or meaning except that he was eager, excited, and happy. But suddenly he
stopped as though fearing that some wanton wind would carry his voice to
the lone man who was probably then breakfasting.
Ken was following the trail that had been made by the Washoe Indians
from the cañon, when they went over to Lake Tahoe to fish, but at last
the boy left it and broke through the sagebrush and other tangled
growths and began climbing a trailless way toward the highest mountain
near Woodford’s, which rose bare, gray, grim, lonely, forbidding.
There were times in the ascent when Ken came to a sheer wall, higher
than his head, and, to scale it, he took off his shoes, knotted the
strings, flung them over his shoulder, and then went up, clinging to
crevices with his toes and finger-tips.
It was lucky that Dixie, the little mother of them all, could not see
just then, the brother she so loved, for he was often in most perilous
positions, where a single slip would have sent him hurtling on the
jagged rocks far below. But his desire to reach the goal of his dreams
gave him strength and skill, it would seem, and soon he reached the
first small plateau and there he sat, the sun at its zenith assuring him
that it was noon. Taking the inevitable sandwich from his pocket, he ate
it hungrily. Then he stretched out on the flat rock, conscious of
strained muscles and glad of a moment’s rest. But it wasn’t long before
he had leaped to his feet and rejoiced to find that, around the
outjutting rocks, there was a belt of scraggly low-growing pines. To
these he could cling and make greater progress. How near was he to the
camp, he wondered. Suddenly he paused and listened intently.
A gunshot rang out so close to the boy that instinctively he dropped to
the ground, pressing close behind a boulder. What could it mean? Was he
nearer the camp than he had supposed? Had the bandit, or whoever was in
hiding, seen him or heard him? This was possible, as but a moment before
he had slipped, displacing some loose stones that had rattled noisily
down the mountain-side.
Or, if he had caused a motion among the dwarf pines to which he was
clinging, as he made the ascent, he might have been taken for a skulking
coyote or a mountain-lion.
Almost breathlessly the lad waited, listening, watching, but he heard
nothing and no one came. Fifteen minutes passed before he dared to go
on, and even then he did not stand erect, but crouched, keeping hidden
by the stunted growths about him.
This was the big adventure that his boyish heart had yearned for, and
the real element of danger but enhanced his joy in it.
He was wondering how much farther he would have to go before he saw
signs of a camp, when suddenly he rounded a denser and higher clump of
trees and found himself looking directly into a clearing on a small
plateau, which was protected on three sides, the fourth opening toward
the lake. Darting back under cover of the low-growing pines, Ken peered
out and beheld a rude structure that was neither cabin nor wigwam, but a
shelter made of green branches. The campfire in front of it was still
smoldering, proving that either the man was not far away, or that he had
not long been gone. Then a terrible fear smote the heart of the lad.
What if that had been the camper’s last meal on the mountain! What if he
had now departed, not to return!
Just at that moment another shot rang out, the sound reverberating from
the cañon below. The camper was evidently hunting for game. Indeed he
probably had nothing else to eat, though lower down and near the lake
there were rushing streams in which the little mountain trout could be
caught in abundance.
The lad hardly knew what to do. He feared it would not be wise for him
to go boldly into this unknown man’s camp while he was away, for if it
should be one of the “dangerous characters” occasionally described by
the Genoa “Crier,” who sought a hiding-place in the high Nevadas, the
lad would want to slip away unobserved.
He decided to remain under cover until the camper had returned. Luckily,
Ken had not long to wait, for a nearer shot told that the hunter was
approaching, and in another moment a tall, sinewy, broad-shouldered
young man swung into view, a small deer flung over his shoulder.
His brown hair was long and his face nearly covered with a beard.
Indeed, at first glance, he looked as though he might be a very
dangerous character, but just as Ken had made this decision, the young
man, little knowing that he was being so closely observed, began to sing
in a tenor voice that carried to the heart of the listener the
conviction that, whatever might be the reason for his hiding, it was not
because of an evil record.
However, he did not leave his place of observation at once. He watched
as the young giant dropped the small deer upon the ground, stretched his
arms out as though to rest them, and then disappeared in his pine
shelter. A moment later he reappeared without the gun, and carrying a
long sharp knife. Kneeling by the deer, he prepared to skin it.
Silently the lad drew nearer, but so intent was the camper upon his
occupation that he did not hear a footfall nor a sound of any kind until
the boy spoke hesitatingly, “I say, mister, I’m awful good at skinning
creatures. Couldn’t I help?”
