Meg of Mystery Mountain

“Yours in great haste,

E. B.”

Jane sat looking thoughtfully out of the window. In about two weeks she would have a birthday, and on that occasion her aunt, after whom she was named, always sent her the amount needed for the gems, but in a postscript Esther had said that she had asked to have the chain held one week, feeling sure that by that time Jane would have sent the money.

Taking from her purse two bills, she put them in an envelope addressed to Esther, added a hurried little letter, stamped it and was just wondering how she would get it to the post when she saw Meg Heger coming down the road on her pony. Although she herself would not ask a favor of the mountain girl, she called Julie and requested that she hail Meg and ask her to mail the letter. Not until it was done did Jane face her conscience. Had she any right to use the tax money for a necklace? She shrugged her shoulders. What would two weeks more or less matter?

CHAPTER XX

MEG AS SCHOOL-MISTRESS

Upon arriving in Redfords, Meg Heger had at once given the letter which had been marked “Important! Rush!” to the innkeeper, who was about to start for the station to meet the eastbound train. He promised the girl to attend to putting the letter on the train himself, and thus assured that she had served her neighbors to the best of her ability, Meg went across the road to the school, only to find that her good friend, Teacher Bellows, was not to be there that day as he had been sent for by a dying mountaineer in his capacity as preacher, and had left word that he wished Meg to hear the younger children recite, and dismiss them at two, which was an hour earlier than usual.

Nothing pleased the girl more than to have an opportunity to practice the art of instruction, since that was to be her chosen life work, and a very happy morning she had with the dozen and one pupils, queer little specimens of childhood, although, indeed, several of them were beyond that, being long, lanky boys and girls in their teens. They, one and all, loved Meg devotedly and considered it a rare treat to have her in charge of the class. This happened quite often, as, in his double capacity as preacher as well as teacher, the kindly old man had various calls upon his time; some of them taking him so far into the mountains that he was obliged to be gone for days at a time.

Meg had a charming way, quite her own, of teaching, with story and word pictures. Even the master had to concede that she was more fitted by nature than he was to instruct the child mind. At two o’clock, when the young teacher dismissed her class, they flocked about her as she crossed the road to the inn.

The tallest among her pupils, a rancher’s daughter, who was indeed as old as Meg, put an arm lovingly about her as she said, “When yer through with yer schoolin’, don’t I hope yo’ll come back to Redfords an’ be our teacher.”

The mountain girl laughed. “Why, Ann Skittle!” she teased. “You will be married, with a home of your own, by the time that I am ready to teach. You are seventeen, now, aren’t you?”

Ann’s sunburned face flushed suddenly and her unexpected embarrassment caused Meg to believe that she had guessed more accurately than she had supposed. “Yeah, I’m seventeen. But I’ll be eighteen before snowfall, an’ then Hank Griggs an’ me’s goin’ to be married. He’s pa’s hired man. A new one from Arizony.”

“Then why should you care whether or not I teach the Redford school?” Meg turned at the lowest step of the inn porch to inquire. Her dark eyes seemed always to hold a kindly interest in whatever they looked upon, were it a hurt little animal or, as at that moment, a girl who had not been endowed with much natural intelligence.

Ann Skittle, again visibly embarrassed, stood looking down, twisting one corner of her apron as she said in a low voice: “Me an’ Hank is like to have kiddies an’ I’d be wishin’ you could teach ’em.”

Suddenly Meg leaned over and impulsively kissed the flushed face of her surprised companion. “Of course you’ll have little ones, dear,” she said, and in her voice there was a note of tenderness. “No greater happiness can come to any girl than just that; to be a mother and to have a mother.” She turned away to hide the tears that, mist-like, always rose to her own eyes when she thought of the mother whom she never knew. Ann, calling goodbye, walked away toward the corral back of the school where her pony had been for hours awaiting her.

When Meg entered the front room of the inn, her smile was as bright as ever. Mrs. Bently often said that it didn’t matter how gloomy the day might be, when Meg appeared with “that lighten’ up” smile of hers, somehow it seemed as though the sun had burst through, and even if things had been going wrong, they began to go right then and there. “Mrs. Bently,” the girl said, “Pa Heger told me not to come home today without the County Weekly News. It’s days overdue.”

The comely woman’s face brightened.

