THE CHARCOAL MAKER
Peggy and Jo Ann continued to wait silently for the stealthy appearance
of the bear. Myriads of tiny stars winked down at them as they watched
the full round moon sail slowly across the deep sapphire sky. Now and
then the chirp of a near-by cricket or the croak of a frog could be heard
above the constant splashing of the river.
In their hasty preparations for the bear hunt they had forgotten their
sweaters, and now they shivered a little, both from excitement and the
chill mountain air. The jagged edges of the rock felt anything but
comfortable, and their muscles ached from sitting in one position so
long. Jo Ann felt dizzy from trying to watch the light high on the
mountain side and the dark shadows below her at one and the same time.
Was there some connection between this new mystery and the mystery of the
blue-eyed boy? she wondered.
When the girls felt they could keep still no longer, Juan stepped out
from the shadows and called up to them in Spanish, “The bear no come
tonight.”
Jo Ann shook her head. “No, I don’t think he’s coming either. Come on,
Peg,” she said, turning around on the ledge. “Let’s get down and stretch
our legs.”
Stiffly the two girls scrambled down the pole and began kicking and
stretching in an effort to relax their cramped muscles.
Juan began jabbering rapidly in Spanish, and Jo Ann stopped a moment to
listen. “The bear no have _hambre_ tonight,” he told her.
She gazed at him questioningly. “_Hombre?_ Man?” she repeated. “_No sabe_
[I do not understand].”
Juan shook his head and began rubbing his hand over his stomach. “No—no
_hombre_, _h-ambre_.”
Jo Ann’s face broke into a smile, “Ah, _sí_,” she replied, then turning
to Peggy she explained: “He’s trying to tell us that the bear isn’t
hungry tonight.”
“I guess he’s right,” agreed Peggy. “Anyway, I’ve had enough. I’m going
to the house.”
She started off but had only gone a few steps when she realized Jo Ann
was not following. “Aren’t you coming, Jo?” she called to her.
“Yes, in a minute. I want to ask Juan about that light.” Pointing to the
light, she asked, “What is it, Juan?”
“Ah, that. It is the light of a _carbonero_.”
“But what is a _carbonero_?” she asked again.
Juan rattled off more Spanish, but Jo Ann shook her head.
“Oh, well, I’ll ask Florence,” she said to herself, then turned to follow
Peggy. “_Buenas noches_, Juan,” she called back to him. “Tomorrow night
we watch again, _sabe_?”
Juan nodded his head, “_Sí_, señorita.”
The two girls hurried back to the house, and on entering they found
Florence and her mother fast asleep. They quickly slipped into their
pajamas and snuggled up under the warm blankets. Peggy, worn out from
their long vigil, soon fell asleep, but Jo Ann kept wondering about the
light. Why was it there? And why did it flare up and die down as it had?
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that it had
something to do with the blue-eyed boy. She would climb the mountain the
next day and find the answer to these questions, she decided. If that
really was a signal light, she was going to find out what it was all
about. Finally, when the faint rose of dawn was beginning to show in the
east, Jo Ann drifted off to sleep.
It seemed to her that she had scarcely closed her eyes when she was
conscious of someone calling, “Jo, Jo, wake up. If you want any breakfast
you’ll have to hurry.”
There was a strong aroma of coffee and the clatter of dishes being placed
on the table. Jo Ann opened her eyes and stared around in surprise as she
saw Peggy putting the finishing touches to the breakfast table and
Florence helping her mother to her chair.
She sprang quickly out of bed. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner? I didn’t
mean to sleep so late. I don’t know what made me——”
She stopped suddenly. The events of the night before flashed through her
mind: the bear hunt, the mysterious light, the trip of investigation she
had planned up the mountain. If she were to accomplish all she wanted to
do today, she had no time to waste.
After a brief sketchy toilet, she slipped into her place at the table and
began eating rapidly, scarcely conscious of the food she was putting into
her mouth. In spite of Peggy’s and Florence’s pointed remarks, she ate in
unruffled silence, her mind apparently a million miles away. “Jo’s on the
trail of another mystery,” Peggy laughingly remarked to Florence and Mrs.
Blackwell.
Just then Jo Ann looked up and asked, “What does _carbonero_ mean,
Florence?”
“A maker of charcoal.” Florence smiled. “I know why you’re asking that
question. Peggy told me all about your mysterious light and how you
killed the big bad bear.” She laughed teasingly, then added, “That light
was just from a charcoal maker’s fire.” Jo Ann felt a wave of
disappointment sweep over her. She had been so sure there was some
mystery about the light and that it would lead her to the blue-eyed boy,
and now Florence said it was only the light of a charcoal maker’s fire.
“Every now and then an Indian family will go up in the mountains and stay
there several days to make charcoal; then they carry it to the villages
to sell.”
At these words a sudden new idea leaped into Jo Ann’s mind. It was so
simple that she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before.
“Girls, I believe I’ve solved the mystery!” she exclaimed. “That Mexican
family of the cave have gone up there on the mountain to make charcoal.
I’m on their trail again.”
“I shouldn’t wonder but that you’re right,” agreed Florence. “That would
explain why those two boys were gathering wood the other afternoon. They
were going to use it to make charcoal.”
Jo Ann burst out impulsively, “I’m going up there on the mountain and see
if that really is our family of the cave. Who wants to go with me?”
