The Ring
“I tell you I’m not going a step further—not going to ride any
further—until I stop and ‘listen in!’ This—this lit-tle ring-set,”
chokingly, “that’s why I brought it—brought it on the search.”
“But, heavens, dear-oh! I know you’re in torture about her—but it seems
like—Jove! like shooting off peas at a battleship ... a time like this.”
The nineteen-year-old boy looked distractedly at the white-faced girl,
who flung herself off her horse upon the mountainside—her eyes a “blue
day”, flinty—determined.
“But it isn’t: it isn’t just fiddle-faddle—fooling! Your ‘soft-boiled
peas at a battleship’!” She stamped her foot.
“I didn’t say anything about ‘soft-boiled’,” contradicted the youth.
“And I’m as anxious about her as you are.”
“But, look here! it isn’t wasting time.” She caught at her throat.
“Father’s—father’s new crystal, you know—more sensitive than galena!”
“Oh! I know your father is a Wizard.”
“Then—be a dear boy and do this for me,” Pemrose looked up at him,
sidelong, coaxingly; “loop this aërial around that tree.”
The boy was accustomed to find those blue eyes “too sweet for music”, as
he freakishly put it; before the agony in them and the wild suspense, he
found himself weakening.
“But—but we ought to tear right up there.” He pointed along the rough
bridle path to a steep summit above. “It—it’s on this mountain, Little
Poco, as the farmers call it, that miserable thief-animal,
kidnapper—horrible aunt—who stole Una’s picture before she stole her—has
her shack—cabin—so-o they say.”
“The farmers, three or four of them, are searching this m-mountain.”
Pemrose tried to speak calmly. “Her father has ridden—is riding—up the
other trail to the top. And we don’t know—we don’t know that she’s here,
at all, or near here. Word—word has gone out to every radio station in
this district, describing Una, asking whether any one has seen a girl on
a bay horse—so early in the morning we might be able to pick up
something, a hint of news; even—even this tiny—receiving—set—”
She looked down at her outstretched forefinger—at the amber, bakelite
ring, coiled with the hundreds of turns of hairwire; at the “radio soul”
of the great inventor’s new crystal, shining softly—softly in the early
light.
“Oh-h! I say—drop this foolishness and ride on.” The boy-aviator threw
up his hands. “See! The horses—they don’t know what to make of it.
Cartoon is looking round at me—like a nervous individual, with glasses
on.” He tried to laugh.
Cartoon was bending his stubborn Roman nose to the edge of the dark
mountain swamp now, to nibble—failing to make sense of the halt.
Revelation, long, lean, fast—shining in every hair, wet amber—rolled the
whites of his eyes, too, at his girl-rider, with a remonstrating: “Well!
aren’t we going on? Why stop here, on the edge of a black bog, where I’m
in to my hocks—the mountain before us?”
But for once, Pemrose ignored that prudent horse-sense.
“Will you stretch the wire, the antenna, out to the tree for me? Or must
I do it myself?”
She pressed the fishing-reel, coiled with two hundred feet of outdoor
antenna—upon her companion, slipped the steel creeper upon her heel,
driving its spikes into the wet ground—the radio headpiece, carved with
Camp Fire symbols, upon her head.
“Merciful—green—hop-toads!” The boy ground his teeth. “Folly—raving
folly, but I suppose I’ll do it.... Oh! so ear-rly in the morning, of
course you may pick up a murmur—dim murmur—but as for anything
important!” He shook his head—needing badly the support of the
hop-toads, as he uncoiled the bright, bronze wire upon the air. “Not six
o’clock—y-yet.” He glanced around.
Six o’clock—six o’clock on a September morning, lacking that a little,
and a girl standing, presently, with her heel in the mountain bog, with
her aërial out to a gnarled pine tree—one of the scattered pines and
maples around her—with the red of the mountain fire-weed on her hectic
lips—a little faded, a little drooping, a little yellow at the corners.
All around her the golden-rod dreamed—a shining dream.
“She’s more stubborn than you are—old Sickle Face!” The boy bent to
Cartoon’s ear, flinging his arm over the horse’s neck, as he watched
her. “This is—mulish.... Oh-h! you may come in on a whisper, I
suppose—just the parings of a whisper from one of those boiled owls
who—who sit up all night over it and keep on into daylight—I’ve
done—it—myself,” he softly hissed.
“Oh-h! hush.... Your—racket!”
[Illustration: Pemrose was standing with her aërial out to a gnarled
pine-tree.]
“Well! I like that. _My_ whisper couldn’t be heard a foot off.... Um-m!
I’ve kept the hush up long enough. Are you getting anything?” he
stormed, a minute later—a low, growling storm.
