HUNTING FOR THE BOX
Jean Sawyer, troubled indeed, because Jane Abbott continued to avoid him,
changed his plan and decided not to remain at the cabin until late
afternoon; and so, bidding them goodbye, he went down the road toward
Redfords, leading the string of horses. The other young people climbed
the stone stairway.
"Oh, Jane, what a perfectly adorable place," Merry exclaimed when the
door had been unlocked and the young people had entered the long rustic
living-room. "I like it so much better than those elaborately furnished
cottages at Newport. They are too much like our own homes, but this cabin
savors of camping out. It's a wonderful spot for a real vacation."
"It surely is different," Jane agreed as she led her friend into the
comfortable front bedroom which they were to share. Then she confessed:
"I do like it much more than I had supposed that I would when I first
came. Honestly, Merry, I feel differently inside. When I believed that
those poor little children had been driven out of their home by my
temper, and might never be found, something inside of me snapped;
something that had been holding me tense, I can't explain it, and I felt
as though I had been set free from--well, free from myself. Self, that is
it," she continued bitterly, "planning for oneself, living for oneself,
living for one's selfish pleasure and comfort, slowly but surely deadens
sympathy and love and understanding." Then taking from the table near the
wide window a delicate miniature, Jane handed it to her companion. "That
is my mother's portrait."
"How beautiful she must have been." Merry glanced from the sweet pictured
face to that of the girl at her side. "You are so alike. It is only the
expression that is different. I am sure that anyone in sorrow would have
gone to your mother for comfort."
Jane nodded. "I am not like that--yet; but Dan thinks that if we choose a
model and keep it ever in thought, we will grow to be like that person or
ideal, and I have chosen my mother."
Silently Merry kissed her friend and then replaced the miniature on the
table. Jane had indeed changed that she could talk, even with her best
friend, of these things of the soul.
A moment later there came a jolly rapping on their closed door, and Bob
called: "Come and see where I am going to hang out, or hang up rather."
Merry and Jane went out on the front porch with the lad, who was brimming
with enthusiasm. "Oh, aren't you afraid a bear will devour you in the
night?" his sister inquired, when she saw a hammock hung between two
pines.
"Hope one will," Bob replied jubilantly. "What a yarn that would be to
tell when I get back to college."
Practical Julie was wide-eyed. "Why, Bob Starr," she exclaimed, "how
could you tell about it after you were all eaten up?"
"Which reminds me," Bob said irrelevantly, "of a story about the South
Sea Islanders. A missionary was teaching them that they must take great
care of their bodies, as they were to rise on the last day, and one
native asked what would become of his poor brother who had been eaten by
a tiger."
"Bob, dear," Merry rebuked, "you ought not to joke about such things. It
does not matter what we believe ourselves, or how outlandish we consider
the beliefs of others, we ought to treat them with respect."
"Yes'm," Bob pretended to be quite contrite. "I'm willing to change the
subject if the next subject is something to eat."
"I'll get the lunch." Julie, leaning on the staff Dan had cut for her,
limped toward the kitchen, but her sister caught her and put her on the
porch cot and piled pillows under her head. "Indeed not, little lady."
Jane kissed her affectionately. "It's your turn now to pretend you are a
princess and I will be your maid of waiting."
Impulsively Julie threw her arms about her sister's neck and clung to her
as she whispered: "Oh, Janey, I love you so!" And Jane, when she arose,
felt in her heart a greater happiness than had ever been there when she
had received the adulation of the admiring girls at Highacres.
"And I will be your aide!" Merry, who had gone to the top of the stone
stairway to look down at the road, skipped back to say, and, then, arm in
arm, these two friends went, and from their merry laughter it was quite
evident that Jane's efforts as head cook were being mirthfully regarded
by both of them. However, when the others were called to the back porch,
where the table was set, they found as appetizing a lunch as could be
desired. But underneath all her apparent pleasure Jane was sorrowing. She
never again could be Jean Sawyer's friend. He would not want her
friendship if he knew how she had felt about her father's sacrifice, but
he must never, never know.
Jane glanced often at Dan during the lunch. Never had she seen him look
so wonderfully happy. He had expressed his regret that Jean had departed
before his return and exclaimed: "But the horse I rode also belongs to
Mr. Packard. I wonder why he did not wait for it."
"Mr. Packard told him to leave one horse with us," his sister explained,
"and more if we wished, but I thought one would be all you would want to
care for." Dan was pleased.
