upon, but his eyes were eloquent.

Jane could have sat there basking in the lad’s evident admiration for hours, but the position of the sun, high above them, suggested to her that something must be amiss. “I wonder why Dan and the children do not return,” she said, rising to look up the brook trail. Jean leaped to his feet and together they went around the cabin and scanned the mountain-side and the lad yodeled, but there was no response.

“Of course, nothing could have happened to them all,” Jane assured him. “They have gone farther than they planned, I suppose.” Then, turning with a helpless little laugh, she said in her most winning way (and Jane could be quite irresistible when she wished), “I have a terrible confession to make. You will have to starve if they do not return, for I have never learned to cook.”

“Great! I’m glad you haven’t, because that will give me an opportunity of shining in an art at which I excel.” The lad seemed brimming over with enthusiasm. Jane smiled up at him. He stood a head taller than she, with wide, square shoulders that looked so strong and capable of carrying whatever burden might be placed upon them.

“How did you happen to learn how to cook?” the girl inquired, and then wondered at the sudden change of expression in his handsome face. The joyful enthusiasm of the moment before was gone and in its place was an expression both tender and sad. “The last year of my little mother’s life we two went alone to our cabin on the Maine coast. Mums wanted to take our Chinaman, but I begged her to let me have her all alone by myself, and so under her direction I learned to cook. Miss Abbott,” the boy turned toward her, seeming to feel sure of her understanding sympathy, “that was the happiest summer of my life, but it had the saddest ending, for, try as I might to keep her, my little mother faded away and left us.” Then abruptly he exclaimed, as though he dared not trust himself to keep on: “Won’t you lead me to the kitchen, and when the wanderers return we will have a feast ready for them.”

CHAPTER XIX

A NEW COOK

Such a pleasant half hour was spent by these two who seemed content just to be together, Jane, with a twinge of regret, realized that the youth was idealizing her. He constantly attributed to her qualities that she well knew that she did not possess. He told her that he could understand why she had not learned to cook simply because for years she had been away at a fashionable seminary. “But now is your golden opportunity, and I am indeed lucky to be your first teacher.” That he was pleased was quite evident. “I am sure you agree with me, Miss Abbott, that cooking is as essential in a young woman’s education as painting or singing.” Then he laughed boyishly. “I’m afraid, when I am hungry that I would far rather have a beautiful girl cook for me than sing to me. Now, what is the menu to be?”

Jane looked about the kitchen helplessly. She did not wish to confess to Jean Sawyer that she had not before been in there except to pass through it to their outdoor dining-room.

“Julie and Dan were planning the meal. I really don’t know.” The situation was relieved by Jean’s asking: “May I prepare anything I can find?”

“Oh, yes, do please! It really doesn’t matter which of our supplies are used first.” The girl was glad to have the problem thus easily solved. After a few moments of ransacking, the lad looked up from a box as he asked: “Miss Jane, will you pare the potatoes?”

She shrank away before she realized what she was doing. “Oh, wouldn’t they stain my hands terribly?” Then, with her most winning smile, she held them both out to him. “You see, they haven’t a stain on them yet, and I did hope they never would have.” The boy made a move as though to take the hands in his. But he stooped quickly over the box of potatoes and said earnestly: “Right you are, Miss Abbott. They are far too lovely to mar.”

Perhaps because of associated ideas it was that he recalled a poem that went somewhat in this way: “Beautiful hands are those that do work that is useful, kind and true.” What he said was: “Suppose you set the table. I’ll make the fire and have a pot of goulash in no time. That is my favorite camp menu, perhaps because it is the simplest.”

Everything was in readiness when merry voices were heard without, and Julie, evidently believing they were unheard, said in a stage whisper: “Don’t tell Jane that we’ve been up to see Meg Heger’s hospital, will you, Dan? She’d be mad as anything.” The older lad was opening the kitchen door at that moment, and the two, who had been keeping so still in the kitchen that the surprise might be complete, could not but hear. Vaguely Jean Sawyer wondered why Jane would be “mad” because the rest of her family had been to call upon a neighbor. Glancing at her proud, beautiful face, he saw a scornful curl to the mouth which he had thought so lovely, and it was not pleasant to behold. But a moment later he had forgotten it, in the excitement that followed his discovery. Dan advanced with glowing eyes and outstretched hand. “Jean Sawyer! How glad we are to have you with us. These are the youngsters, Julie and Gerald.” The little girl made a pretty curtsy and Gerry thrust out a chubby, freckled hand, smiling his widest as he looked admiringly at the cowboy’s costume. “Gee!” he confided, “I’d like awful well to have one of those rigs. Dan, don’t you s’pose they make ’em small enough for boys?”