The young man, who had believed himself to be alone near the top of an
almost unscaleable mountain, leaped to his feet, amazed. His keen gray
eyes swept over the very small figure of the barefooted boy, and then,
to the unutterable joy of the lad, his hands were seized and a voice he
knew and loved was fairly shouting: “Ken Martin, old pal; I’ve been
wondering how in time I could get word to you that I was—well, sort of a
neighbor of yours. I fully intended to drop down into Woodford’s soon
and hunt you up, but I’m mighty glad you called first, so to speak. Sit
down, old man. But wait; I’ll get you a drink of aqua pura from my
near-by sparkling fount. You look petered out, as though you had climbed
to near the end of your strength.”
The boy drank long of the water which was given him in a folding cup,
and then, as he sank down on the ground in a truly weary heap, he
gasped, “I say, Mr. Edrington, what-all are you doing up here?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
KEN’S OLD FRIEND
“Ken, you’ve been doing some growing since we put the highway through
your cañon two years ago.” The young man, with folded arms, stood
smiling down at the boy, who grinned back as he replied with enthusiasm,
“If I can keep right on till I’m big as you are, I’ll like it mighty
well.”
“I believe you’ll make it,” Frederick Edrington declared as he seated
himself upon a boulder near and continued to look approvingly at the
lad. “You remember what I used to tell you about getting what you want?”
The boy nodded his red-brown mop of hair. “Yeah,” he said, lapsing
unconsciously into the speech of the mountaineers. “First fix a definite
goal, it doesn’t matter how far ahead or how rough the road in between,
and then keep going toward it.”
“Even if you slip back two steps for every one that you forge ahead,”
his companion put in.
Ken laughed. “Gee, I hope it won’t be as hard as all that for me to get
to be a civil engineer.”
The eyes of the older man lighted. “Still holding that for a goal, boy?”
he asked, his voice showing his real pleasure.
Ken nodded. “Bet I am,” he replied.
“Worked hard at math?” was the next query. “Pretty quick at doing sums?”
Ken flushed. “I don’t know as I’m a crackerjack at it, but I told Miss
Bayley all about how I want to grow up to be just like you, and when she
found I wanted to get along faster in arithmetic, she stayed after
school to help me whenever the sums were extra hard. I say, Mr.
Edrington, our new teacher, she’s a trump!”
The young civil engineer, who had been leaning back, hands locked behind
his head, sat up with sudden interest.
“Kind of a thin, skinny, old-maid sort of a person, is she?” he asked
with a smile lurking away back in his gray eyes.
“Indeed she is not!” Ken retorted loyally. “Miss Bayley, next to my
mother, is the most beautiful woman that ever lived at Woodford’s or
anywhere in all the world I guess. Even queens couldn’t be nicer, and
she isn’t thin or homely, though I guess she is pretty old.” Then he dug
his bare toes in the dry pine-needles as he added, looking at his friend
speculatively, “I guess she’s nearly as old as you are.”
Mr. Edrington’s amused laughter rang out. “Poor girl, if she’s that
ancient, she’d better be saving her pennies, for she’ll soon be ready
for the Old Ladies’ Home.”
Ken, solemn-eyed, watched the speaker. “She isn’t that old,” he said. “I
know, for there’s an old folks’ home over toward Genoa, but the people
are bent and sort of hobble and lean on sticks when they walk. I guess,
come to think of it, maybe Miss Bayley isn’t what you’d call real old
yet.” Then his face lighted with admiration. “Gee, but she’s a good
sport, though! She held the pig for me the first day she came to our
house while I made the pen, and she didn’t squeal at all.”
“Lucky pig!” the young man commented.
This went over the head of the boy, who remarked laughingly, “The pig
didn’t think so. He wriggled so hard, trying to get away, and you just
should have heard him squeal. But, gee, didn’t that prove teacher is a
brick? Most girls, except Dixie, would have said they wouldn’t even
touch a little pig. They aren’t much good, girls aren’t, except Dixie
and—well, Carol, she’s doin’ better.”
Mr. Edrington steered the conversation into channels in which he was
interested.
“Any newcomers down at the inn?” he inquired, looking closely at the
lad. The boy shook his head. “Don’t think so,” he said, “none that I’ve
heard of. Why?”
“Well, I was hoping that there were none,” was the non-committal reply.
Then he added, “Open an ear, old pal, for if you swear to secrecy, I’m
going to tell you why I’m here.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die if I ever do tell,” the boy promised so
solemnly that the young man wanted to smile, but thought best to accept
the oath as seriously as it had been made.