“Wall, I’ve found that newspaper at last,” she announced. “That man of mine didn’t have on his specks when he was sortin’ the mail, I reckon. Anyhow he stuck that paper o’ yer pa’s ’way over into Mr. Peters’ box. ’Twas fetched clear out to his ranch and fetched back agin.”

“Thanks.” Meg said brightly, as she took the paper. “It won’t matter any. I don’t suppose there’s any startling news in it.”

Half way up the mountain road Meg drew rein and listened. There was not a breath of wind stirring. The sun beat down relentlessly and heat shimmered from the red-gold dust of the road ahead. The only sounds were the humming, buzzing and wing-whirring of the multitudinous insects all about her. Then again she heard the sound which had first attracted her attention. A pitiful little gasping cry. Leaping from her pony, she commanded: “Pal, stand still for a moment. One of our little brothers is calling for help.”

Although the faint cry had instantly ceased, Meg remembered the direction from which it had come and climbed agilely down the rocks to find that one, having been dislodged, had caught a Douglas squirrel’s tail and had held it captive so long that the creature was nearly starved.

“You poor little mite,” Meg said with tender sympathy as she stooped, and, after removing the heavy stone, lifted the small creature in her hands. She held it, unresisting, for a moment against her cheek, then put it into one of her saddle bags. Peering in, she said assuringly, “Don’t be frightened. I’m going to take you to the hospital, but as soon as you are stronger, you shall have your freedom.” The bead-like eyes that looked up out of the dark depths of the bag seemed to be more appreciative than fearful. There was a quality in Meg’s voice when she spoke to the sad and wounded that soothed and comforted even though the words were not understood. “I’ll take the newspaper out,” she thought; “then his bed will be more comfortable.” And, as she did so, she chanced to see a name which attracted her attention. It was a name which had come, within the last three days, to mean much of possible comradeship to her. It was “Daniel Abbott.” Opening the paper, the girl expected merely to read an article telling of the arrival of the Abbott family at their cabin on Redfords Peak, but, to her dismay, the story that newspaper contained was of an entirely different nature. It was a list of the properties in the county that were tax delinquents. Meg learned from the short paragraph that the ten acres and “cabin thereon” belonging to one Daniel Abbott, having been for three weeks advertised as delinquent, was to be sold for taxes on August the tenth at five o’clock unless the aforesaid taxes, amounting to the sum of twenty-five dollars, should be paid before that hour.

The girl stared at the printed page, unable at first to comprehend its meaning. Then she glanced at the sun. It was at least two-thirty. But what could it mean? Surely the young man with whom she was talking but yesterday, when the children had brought him to see the baby lions, surely he had known of this and had paid the taxes. Refolding the paper, Meg started leisurely up the mountain road, but something seemed to be urging her to at least tell Dan Abbott what she had seen. Perhaps he had not paid the back taxes, and, if not, she might be instrumental in saving his cabin home for him, and yet, even as she thought of it, she was assailed with doubt. It would be impossible to reach Scarsburg, the county seat, before five unless one rode at top speed, and the Abbotts had neither car nor horse.

Meg had reached the stairway hewn in the rocks, leading to the cabin, which, for so many minutes had been uppermost in her thoughts, and she drew rein, yodeling to a tall, graceful girl whom she saw standing by a pine gazing out over the valley. Jane Abbott turned and looked down, amazed that the mountain girl should have the effrontery to yodel to her. “Just because she mailed a letter for me does not entitle her to my friendship as an equal!” Abruptly Jane turned her back and walked away toward the cabin. Meg’s face flushed and her inclination was to ride on to her own home, but she recalled the clinging of little Julie’s arms and the sweet, yearning expression in the small girl’s face when she had said, “Meg, I like you. I wish you were my sister instead of Jane. You’d love me, wouldn’t you?”

Leaping from her pony, she bade him wait for her, and, taking the paper, the girl sprang, nimble as a mountain goat, up the rocky steps. Jane had seated herself in the comfortable chair on the porch, and was reading when she heard hurrying footsteps. She looked up, an angry color suffusing her cheeks. This halfbreed was evidently going to force her acquaintance upon her. Well, she would soon regret it. But the proud, scornful words were never spoken.