But it was Jean who answered. “They do, indeed, and what is more, there is one over at the Packard ranch more typical than mine, which I am pretty sure will fit you. A grandson of Mr. Packard’s was with us last summer, but he isn’t coming this year and he’d be glad to have you wear it.” Then, smiling at the older girl, he said to Dan: “Your sister, Miss Jane, has agreed to bring you all over to our place to spend next Sunday. That is a week from today.” Julie, upon hearing this, was about to blurt out her disappointment by saying, “How can she, if she’s going back East on Tuesday?” But a cold glance from her sister’s eyes made the small girl turn away with quivering lips. After all Jane was going to stay and their summer would be spoiled. Jean Sawyer had also witnessed this by-play and he felt a sense of great disappointment.

It was quite evident that Jane Abbott’s beauty was only skin deep.

When Jean Sawyer took his departure that afternoon, Dan accompanied him part way “cross-lots,” as the former lad had called it.

They crossed the brook and after climbing many a jagged boulder, began the descent on the side of the mountain nearest the wide valley in which was located the fertile Packard ranch.

These two lads, so near of an age, found that they were most congenial. When Dan confessed that his dearest desire was to become a writer of purpose fiction, Jean heartily applauded. “Great! I’d give anything if I had the ability to do something fine for this old world of ours, but, just at present, I believe I will continue being Mr. Packard’s foreman. Really, Dan, reading and studying with that man is as good as having a post-graduate course at college.”

Then apropos of nothing (or so it seemed), Jean said: “What a beautiful girl your sister is. What a pity that she has not had the love and direction of a mother. I had such a wonderful mother myself, Dan, I well know what girls and boys have missed when they lost their mothers while they were very young.”

Dan grew serious at once. Then he confessed:

“Jean, I feel as though I had known you for a long time, and so I am going to tell you my greatest problem. My sister Jane is beautiful, and before she went away to that fashionable Highacres Seminary she was as sweet and lovable a girl as any you could find, but for some reason she learned there much that was not in the curriculum. Pride of family, snobbishness, and because of our father’s position, many of her companions were so differential to her that she has come to expect it from everyone. How I wish I knew how to save Jane from herself.”

It was just as Jean had feared. He surprised himself by saying: “If she would chum with Meg Heger a while, I believe it would help her to overcome those artificially acquired qualities, for Meg is sincerely natural. But your sister would have to make the advances. Meg never will. She keeps apart by herself, and will probably continue doing so until it is proven that she is not that Ute Indian’s daughter. I know that you have met Meg, for I overheard your little sister saying that you had been there this morning.”

“Yes, we were. The children pleaded so hard that I go and see their baby lions.”

Then he told the story of the death of the mother lion to an interested listener. “I wondered why Meg Heger disappeared directly after having saved my life. Nor would she come to her home while she know that I was there. It is too bad that she shuts herself away from people who would gladly be her friends.”

Jean nodded. “That is just what she does. Last year, as I was telling Gerald, Mr. Packard’s daughter, Mrs. Delbert, and her young son were with us. When Mrs. Delbert heard the story of Meg’s devotion to her foster-parents and how she is trying to become a teacher that she might make life easier and pleasanter for them, she at once wished to make Meg’s acquaintance. We hiked up to the Heger cabin one Saturday morning, and although Meg willingly showed Mrs. Delbert her botany gardens, and her hurt animal hospital, she was so reserved and shut away from us, that we realized at once that she did not wish our friendship. Mrs. Delbert invited Meg to spend a day with her at the ranch, but the girl never came, nor have I seen her since.”

The other lad understood.