“Well, it sounds foolish, I know, but I’m hiding from an aunt of mine
who wants me to marry an heiress, and since the girl herself agrees with
my aunt, I knew my only safety lay in flight. Everywhere I went I was
pursued by this elderly relative, who, having brought me up since my
parents died, thinks that she owns me body and soul. I do feel a sincere
depth of gratitude toward her, but prefer to pay it in some other way
than by marrying the girl of her choice, an alliance with whom, I have
been assured every day for the past year, would greatly add to my fame
and fortune.”
As he paused the boy looked up sympathetically. “Gee, I don’t wonder you
hid,” he commented. “You wouldn’t catch me getting married. I’d heaps
rather go to sea, maybe to China, or do something exciting.”
“H-m! A very sensible decision, my lad, and yet the sea of matrimony,
I’ve been told, is not without its exciting adventures.” Then the civil
engineer laughed. “Romance is a little beyond your comprehension, and
I’m glad it is. It will be a relief to hear about something else for a
time. I’m not in love, never was in love, and don’t believe I ever shall
be in love.”
Why was it, at that very moment, and quite without will of his own,
Frederick Edrington saw in his memory a slim young girl standing
silhouetted against a gleaming morning sky, with arms outflung and
curling brown hair blown about a face so lovely that it had haunted him
every hour, waking or sleeping, that had passed since he had first
beheld the vision?
“I say, Ken,” he suddenly remarked, “that new teacher of yours, has she
soft curly, brown hair, and does she wear a khaki hiking-suit—short
skirt and bloomers?”
The boy nodded, then exclaimed as he suddenly recalled something: “Gee
whiz! Mr. Edrington, I clean forgot it was teacher who started me out on
this hunt for you. ’Course she didn’t know it was you, but the other
morning, when she climbed to the top of the Little Peak trail to see the
sun rise, she saw a camp-fire, and she asked me if I could guess who
might have made it. I sort of hoped it was a sheep-rustler, and Miss
Bayley—gee, but she’s a sport, all right—let me out of school early that
day so I could go up and see who was there, and then it was I saw smoke
over here, and thought I’d climb up and see who it might be. I found a
piece of a letter in the ashes that day, and one word was ‘engineering.’
It made me hope,—how I did hope,—maybe it was you,” then, triumphantly,
“and it was.”
“Rather is, son,” was the reply. Then the young man rose as he remarked.
“Wish you could stay till the snow falls.”
The boy’s eyes opened wide. “Mr. Edrington,” he exclaimed, “you aren’t
going to stay up here all winter, are you? Why, you’ll be frozen stiff.”
The young man laughed as he knelt to skin the small deer. But he spoke
with decision. “I shall stay in this impenetrable fastness until I hear
that the lovely Marlita Arden has married a certain Lord Dunsbury, who
really wants her, or wants her millions, I don’t know which, nor do I
care. Marlita thinks that she loves me, but nevertheless she will soon
decide that it is better to have a titled spouse than a humble engineer,
and until she does reach that decision the name of Frederick Edrington
will be found among those reported missing; missing, anyway, from
fashionable Washington society, where he has had to be more or less
active for the past two years.”
“Well,” Ken said rather wistfully, “if you’re going to stay, I kind o’
wish I could stay, too, but I don’t know how Dixie could get on without
me to bring the wood and make the fires, and—” The boy’s face suddenly
brightened, and, leaping up, he did his wild Indian dance. Then, landing
in front of the astonished onlooker, he concluded with a whoop: “I say,
Mr. Edrington, if you want to hide, I know where’s the best place, and
you could be right with me, with us, I mean.”
“Where?” the young man was curious.
“In our loft bedroom. Dixie and Carol’d just as soon sleep down-stairs,
and you could sleep up there and have a rope-ladder that you could draw
up, and no aunts could ever find you. Then, between stages, you’d be
safe enough and could go where you’d like. Oh, I say, Mr. Edrington,
will you come?”
The young man held out his big hand and grasped the smaller freckled
one. “Maybe later I’ll take you up on that,” he said, “but at present
I’m using this location as a problem in mining engineering—just for
practice-work, old man.” Then he smiled speculatively. “But I’ll promise
this: If the lovely Marlita has not wed this Lord Dunsbury by the time
the first snow comes, I’ll drop down to Woodford’s, and take up my abode
in your loft room, and thanks, old pal, for wanting me.”
Then, as it was mid-afternoon, the boy thought he’d better be starting
back, and the engineer pointed out a much easier way of descent, which
he had discovered. “I’ll come next Saturday again, Mr. Edrington. Is
there anything I can pack up for you?”