CHAPTER XXI

MEG AS BENEFACTRESS

Dan and the children had gone on a hike, and Jane, being quite alone, rose and confronted the mountain girl with a cold stare that would have caused Meg at another time to have whirled about and departed, but for the sake of the other three she was willing to be treated unkindly.

“Miss Abbott,” she said, holding out the newspaper, and pretending not to notice the unfriendly expression, “there is news in here which may be of great importance to you. May I show it to your brother?”

Suddenly Jane found herself trembling from some unnamed fear. Instantly she had thought of the taxes. Perhaps, without really being conscious of it, she had read the word somewhere on that outheld paper.

She sank back into her chair, saying, almost breathlessly, “Dan isn’t here. What is it, Miss Heger? Is something wrong?”

The mountain girl pointed to the paragraph and was amazed at the effect the reading of it had upon the proud girl. There was an expression of terror in the dark eyes that were lifted.

“Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she implored helplessly. “Our father gave us the money. He told us the taxes must be paid, but I thought another two weeks would do as well as now. Dan did not know the need of haste.”

Meg, seeing that the girl, unused to deciding matters of importance, was more helpless than even Julie would have been, felt a sudden compassion for her and so she said: “If you can get the money to the county seat before five o’clock you will not lose your property.”

A dull flush suffused the dark face. “I – I haven’t the money! I – I borrowed it for something I wanted. It was in that letter that Julie gave you this morning to mail.”

Then looking up eagerly, hopefully, “Miss Heger, perhaps you forgot to post it. Oh, how I hope that you did!”

But the mountain girl shook her head. “I sent it by Mr. Bently to the eastbound train, which was due about noon. He said that he himself would put it in the mail car.”

“Then there is nothing that I can do!” The proud girl burst into sudden tears. “Father has lost everything but our home in the East, and now, now I have been the cause of his losing the cabin he so loved.” Lifting a tear-stained face to the girl who was watching her, troubled and thoughtful, she implored: “Oh, isn’t there something I can do? If I tell them I will pay it in two weeks, when my birthday money comes, won’t that do as well as now?”

Meg shook her head. “No,” she said. “This is final. They notified your father some time ago.”

Jane nodded hopelessly. “Oh, if only brother were here! But the worry would start him to coughing.”

Again the girl, who scorned tears in others, began to sob helplessly. How vain and foolish she had been to want that necklace, hoping that it would make her appear more beautiful in the eyes of Jean Sawyer.

Meg stood for one moment deep in thought. Then she said: “Miss Abbott, find your papers. Have them ready for me when I return. I’ll try to save your place.”

With that she turned and ran back to her pony, leaped upon it and galloped out of sight up around the bend.

“What does she mean?” Jane sat, almost as one stunned, for a moment, then as the command of the mountain girl recalled itself to her, she arose and went indoors to locate the papers their father had given Dan.

These being fastened with a rubber band into a neat packet, she held closely while she ran out to the brook calling Dan’s name frantically, but there was no response. Soon she heard the musical yodeling which had so filled her heart with wrath a short half hour before. Now it was to her a sound sweeter than any she had ever heard. It brought a faint hope that her father’s cabin might yet be saved. Down the stone steps she went, holding out the papers. Then and for the first time she thought of something: “But the money – I haven’t any to give you.”

Meg’s answer was: “I am loaning you twenty-five dollars from my savings, but don’t hope too much. It will be very hard for me to make Scarsburg by five o’clock, but for Julie’s sake I’ll do my best.”

“For Julie’s sake!” The words drifted back to Jane as she stood watching the pony hurtling itself down the mountain road until the cloud of dust hid it from view. She, Jane, had never done anything for Julie’s sake, and why, pray, should this mountain girl loan her own money to strangers who might never repay her, and risk her life and that of her pony, as it was evident she was doing?

Jane looked out into the heat-shimmering valley. Many times the mountain road reappeared to her as it zigzagged down to Redfords. Again and again a rushing cloud of dust assured her that Meg was still racing with time.

Returning to the porch, Jane sank down in the deep chair, keenly conscious of her own uselessness.

“Oh, what a vain, worthless creature I am! I don’t see why Dan cares for me so much; why he risked his health that I might finish my course in that seminary where everyone, everything, conspired to make me more proud and helpless.”

Then before her arose a mental picture. Meg, clear-eyed, eager to be of service in an hour of need, and more than that, capable of being, and she, Jane, had snubbed her, but for Julie’s sake the mountain girl had persevered in her desire to be neighborly.