“I think you’re probably going on a wild-goose chase, but I’ll go with
you,” Florence replied. “It’ll not be any easy matter to locate the
family, even if we can see the smoke from their fire.” She turned to her
mother, “You don’t object, do you, if we go up there?”
Mrs. Blackwell hesitated a moment, then answered, “Oh, I think it’ll be
all right for you to go if you’ll be very careful and be back before
dark.” She smiled over at Jo Ann. “I know you’ll never be satisfied till
you find out if your blue-eyed boy’s up there.”
“It won’t take us long,” Jo Ann said confidently. “That light didn’t look
as if it were very far away.”
Florence and her mother exchanged amused glances, and then Florence
remarked, “We’d better take some lunch with us. It’s lots farther than
you think, Jo.”
“I’m not going,” spoke up Peggy. “I’m going to stay here with Mrs.
Blackwell.”
Jo Ann sprang up from the table. “Well, let’s get busy this minute and
get our work done and get started.” She began stacking the dishes
hurriedly.
A few minutes later she was washing the dishes so vigorously that
Florence prophesied there wouldn’t be enough left unbroken to set the
table for supper. In a surprisingly short time they had finished the
dishes, packed the lunch, and were ready to start.
“I believe I’ll carry the gun along,” Jo Ann remarked. “We might see a
rabbit or squirrel—or something.”
Soon the two girls were winding their way up a donkey trail that led up
the mountain side. From the very first they kept stopping now and then to
scan the mountain for the smoke from the charcoal maker’s fire.
Finally Jo Ann cried triumphantly, “I see it! Look, right up there!”
“Yes, that’s it!”
Both girls began searching for a path leading toward the spiral of smoke.
“I know they couldn’t have climbed up this steep place,” Jo Ann remarked.
“They’d have had to be human flies to do that. That old grandmother and
the little children couldn’t possibly have made it up here.”
“Well, the only thing to do is to follow this trail a little farther and
see if we can’t find some trace of the way they did go.” Florence started
along the path, Jo Ann close at her heels.
“What on earth made them go to such an outlandish place to make their
charcoal, Florence? It looks as if they could’ve found a much better
place.”
“Well, you see, the Indian has no way to cut his wood except with a
machete—that’s just a big, long butcher knife. He hunts for the fallen
limbs and trees that don’t require much chopping.”
“Believe me, if I were a charcoal maker, I’d hunt an easier place to
reach than that.”
After they had walked for some distance without noticing any sign of
another path leading up the mountain, Jo Ann called, “Say, I believe
we’ve gone too far. We must’ve missed their path. That smoke’s back of us
now.”
“You’re right. So it is. We’ll have to turn around and go back. If we
don’t find that path soon, I think we’d better go back home. The sun is
terrifically hot now.”
They began retracing their steps, searching more carefully than before.
“That family would’ve been bound to leave some sort of a trail,” Jo Ann
kept saying.
When at last they reached the spot where they had first seen the smoke,
Florence said in a discouraged tone, “How about giving it up and going
back home now? I’m tired and hot.”
“Not yet,” Jo Ann urged as she wiped the perspiration from her forehead.
“Let’s sit down in the shade of this cliff and rest for a while, and then
we’ll feel more like going on.” She dropped down on the ground and leaned
back against the cool rock.
Wearily Florence followed her example and began fanning herself with her
hat.
After she had rested a few minutes, Jo Ann rose, saying, “I’m going to
take another look around here while you rest awhile longer.”
She wandered down the trail a short distance beyond the cliff, searching
for a place where it would be possible to climb up the mountain side. “If
we can’t find their path, then I’m going to find another way to get up
there,” she told herself determinedly.
A few minutes later she started up the steep bank, steadying herself now
and then by catching hold of the scrubby bushes growing out of the
crevices of the rocks. After climbing about twenty-five or thirty feet
she found herself on a rocky ledge above the cliff.
Her eyes suddenly began to twinkle. “I believe I’ll slip around this
ledge till I’m right above Florence and drop a pebble or two on her, just
for fun.”
As she was slipping quietly along the ledge she heard a faint moaning
sound. She stopped instantly and listened. “What on earth is that? Sounds
like someone in distress. Just suppose it’s a wild animal!” She strained
her ears again to listen. Once more the moaning sound floated down to her
a little more distinctly.
“That’s a human being!” she told herself excitedly. “I believe it’s more
than one person. Sounds as if there must be several in distress. I wonder
if it could be that family from the cave in some kind of trouble.”
She leaned over the edge of the cliff and called down excitedly,
“Florence! Oh, Florence!”
“Where are you?” Florence called back in a surprised voice.
“Right over you.”
Florence stepped out hastily and stared up at Jo Ann. “How did you ever
manage to get——”
“Did you hear that queer moaning sound a minute ago?” Jo Ann broke in.
“Why, no—what——”
“I believe someone’s in terrible trouble. Come on up here and let’s see
if we can find them. Be sure to bring the gun.”
“How can I get up there?” Florence asked hesitatingly.
“Go down the trail a little way, and I’ll show you.”
In a few minutes Jo Ann was helping to pull Florence up the bank. No
sooner had she reached the ledge than Jo Ann ejaculated, “Listen! There’s
that sound again.”
Florence’s eyes stretched to their widest as the cry of distress reached
her ears.
“Mercy! That’s awful,” she murmured, low voiced.
“That sound’s coming from right up there!” Jo Ann pointed almost straight
above. “Come on, I believe we can get up around this way.”