“Yes, son. Bring me a Reno paper if you can get hold of one, and a book
to read, history preferred; and, by the way, kid, remember your
hope-to-die promise. You might tell your teacher that a hairy old hermit
named Rattlesnake Sam lives on the mountain, and that he it was who
built the fire that she saw.”
The boy grinned his appreciation. “All right,” he said, “I’m game.” Then
he started away, looking back with a longing to stay, but his loyal
little heart knew that Dixie would have need of his services, and so he
hurried down the trail and reached Woodford’s in half the time it had
taken to make the ascent.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“RATTLESNAKE SAM”
“Teacher, Miss Bayley.” The boy who spoke was standing on the doorstep
of the small cabin near the inn.
“Why, Ken, good-morning. You are up very early, aren’t you,” the young
woman who had opened the door exclaimed in surprise. Then, with sudden
anxiety, “Is anything wrong at your home? Are Dixie, Carol, and the baby
all right?”
The boy’s freckled face was beaming, and about his manner there was
something suggestive of suppressed excitement. “Oh, yes’m, thank you,
teacher. ’Tisn’t about the girls I have come.” Then, almost with
embarrassment, he twisted one bare foot over the other and looked down.
He had sworn an oath to Frederick Edrington that he wouldn’t tell any
one who the camper on the peak had been, and it was hard, very hard for
the son of Pine Tree Martin to tell anything but the square and honest
truth.
Miss Bayley, watching the boy, was indeed puzzled. “Dear,” she said
kindly, placing a hand on his shoulder, “come in, won’t you? I’m sure
you haven’t had breakfast yet. Please stay and share mine with me.”
The boy’s red-brown eyes lifted quickly. “Oh, no’m, teacher, thanks; I
couldn’t do that. I told Dixie I’d be back, and she’ll be waiting, but
I—I wanted to tell you that I found the—the man who had made the
campfire that you saw.”
Miss Bayley was interested at once. “Oh, Ken,” she said, drawing the lad
within and closing the door. “Surely you can spare a minute to tell me
about him. Was he a sheep-rustler or a train-robber or a bandit, or
whatever it was you hoped he would be?”
The boy shook his mop of red-brown hair and looked away to hide the joy
that was in his eyes when he remembered who it had been that he had
found. “No’m, Miss Bayley! He said that he was a hermit, and that his
name was—er—Rattlesnake Sam.”
“Oh, how interesting, Ken,” the girl-teacher exclaimed. “I’ve always
loved to read stories about the West; perhaps that was why I was so
eager to come when I was free to do as I pleased; and one of the things
that fascinated me was the way the men changed their names. I often
wondered what had happened in their lives to cause their comrades to
call them the strange things they did. Of course Dick Sureshot, Broncho
Bill, and names like that are easy to understand, and ‘Rattlesnake Sam’
merely means, I suppose, that this old hermit has killed a great many
rattlers. He is a very, very old man, isn’t he?”
“Yes’m, Miss Bayley. That is, no’m, I mean. I guess he isn’t a hundred
yet.”
The girl-teacher laughed. “Ken,” she said, “it’s plain to see that you
were terribly disappointed to find merely a hermit when you had hoped to
trail a sheep-rustler. Confess now, you are disappointed, aren’t you?”
Miss Bayley insisted that the boy look at her, and when he did, she
found herself puzzled at the glow that his eager eyes held. But, before
she could question him further, the lad was saying, “Miss Bayley,
teacher, the old hermit said he wished he had something to read, and
that’s why I came over this morning. After school this afternoon he’s
coming halfway down the trail, and I’m going half-way up, and I said I’d
ask you to loan me a book for him.”
“Oho, so your old hermit can read! Well, I’m glad to hear that.” Then
the girl-teacher turned toward the book-shelves as she said
meditatively, “I wonder what kind of books old hermits like best. One
about snakes, do you suppose? I sent for one after Mrs. Enterprise
Twiggly told me that it was hard for a tenderfoot to tell a stick from a
snake just at first. Now, whenever I go out, I take along the book, but
as yet I haven’t met a snake.”
“No’m, you’re not likely to,” Ken said; “not till spring comes again.”
While he spoke the boy’s eyes roved about, and suddenly he saw a large
volume lying on the window-seat. In it was a mark, for indeed, it was
the book Josephine Bayley had been reading but the evening before.
Seizing it, he read the title, then lifted an eager face. “Oh, teacher,
this one will be just right if you can spare it.”
The tone of the young woman expressed her mingled surprise and doubt.