The girl amateur’s lips grew a little more faded, a little more
drooping, at the corners.
“Just a ghost—ghost of dot an’ dash,” she pleaded. “Very f-faint—far—”
“Bah! Give it up then—come on!” He jerked Cartoon’s head up. “Let’s get
going! Give up this foolishness!”
She half withdrew her heel from the black swamp—then drove it deeper,
the bog swishing around her.
“I haven’t been five minutes yet—barely five.” She glanced down at her
little gold wrist watch—calm link with normal life—it was one which Una
had given her.
“And I suppose you’ll waste another five—ten.” He resigned himself to
staring at the dim forest, pine and maple half way up the mountain side,
dark spruce above—in between the golden-rods dreaming—dreaming against
all the black spots on the horizon.
Was he dreaming with them? His heart began to creep, to creep along the
waiting minutes—as it had not crept when he felt his plane side-slipping
under him, knew that he was doomed to a fiery fall to earth.
The girl was pointing a finger at him—pointing it straight. Something
had come into her face which made his knees bend above their khaki
leggings.
“Have.... Are you getting—anything?” Only his moving lips, his stretched
neck asked the question.
A nod! A nod in which strange, bright crystals formed in the blue eyes,
to reinforce the listening one upon the finger. Above them the black
eyebrows were drawn together fiercely. The face, in its straining
effort, was pale as the meadow-sweet around.
“Then—then stick with it,” he heard himself say hoarsely: oh! he _was_
sharing the golden-rods’ dream.
The horses seemed sharing it, too—they softly snorted.
“Oh! can’t you—can’t you say a—blamed—thing?”
“_Una!..._ Our private call—I got it.” The crystals, dissolving now into
tears, rolled down a face, set as ice.
“I can’t—believe—you,” raved the boy, half silently—sullenly.
“Faintly—clearly—distinctly—I got it: six dots, four dashes, the first
time. Second—that was indistinct; I picked up ‘U’; I know it was ‘U,
di-dit-dah’! Third time, ‘S’, I think; ‘L. S: di-dah-di-dit:
di-dit-dit’! Oh-h!” The fireweed lips were trembling awfully.
“Location! Location—try to get it!” The aviator’s whisper was weird.
Silence ensued, moments—ages.
“Location—I did get it! It’s—Una. She seemed to be trying to spell out
‘Speckle’—I could only pick up a letter or two. But ‘L. S’, that was our
abbreviation for Little Speckle—Little Sister Mountain, over there;
sending a ‘radio’—a message—we always sent it, code or speech.... Oh!
she’s not here, at all—and, somehow, I knew she wasn’t all the time.
She’s on Little Speckle—at some camp on Little Sister—and she has
managed to send out a message ... Una!”
A gulf yawned between the girl and boy into which all their previous
ideas dropped—out of which rose the most wonderful sunrise they had ever
seen; they stared at each other stupidly across it.
“Oh-h! you may ride north, south, east or west, if you like—but I’m
going over there.” Suddenly Pemrose Lorry tore her spiked heel out of
the mud—out of the ground connection which had done its work.
“Oh! unhitch the antenna—quick,” she screamed.
“But—it beats me—” The boy hesitated a moment—blankly.
“Nothing did ‘beat’ you! Even if I didn’t—didn’t get the ‘location’,”
she stamped her foot, “those two letters, the bungled rest of it,
there’s only one strong station really near enough for me to pick up
anything—distinctly—with the ring. That—that’s the new one over on
Speckle Mountain, just rigged up by college professors—can’t see their
camp from here—closed a few days ago, when we rode up there.
But—now....”
She was restoring the ring to its case—that to her breast, as she spoke,
preparing to mount her horse.
“Oh! you—you may ride to the top—go to the right and follow your left
ear, if you like!” The blue eyes snapped at him impudently—as did the
girl’s crop—in the incredible excitement of the moment. “But I—”
He was going to the right, unlooping the aërial from the pine tree—in a
bewitched, protesting way.
“But, for heaven’s sake! look out _how_ you go—where you’re going,” he
cried, five minutes later, following Pemrose on horseback down the steep
trail. “Don’t—don’t try to run him downhill! Better get there late than
not at all!”
For the girl rider had started Revelation off at such a pace that he
stepped upon a rolling stone and almost slipped upon his haunches with
it, down the pebbly trail—sparks flying out, a galaxy, from his
hindfeet.
“Hold his head up. Try-y to hold his head up. Bah! going down,
Revelation will leave Cartoon in the dust.” The boy rider ground his
teeth.
“I’ll change with you, if you like!”