Unable to sit still, Jane went again to the brook to call, but the children, with Dan, had climbed higher than usual and had found so much to interest them that they had failed to note the passage of time.

As there was no answer to her calling, Jane went back to the house, and, because she had to do something (she had entirely lost interest in her book), she wandered out into the kitchen. She saw on the table a pan of potatoes with the paring knife near.

Hardly knowing what she was about, Jane took the pan to the porch, and, seating herself on the step, she began most awkwardly to pare. She had heard her grandmother say that the peeling should be as thin as possible as the goodness was next to the skin. It took a very long time for Jane to pare the half dozen potatoes and she had almost resolved not to tell Dan about the taxes until she knew the worst or the best, when she heard him hallooing from the brook. Placing the pan on the step, she ran to meet him. One glance at her white, startled face assured him more than words could have done that something of an unusual nature had occurred during their absence. Catching her in his arms, he felt her body tremble. He led her back to the porch before he asked, “Jane, tell me. What has happened? Has that Slinking Coyote frightened you?”

Julie and Gerald, wide-eyed and wondering, crowded near. “Dan,” Jane clung to him as she had not since the long ago childhood, when she had so often been frightened and had turned to him for protection, “please send the children away. I want to tell you alone.”

Gerald needed no second bidding. “Come on, Julie,” he called. “Let’s go and practice on our pine tree rifle range.” He was carrying the small gun, and so away they raced. Although they were almost overcome with natural curiosity, they neither of them desired to stay where they were not wanted.

When they were gone, Jane leaned against her brother and told the story between sobs that were almost hysterical. “Oh, brother, brother! If only this cabin is saved for Dad, I will never, never again be so vain and selfish. Oh, Dan, tell me, say that you think Meg will reach the county seat before five.”

The lad found that his heart was filled with conflicting emotions. The scorn his sister’s pride and selfishness would have aroused in him at another time was crowded out by pity for her. She had suffered enough without his rebuke. Then there was the dread that the cabin might not be saved, for well he knew the sorrow its loss would bring to his father, but, above all, there was something in his heart he had never felt before, a warm glow of admiration for a girl who was not his sister. What he said was, “Jane, dear, quiet yourself. We can do nothing but wait.”

And a long, long wait they were destined to have. The hands of the clock moved slowly to four, then five and then six. Jane’s poor efforts at paring the potatoes received much comment from the children alone in the kitchen.

“Gee,” Gerald confided to his small sister, “something must have happened if it upset Jane so she didn’t know what she was doing. She surely didn’t, or she wouldn’t have tried to pare potatoes and stain those lily hands of hers.”

Try as the small boy might, he could not keep the scorn out of his voice. But Julie was more forgiving. “Gerry, don’t be too hard on Jane. She acts awfully worried about something. I don’t believe she saw a bear or anything that scared her. I think it’s something in her heart that’s troubling her. I think she’s sorry about something she’s done.”

“Well, she sure ought to be.” The boy was less sympathetic. “She’s been dirt mean to us ever since she’s been home from that hifalutin’ seminary, and what’s more, she’s none too good to Dan. I’d hate her, that’s what, if she wasn’t my sister, and if she didn’t look just like our mother. But even for all of that, I’m going to let myself hate her hard if she isn’t better to you, Jule. The way she lets you do the work, and she setting around reading novels to keep her hands white so’s folks will admire them! Aren’t you the same family as she is, and shouldn’t your hands be kept just as white? Tell me that now!”

The boy, who was holding the bread knife, whirled with such an indignant expression on his freckled face that Julie laughed merrily, which broke the spell.

“Oh, Gerry, you do look so funny! If I had time, I’d find some riggins to make you into a pirate. It could be done easy, ’cause your face looks just like their pictures and that knife would do for a dagger.”

Meanwhile, on the front porch, the two who had long watched and waited, were getting momentarily more anxious, and often Dan walked to the top of the steep stairway, down which he gazed at the zig-zagging mountain road. At last he saw a pony climbing, oh, so slowly, as though it could hardly take another step; and at its side there walked a girl. Dan leaped back to the porch and snatched up his hat. “Jane,” he said, “you and the children have your supper. I’m going up to the Heger cabin and get one of their horses. Meg’s pony is worn out, and I’m not going to have that brave girl walk all the way up the mountain, just to serve us.”

