JANE'S RESOLVE
The lunch was prepared, the potatoes had cooked quite to pieces, but
still the children did not return. Jane was becoming terrorized. She was
startled when there came a sharp rapping at the front door. Running into
the living-room, her hand pressed to her heart, she saw standing there a
tall, uncouth-looking mountaineer. She believed, and rightly, that it was
the trapper who lived near them.
He began at once: "Dan Abbott came to our place nigh an hour ago sayin'
the young 'uns was lost. Meg and me wasn't to home, but my woman said
she'd tell whichever of us come fust and we'd help hunt. Ben't they back
yet?"
Jane shook her head. "Oh, Mr. Heger," she cried, "what do you suppose has
happened to them? Do you suppose they have been harmed?"
It was unusual for the kind face of the man to look hard, but at that
moment it did so. His voice was stern. "Dan Abbott said 'twas you as let
them young 'uns go to hunt for him, not knowin' whar he was. Wall, Miss,
I'll tell ye this: If 'tis they ever come back alive, yo'd better keep
them young 'uns a little closer to home. Thar's no harm if they stay on
the road. Nothin's likely to happen thar, but 'way off in the wilderness
places, wall, thar's no tellin' what may have happened. I'll bid you good
day."
Here was still another of her fellow men who scorned her. Of course, Dan
had not told him the whole truth, that she had said she hoped she never
again would see the children. Oh, why had she said it? She knew, even in
her anger, that she had not meant it.
She sank down on the porch and buried her face in her hands. Would this
torture never end? The odor of something burning reached her and, leaping
to her feet, she ran to the kitchen and pushed back the kettle of
potatoes that had started to scorch. There was no one to eat the lunch
she had spread on the table and at two o'clock she began to mechanically
put things back in their places, when she heard a step on the porch.
Running into the living-room, hardly able to breath in her great anxiety,
she saw her brother stagger in and fall as one spent from a long race on
the cot-bed they were using as a day lounge. For a moment he lay white
and still, his eyes closed. Jane knelt at his side and held his limp
hand. "Brother. Brother Dan," she sobbed, "you are worn out. Oh, won't
you stay here and let me be the one to hunt? I would give my life to save
the children. Dan, brother, open your eyes and tell me that you forgive
me and believe me." A tightening of the clasp of the limp hand was the
only answer she received. Jane, rising, brought water, cold from the
brook, and when she returned the lad was sitting up, his elbows on his
knees, his face bent on the palms of his hands.
He looked at her as she handed him the goblet of water and when he saw
the lines of suffering in her face, his heart, that had been like
adamant, softened.
"Sister," he took her hand as he spoke, "I well know we none of us mean
what we say in anger, and yet the results are often just as disastrous. I
have sent word to the Packard ranch for them to be on the lookout for our
little ones. Luckily, high on the mountain, I came upon the cabin of a
forest ranger where there was a telephone to Redfords and Mrs. Bently
said she would relay the message to Mr. Packard." Then he rose, coughing
in the same racking way that he had on the train. "Now I am rested, I
must start out again."
Jane clung to him, trying to detain him. "Oh, brother, please eat
something. I had lunch all ready. Even yet it is warm." The lad smiled at
her wanly, but shook his head. "I couldn't swallow food, and there are
springs wherever I go."
Then turning back in the doorway and noting that Jane had flung herself
despairingly on the lounge, he said kindly: "Jane, dear, we often are
taught much-needed lessons through great suffering. You and I will each
have learned one of these if our little ones are found." Then, holding to
a staff for support, he again started away.
For another two long hours Jane sat in the porch chair as one stunned.
She had lost hope. She was sure Julie and Gerald, of their own free will,
would not stay away so long. They must have been attacked by wild animals
or kidnapped by that Ute Indian.
When the clock struck four, Jane leaped to her feet. She could no longer
stand the inactivity. She simply must do something. Going to her room,
she again unpacked her trunk and took from it a riding habit of dark blue
tweed. She donned the neat fitting trousers that laced to the ankles, her
high riding boots, the long skirted coat and a small visored cap. None of
her costumes was more becoming, but not once did Jane glance in the
mirror. She had but one desire and that was to help find the children.
She was about to write a note to tell Dan that she also had gone in
search of Julie and Gerald when she again heard a step on the porch, a
light, quick footfall which she had not heard before. In the open doorway
stood Meg Heger. Without a word of greeting she said: "The children, have
they been found?"
"No, no!" Jane cried. "Dan was here two hours ago, and, oh, Miss Heger,
he is all worn out. I am as troubled about him, or nearly, as I am about
Julie and Gerald. He told me to stay here for the children might return,
but it is so long now. They left at nine this morning. I am sure they
will not come back alone and I, also, must go in search of them."
The mountain girl's dusky eyes had been closely watching the speaker and
she seemed to sense that the proud girl was in no way considering
herself. "Jane Abbott," she said seriously, "it would be foolhardy for
you, an Easterner, unused to our wilderness ways, to start out alone. You
would better heed your brother's wishes and remain here."
But the girl to whom she spoke was beyond the power to reason. "No! No!"
she cried. "Oh, Meg Heger, if you are going, I beg of you let me go with
you."
The mountain girl thought for a moment, then she said: "I will leave word
for whoever may return." Taking from her pocket the notebook and pencil
she always carried, she tore out a page and wrote upon it:
"Jane Abbott and Meg Heger are going to the Crazy Creek Camp in search of
the children. The hour is now 4:30. If we think best, we will remain
there all night."
