TWO COURAGEOUS GIRLS
Half an hour later the two girls were in the saddle, cantering
toward the distant mountains.
“Isn’t it good to be alive on a day like this?” Margaret exclaimed
as she gazed over the wide desert that was gleaming white in the
early afternoon sun. “Somehow, when everything is sparkling and
seeming to rejoice, I just can’t be skeered of a bear or even an
outlaw that may be lurking on Second Peak.”
“I love the desert,” Virginia declared, “but then, I have always
lived here. I do believe that I will feel smothered and as shut in
as a bird in a cage if you and I go east to boarding school next
winter.”
The two girls were riding side by side. A mile ahead of them the
Seven Peak Range loomed rugged and uninviting.
“Yes, I suppose that boarding school will seem strange to you,”
Margaret continued the conversation, “and probably the chatter of so
many girls will make you dizzy just at first. It did me, for
although I had never lived in as silent a place as this, I had been
an only child, unused to the merriment of many girls, but one soon
becomes accustomed to it.” Then suddenly she turned toward her
friend with eyes that glowed. “Oh, Virg,” she exclaimed, “before we
do go, I will write to Mrs. Martin, she’s the principal and such a
dear, and ask her if we may reserve the big, sunny corner room that
overlooks the orchard. There are three single beds in it and so you
and Babs and I can be roommates.”
Virginia laughed. “Megsy,” she said, “we are letting our
imaginations run riot. We are like the old woman who counted her
chickens before they were hatched. Here we are spending the money
that we hope the mine will bring to us when, as yet, the location
papers have not been recorded.”
“But they will be, won’t they?” Margaret asked, turning questioning
eyes toward the speaker. “Surely in a short 24 hours no one else
will discover the place when it has been there for centuries
undisturbed.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Virginia said, “but here’s where we
go single file, Megsy. The trail is very steep in places. Don’t try
to direct Star. Let him climb as he wishes and he will carry you to
the old hut in safety.”
“How dark it is in the canyon,” Margaret said as she looked ahead
with a shudder. “No one would dream that the sun is shining so
brightly out on the desert.”
“You’ll get used to the dimness in a minute and then you will see
many interesting things,” her friend assured her. Megsy did not
reply but she sincerely hoped that the interesting things would not
be a bear nor the rumored outlaw.
Virginia had been right. As soon as their eyes became accustomed to
the dimness of the canyon after the glaring sunlight on the desert,
Margaret did see many things that interested her. This was not the
trail they had ascended on the day of the storm.
“It is a shorter way,” Virginia had said. “I am so eager to reach
the old hut at least an hour before sunset that we may make
ourselves comfortable before the night settles down.”
The trail in some places seemed perilously steep to the eastern girl
and how glad she was that Virginia was riding ahead, for, she did
not wish her friend to know how truly terrorized she was, and there
were times when she even closed her eyes tight and clung to the
pony. Luckily her trust was not misplaced, for Star, being
accustomed to mountain trails ascended slowly and without stumbling
until the wider upper trail was reached. There, Margaret once again
breathed freely. Then to her surprise Virginia swung around in her
saddle and called merrily, “Bravo, Megsy! You took that climb like a
true Westerner. Honestly I expected any moment to hear you protest
that you simply couldn’t make it.”
Margaret was half tempted to explain that she had closed her eyes
tight that she might not see the sheer descent below her, but she
decided not to tell at present. She was pleased with Virginia’s
praise and hoped that in time she would be courageous enough to
deserve it.
“Just another turn or two and then we will see the hut among the
pines,” Virg called over her shoulder when suddenly Margaret
whispered, “Hark! Did you hear a noise?”
They drew rein and listened intently, but heard and saw nothing.
However, when they started on again, a lithe, cat-like creature
leaped from near jutting rocks, darted ahead of them up the trail
and then disappeared.
Margaret was terrorized. She had seen Virginia reach for her small
gun, and then, as though seemingly on second thought, replace it
allowing the creature to escape.
“What was it, Virg, and why didn’t you shoot it?” she inquired.
“It was only a small lion,” the western girl replied, “and it was
more afraid of us than we were of it.” Margaret doubted this
statement, but said nothing.
Then Virginia added. “My brother Malcolm does wish me to shoot them
whenever I see them because they prey upon our young calves, but I
didn’t this time because I do not wish anyone who might be near to
know of our presence.”
This was not very reassuring to the eastern girl, for it suggested
that Virginia believed that someone might be lurking near whose
closer acquaintance they would not wish to make. This was truer than
either of the girls dreamed.