“With me she is also distant and reserved,” he said, “but when she talks to Julie and Gerald she is very different.”

Then, returning to a remark made earlier, he concluded: “My sister Jane would be greatly helped if she could see how much more naturalness is admired than cultivated poses, but she will never learn from Meg Heger, whom she considers greatly beneath her.” Then, stopping, he held out his hand. “Jean,” he said seriously, “I hope I have not given you a wrong opinion of my beautiful sister. I honestly believe that the girl she used to be still lives beneath all this artificial veneer that she has acquired at the fashionable seminary and my most earnest wish is to find a way by which that other girl, who was my dearly loved sister-pal, can be returned to me. I would not have spoken of this were it not that I am as greatly troubled for Jane’s sake as my own.”

“I am glad you told me, Dan. I, too, have faith in her. Goodbye till next Sunday.”

Dan walked slowly back to the cabin, pleased, indeed, with his new friend.

Dan found his sister Jane alone with her book on the front porch of their cabin. She looked up with a smile of welcome. “I was agreeably surprised in our guest,” she began at once, “and so, before you tease me for having described him as raw-boned and illiterate, I will make the confession that I never met a better looking or nicer mannered youth.”

“Tut! Tut!” her brother, sinking to the doorstep where earlier in the day Jean had sat, merrily shook a finger at his sister, “That is extreme praise, and I may take offense, since I consider myself good looking and nice mannered.”

The girl laughed happily. Her brother reflected that, not in many a day, had he seen her brow unclouded with frown or fretfulness.

Suddenly he said: “Jane, have you changed your mind about going East next Tuesday?” He looked up inquiringly, eagerly.

The girl flushed, then said with an effort at indifference: “I thought perhaps it is hardly fair to decide that I do not like the mountain life, after having been here for such a few days. Shall you mind if I postpone my departure until a week from Tuesday?” The lad caught the hand that hung near him and pressed it with sudden warmth to his cheek. “Jane,” he said, “I’m desperately lonesome for the comrade that my sister used to be. Won’t you give up all thought of going away and try once again to be that other girl?”

Jane looked puzzled, then she drew her hand away, saying coldly: “You are evidently not satisfied with me. I suppose that you also admire a girl who prefers to pare potatoes and stain her hands, than you do one who keeps herself attractive.”

Dan was astonished at the outburst, but wisely made no comment, though his thoughts were busy. Evidently Jean Sawyer had told his sister that he admired a girl who could be useful as well as ornamental. What would the result be, he wondered. But on the following day Jane permitted the other three to do all of the work of the cabin while she idled hours away at letter writing to her many girl friends in the East; finished her book, and started a bit of lace making which had been the popular pastime at the seminary.

At nine o’clock on Monday the stage drew up in front of their stone stairway and the discordant sound from a horn seemed to be calling them, and so Gerald hopped down to receive from Mr. “Sourface” Wallace a packet of newspapers and letters. “Oh, thanks a lot, Mr. Wallace!” the boy shouted, knowing that the stage driver was deaf, and then up the stairway he scrambled to distribute the mail. There was a letter for each of the Abbotts from their father and a tiny note inclosed from grandmother with good advice for each, not excluding Jane, whose lips took their favorite scornful curve when it was read.

But a glance at her other two letters sent her to her own room, where she could read them undisturbed. One was from Merry Starr and, instead of containing enthusiastic descriptions of the gay life at Newport, which it was her good fortune to be living, the epistle was crammed full of longing to see the wonderful West.

“Tastes are surely different!” Jane thought as she opened the second epistle, which was from Esther Ballard. In it she read a news item which pleased her exceedingly. “Jane, old dear” – was the very informal beginning.

“Put on your remembering cap and you will recall that you told me, if ever I could find another string of those semi-precious cardinal gems that you so greatly admired, to buy them at once, notify you and you would send me the money. Well, the deed is done. I have found the necklace, and, honestly, Jane, it holds all of the glory of the sunset and sunrise melted into one. They will set off your dark beauty to perfection. But I’ll have to confess that I haven’t a penny. Always broke, as you know, and so, if you want them, you’ll have to mail me twenty-five perfectly good dollars by return post.