The Eastern girl shuddered when she read the note, but made no comment.
"Let us tack it on the door after we have closed it," she suggested.
This was done, and taking the stout staff Dan had cut for her, Jane
followed her companion, whom she was glad to see carried a gun.
Silently they climbed the natural stairway of rocks that ascended by the
brook until they reached the pine which, having fallen across the stream,
formed a bridge. Meg uttered an exclamation and turning back she said:
"We are on the right trail, Jane Abbott. There is a torn bit of your
sister's red gingham dress on the tree. She evidently feared to walk
across and so she jumped over."
Jane's eyes glowed with hope. "How happy I would be if we were the ones
to find them, although, of course, the important thing is that they shall
be found."
Meg often broke through dense undergrowth, holding open a place for Jane
to pass, then again she took the lead, beating ahead with her staff to
startle serpent or wild creature that might be in hiding.
Jane, though greatly frightened, followed quietly, but now and then, when
back of Meg, she pressed her hand to her heart to still its too rapid
beating. They came to a wall of almost perpendicular rocks which the
mountain girl said would save them many minutes if they could scale. How
Meg climbed them alone and unaided was indeed a mystery to the watcher
below. The toe of her boot fitted into a crevice so small that it did not
seem possible that it could be used as a stair, but with little apparent
effort the ascent was made, and then, kneeling on the top, Meg leaned far
down and pulled Jane to a place at her side.
At last they came to what appeared to be a grove of poles so straight and
tall were the pines. They were on a wide, slowly ascending mountainside.
The ground was soft with the drying needles and it was easier to walk.
Jane commented on the grove-like aspect of the place, and Meg at once
told her that they were called lodge-pole trees because Indians had used
them as the main poles in their wigwams. "It is the Tamarack Pine," the
mountain girl said, and then, as the ground was level for a considerable
distance, she walked more rapidly, and neither spoke for some time. Jane
was wretchedly unhappy and she well knew that she never again would be
happy unless the children were found.
"Redfords Peak is one of the lowest in the range," Meg turned to say when
they had left the pole-pine grove and were climbing over rugged bare
rocks which in the distance had looked to Jane unscaleable, but Meg, in
each instance, found a way. At last they stood on a large flat rock which
formed a small plateau. "This is the left shoulder of the peak," Meg
paused to say, "and it is here that we begin the descent to Crazy Creek
mine. See, far down there beyond the foothills is the Packard ranch. The
buildings are large, but they do not appear so from here." Jane, sitting
on a rock to rest, at Meg's suggestion, looked about her, eager to find
some trace of the lost children. From time to time they had both shouted,
but there had been no answer save the startled cry of birds, or the
scolding of squirrels, who greatly objected to intruders.
Suddenly the Eastern girl uttered an exclamation of surprise. "Why, there
is the stage road not very far below us. Wouldn't it have been easier for
us to follow that?"
Meg nodded. "Much easier, but I had been told that the children started
away along the brook, so if they were to be found we would have to hunt
in the way they had gone."
"Of course, and we did find that torn bit of Julie's dress."
Meg looked at her companion eagerly. "Are you rested enough now to start
down? It is an easy descent to the road and we will follow it directly
into the camp." As she spoke she glanced anxiously at the sun. "It is
dropping rapidly to the horizon," Jane, having followed the glance of the
other, commented.
Silently they began the descent. Jane found it much easier than she had
supposed and before long they were on the stage road which zigzagged
downward. They had not gone far when Jane said: "What a queer color the
sunlight is becoming." She turned to look toward the west and uttered an
exclamation. "Meg!" she cried, unconsciously using the mountain girl's
Christian name, "the sun looks like a ball of orange fire and the
mountain range is being hidden by a yellow haze. What can it mean?"
"It means that a summer storm is brewing. Let us make haste. We will soon
be under the shelter of the pines and just below them is the Crazy Creek
camp. We will keep dry in one of the old cabins. These sudden storms,
though often cloudbursts, are of short duration."
There was a weird light under the great old pines, but in the spaces
between they saw that clouds were rapidly gathering close above them.
Then a vivid flash of lightning almost blinded them. Instantly it was
followed by a crash of thunder which seemed to make the very mountain
rock. Big drops of rain could be heard pelting among the trees, though
few of them could be felt because of the densely interwoven branches. Meg
drew her companion close to one of the great old trunks.
"It isn't safe under trees, is it?" Jane's face was white with fear. Her
companion's matter-of-fact voice calmed her. "As safe as it is anywhere,"
she commented. "It won't last five minutes and we won't be much wet."
The flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder were incessant and the
road out of which they had scrambled became for a moment a raging
torrent. "I've been struck," Jane cried out. "I know I have! I feel the
electricity pulling at my hair."
Again the calm voice: "You are all right. That is because we are so near
the cloud. The air is charged with electricity."
The storm was gone as quickly as it had come, but there was a roaring,
rushing noise near. "That's the Crazy Creek. It floods for a few moments
after every cloudburst. Quick now, let's make for the shelter of a cabin.
The camp is just below here." Meg fairly dragged Jane out from under the
pines. The light was brighter and the Eastern girl saw beneath her a
scene of desolation, but before she could clearly define it, Meg had
dragged her into an old log cabin. There was a joyous cry from within. It
was Gerald shouting, "Meg, you've come. I knew you would."