“Why, no, Ken, an old hermit would not care for Wells.”
But the boy persisted, “Yes’m, teacher, he would. Rattlesnake Sam said
he liked history best.”
“Very well, dear,” Miss Bayley replied meekly. Then she added, “Suppose
you take along this new current-events magazine that just came
yesterday. Perhaps your old hermit would like that, too.”
“Oh, thank you, teacher, Miss Bayley!” How the red-brown eyes were
glowing! “An’ I’ll tell him that you sent ’em, and he’ll be just ever so
careful of them.”
“I’m sure that he will. Good-by, my boy.” Then for a moment the girl
stood in the open doorway, watching the bare brown legs that fairly flew
down the trail. Turning back to complete the preparation of her
breakfast, she found herself trying to picture what the old hermit
looked like. “Perhaps he is some dry-as-dust professor, who is studying
fossils and rocks. He probably had a long gray beard, a leathery,
wrinkled face, and kindly blue eyes that are near-sighted.” Then she
sighed. Perhaps even Miss Bayley was a little disappointed that the
builder of the campfire that had so interested her had proved to be so
old and fogyish. “Well, what does it matter? I probably shall never see
him,” she thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AN UNWELCOME GUEST
As Ken descended the trail leading to his log-cabin home, he was
surprised to see a horse and buggy just leaving the drive. In it was no
other than the banker from Genoa, who was so loved by the Martin
children. He did not seem to see the boy, who hurried on down the trail,
his heart filled with dread lest the keeper of their income had been
there to report that once again it had diminished.
This fear was confirmed, or so he believed, when he saw Dixie run out of
the house and toward him, an expression on her face which plainly told
her brother that her heart was perplexed or dismayed.
“Dix, what’s the matter? Is the money all gone? I say, Sis, if it’s
that, don’t take it hard. I can go to work driving sheep over to the
Valley Ranch any day! Mr. Piggins said so last week.”
“’Tisn’t money,” the girl replied, smiling almost tremulously, “It’s
something different.” Then she glanced toward the open door of the cabin
and drew her brother farther away, but he paused and looked back. “Is
that Carol crying in there? Why don’t you tell me what’s happened? I
can’t understand at all.”
As soon as they were out of hearing, the small girl told the story of
recent events. “Just after you had gone up to see teacher,” she began,
“I was cooking the porridge when Carol called that Mr. Clayburn was
driving in, and that that horrid Sylvia was with him. Carol hadn’t
finished dressing yet, and so she was up in the loft, looking out the
little window.
“I ran to the door, and, sure enough, that was who it was. Mr. Clayburn
seemed to be terribly worried about something, and that peaked little
girl of his looked as though she’d ’most cried her eyes out.
“When the buggy stopped, he left little Sylvia on the seat, and he came
in and said: ‘Dixie Martin, I’ve come to ask you to do me a great favor.
I’m in deep trouble, and no one at this hour can help me as much as you
can.’ Of course I said, ‘Mr. Clayburn, I’ll do just anything I can’; and
he said, ‘I knew you would, Dixie.’ Then he told me that his wife had
been taken suddenly and very seriously ill, and that she was in a Reno
hospital, and that he would have to stay there for a time to be near
her, and that he wanted to leave Sylvia with us. Oh, Ken, I just had to
say that of course we would take her, even though I knew how Carol feels
about her, and so that’s what happened. It’s Sylvia in there crying, and
Carol’s up in the loft. I climbed up to tell her ’bout everything, and
she said I needn’t expect her to come down-stairs as long as that horrid
snippy Sylvia Clayburn is in the house. She declared she’d stay up there
and starve unless I’d take her breakfast up to her. Oh, Ken, what shall
we do? You can’t blame Carol, ’cause you know Sylvia was mean and horrid
when our little sister was in her home.”
The older brother was indeed puzzled.
He did not blame Carol, for she had been most unkindly treated by the
mother and daughter. “I guess we’ll have to just do what we can, Dix,”
he said. “Mr. Clayburn’s one of the best friends we’ve got, and for his
sake we’ll have to put up with that—that little minx of his.”
Dixie had been looking thoughtfully down into the sunlit valley. She
could see a group of white buildings partly hidden by cottonwood trees.
In her gold-brown eyes was the far-away expression which often suggested
to Miss Bayley that the soul of the girl was beholding a vision. The
boy’s gaze followed hers. Then he turned toward his sister as he said
gently: “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to remember if
Grandmother Piggins ever said anything that would help us. Aren’t you,
Dix?”