Jane did not try to detain him, and the lad fairly leaped up the road to the Heger cabin. He found the trapper, who had just returned from a ride over the other side of the mountain. “Take this hoss,” he said, when he had heard the story which fairly tumbled from Dan’s mouth. “Ol’ Bag-o’-Bones ain’t a bit tired, and he’s the best hoss I have on the place.”

Then the man held out a strong hand as he said: “Dan, boy, I hope my gal made it! She would if anyone could.”

Dan silently returned the clasp, then he mounted the horse, that was not at all what its name might suggest, but lean and wiry, as were all of the mustangs of the West, with hard muscles and a loping step that carried it down the road, sure-footed and with great rapidity. Jane heard the halloo when he passed, but she did not stir. She felt that she never could move again until she had learned the news that Meg would have for them.

And Meg, far down the mountain, looked up and saw Bag-o’-Bones, her foster-father’s favorite horse, descending with speed, and, believing it to be ridden by Mr. Heger, she wondered why, at that hour, he was in such haste. But at a lower turn of the road, she saw that the figure on the horse was that of the lad from the East, who as yet did not know how to ride as they did in the West.

Then she knew why he was coming, and for the first time in her lonely, isolated life, there was a sudden warmth in her heart. She had a real friend, she knew that instinctively, and his name was Dan Abbott.

CHAPTER XXII

MEG’S CONFIDENCE

As soon as Dan was near enough to see Meg’s face, he knew that all was well. Leaping from the back of the dusty gray horse, he went forward with both hands outheld. “Miss Heger,” he cried, and his voice was tense with emotion, “how can I, how are we ever going to thank you for what you have done for us today?”

The girl’s radiant smile flashed up at him. “Be my friend,” she said simply, and, as the lad stood there looking deep into those wonderful dark eyes, he seemed to feel that no greater privilege could be accorded him than to be permitted to be the friend of this courageous, rarely beautiful mountain girl.

But she did not give him the opportunity to voice his feeling, for at once she said in a matter-of-fact tone: “Wasn’t I lucky to reach the county court-house at five minutes to five? Pal and I have been congratulating each other all the way home.”

“Poor Pal!” Dan stroked the drooping head of the faithful little animal which had raced down the rough mountain road as he had never raced before. Then, quite irrelevantly, the youth asked: “Would you mind if I call you Margaret? It fits you better than Meg.” Instantly Dan was sorry he had made the request, for he saw the sudden clouding of the girl’s brow. The joyousness of the moment before was gone and when she spoke there was a note of sorrow in her voice. “Mr. Abbott,” she began with sweet seriousness, “I forgot when I said that your friendship would be the reward I would ask, yours and Julie’s and Gerald’s – I forgot who I am, or rather that I do not know who my parents were. My real name is not Meg. Mammy Heger called me that after a little sister of hers who had died when a baby. Mammy loved that other Meg and so it meant a great deal to her to call me by that name.” Then, sighing wistfully: “I wish I knew my real name,” she concluded.

Dan took her hand in a firm, friendly clasp as he said earnestly: “Meg Heger, I don’t care what your name is, I don’t care who your parents were. I care only to be your friend, your very best. Of course I would not wish to call you Margaret since it would be displeasing to you.”

The girl withdrew her hand, replying: “Call me Meg. I’m used to that and hearing it won’t make me think. Oh, I’ve thought about it all so long and so much!”

Then as they started walking side by side, leading their horses, the girl confided: “Next month, when I am eighteen, Teacher Bellows, Pa Heger and I are going to start on a long, hard trip. We’re going to find, if we can, the tribe that was living in the deserted mining town on Crazy Creek the year that I was brought to the Heger cabin.” How her dark face brightened, and Dan realized that he had never dreamed that anyone could be so beautiful. “If we find them, then I shall know,” she concluded. For a few moments they walked on in silence. “If they tell me I am the daughter of – ” The girl hesitated as though dreading to utter the name of Slinking Coyote, then began again, “If I am a member of their tribe, I shall live near them and help them. I shall be a teacher to their children. It will be my duty. But if, as Pa Heger and Teacher Bellows think, my parents were of a foreign race, my future will be different.”