“Do you think I’m such a cad—such a bounder?”
But the passionate sincerity of the offer did more than anything else to
convince Treff Graham, aviator, that this whole thing was more than a
mere dream of the golden-rods.
Sparks flew in front of hoofs now—whole constellations of them—hind feet
slid, Cartoon grunted stubbornly, the white star on his forehead moody.
“Yes, going up, old Roman Nose, you could hold your own, because of
muscle; going down you’re not ‘in it’ with Revelation—not so nimble.
But, heavens! if that girl doesn’t ‘come a cropper’ before—the—bottom.”
Treffrey, stroking his horse’s throbbing neck, grunted, too, appalled;
for his girl-leader, her hand on her saddle, was whirling round on him
again and the blue triumph of her eyes in the chalky whiteness of her
face made him feel queer.
“Do you realize,” she cried—and rose in her stirrups, “do you realize
that if Una sent out that message—and I know she did—she isn’t dropping
through, as you said she would, she’s coming through?”
“By the powers o’ pluck! It begins to look as if she was _crashing
through_.” The boy-aviator rose, too, high in his saddle—and in the
moisture of his eye, as its humorous brown speck flashed, there was all
the world of difference that yawned for him between helplessly dropping
through and crashing through an enemy, colors flying—the difference
between cripple and soldier, glory and defeat.
“She—_she_ has to be gently wheeled through life—everybody looking out
for her!” hooted Pemrose—just as if she had not thought the same thing
herself. “Why! she’d make many a boy look foolish. She’s a—Girl. A Camp
Fire Girl!”
She said it again. He said it, too, when, an hour—and more—later, a hard
climb accomplished, riders standing upright, at times, forcing the
stirrups back, to help struggling horses, the top of Little Sister was
gained ... and an empty camp.
But what was this fluttering in the mountain wind, an indigo butterfly—a
bit of blue rag.
“It looks—oh! it looks as if it might have belonged to Una’s riding
habit.” The back of Pemrose’s hand struck her lips. “She—she had riding
breeches on, that color; I helped her into them when the fire broke
out—first thing handy!”
For a moment she felt as did Jacob of old when he, seeing his son’s rich
coat, thought a beast had devoured him—to what evil thing might this
fragment of blue cloth, finer than that of a girl’s sisters, testify?
“Perhaps she bit it out, gnawed it—cut it out—left it as a clue, a clue
to searchers.” Treff was cornering the fragment.
“Oh-h! do you think she could have done that?”
“If she had presence of mind to send out the message—she could.”
The boy-aviator’s face wore a look now as if the spot on which he stood,
might be holy ground.
The next moment he knew it was.
He was kneeling, bareheaded. Pemrose was sobbing wildly, kissing the
ground where among rank grasses, held down by a stone or two, were a few
drowsy wild flowers, of the sort that close sleepily at night—open in
the morning.
Dandelion, daisy, a white clover blossom, its triple leaves unfolding, a
glow of orange, a little sprig of tawny hawkweed—devil’s
paint-brush—picked behind the camp.
“Mercy! She must have looked round for them, arranged them so—so that
anybody who knew her, would know it could only be she who did it—at
least, we girls would—that she had been here—lately!” Pemrose could
hardly speak now.
“And led that awful kidnapping aunt to believe she was only playing with
them!” The brown speck in Treff’s right eye, his seat of humor, blazed
as it had never blazed before—through a mist.
He knelt, an unkempt figure, in khaki riding breeches—mud-splashed
shirt.
“But—but her little flower clock! A ‘teeny’ bit of it!” The hand of
Pemrose caught at her throat. “Oh-h! I can’t stand this. Where is she
now?”
“Wherever she is, she’s on top. And coming through!” The aviator drew
his sleeve across a wet face. “And we—we must get right after them. Just
a minute for the horses to draw breath—’twill pay! Do you—know—what this
reminds me of?”
His voice dropped with his eyes to the flowers.
“No-o.”
“My old Dad, he was such a queer fish,” the young dare-devil’s voice had
the frankness of utter emotion now, “he could have given this hor-ri-ble
step-aunt pointers on queer tricks. Was a sort of a skeptic, too, didn’t
believe much in what he couldn’t feel or see. But—but, after that last
mad escapade, when he stole your father’s record, and lay in agony out
in the Man Killers trail, while you took care of him, he said to
himself—then—that there must be Something Very Fine back of it all—finer
than the girl herself—see?
“He began to think and search—and find. My old Dad!”
Across the fragment of a flower clock the girl’s hand stole into the
boy’s.
He covered it with his other palm—held the finger tips for a moment
against his lips—then leaped to his feet, to search anew.