He said: "We have made good friends since we came here. It is hard to
realize that it is not yet a fortnight ago." Julie chimed in with: "Yep,
haven't we?" Then, beginning with one small thumb to count, "First
there's Meg Heger. Next to Janey, she's the nicest girl I guess there
is." Merry pretended to be quite offended. "Little one, you surely are
honest. You ought always to say present company excepted."
"Oh, I do like you, Merry, awful much. You can be third. Will that be all
right?" The golden haired girl laughed gaily: "Of course, I was only
teasing, dear. Now who comes next?"
"Jean Sawyer and Mr. Packard and then the little spotted pony, and then
my mountain lion baby." The small girl put down her hand as she
concluded. "I guess that's all the new friends I've made here in the
mountains."
Bob suddenly thought of something. "Say, Dan, there is a sort of mystery
about that trapper's daughter, isn't there? I understand that at first
the old Ute Indian pretended he was her father in order to get the girl
to give him money, and that this morning when he was dying he confessed
that he was not."
Dan nodded. Then turning to Jane, he said: "I am sure that Meg would not
wish it kept a secret from any of us and so I will tell you what the old
Indian said. His speech was almost incoherent, but we understood him to
say that Meg's father had died long ago. He must have told the squaw in
Slinking Coyote's hearing that he had hidden a box which he wished given
to his little girl when she was older, but he must have died before he
could tell where he had placed the box."
"How I wish it could be found," Jane said earnestly, "for without doubt
it would contain identification papers. Although it is a great joy to Meg
to know that she is not that old Ute's daughter, she will have to seek
out the squaw who took her to the Heger cabin before she can know who her
father really was."
"And even then I doubt if she would discover much," Dan remarked. "My
theory is that Meg's father was a miner who had brought the
three-year-old little girl to Crazy Creek Camp and had remained there for
a time, even after the exodus. In fact, he must have stayed until the
Indian tribe took possession of the otherwise deserted camp. Perhaps just
after they came he was seized with a fatal illness and left his little
one with the kindly old squaw, probably telling her to give the child to
a white family, since that is what she did."
"I believe you are right," Jane agreed. "It all sounds very reasonable to
me. But why do you suppose Meg's father remained at the camp after
everyone else had left? Do you think he had some clue to the whereabouts
of the lost vein?"
"That we cannot tell," Dan said. "He may have remained to hunt for it."
Then, rising, he smiled around at the group. "What shall we do this
afternoon, or do you want to just rest?"
"Nary for me!" was energetic Bob's reply. "I want to hunt for Meg Heger's
hidden box. Who will go with me and where shall we begin the search?"
Bob's enthusiasm was contagious. "I believe that I now understand the
real reason why the Ute Indian hung around the Crazy Creek Camp," Dan
told them. "He knew that the miner had hidden a box, an iron one, of
course it must be, and he has been searching for it, probably believing
it to contain whatever money Meg's father had."
"Of course," Bob agreed. "That's as clear as daylight. We have clues
enough, but the thing is to try to reason out _where_ would be a likely
place for the miner to have hidden it."
Gerald, not wishing to be left out of so interesting a discussion, wisely
contributed, "Maybe under the floor-boards in the cabin where he lived,
or some place like that."
Dan smiled down into the chubby freckled face of his small brother as he
replied: "One naturally might suppose so, but I do believe, Gerry, that
the old Ute suspected the same thing and has been ransacking those cabins
all these years. I would be more inclined to look in some of the dug-outs
or tunnels where, if he were a miner, Meg's father may have been
searching for the lost vein."
While the boys talked Jane and Merry had been washing and wiping the
lunch dishes. When they joined the excited group on the front porch, Bob
stood up, saying, "Shall we start now?"
Jane also arose, but, happening to glance down at Julie, she saw tears
brimming the small girl's eyes and that her lips were quivering.
Instantly the older girl sat on the cot beside her, and, putting her arms
about her little sister, she said compassionately: "Is your ankle hurting
again, dearie? Since you cannot go, I will stay here with you and read to
you. Don't feel badly, Julie. Your foot will soon be well; long before
they find the box, I am sure of that."
The small girl leaned happily against her sister and looked up at her
with adoration in her dark violet eyes. Then Merry announced: "This is a
boys' adventure anyway. We girls will sit on the porch and have the best
kind of a time all together."
And so the boys departed, armed with stout staffs and guns and calling
that they would surely be back by supper time.
But when at last they did return, they had discovered nothing, and Bob
was eager to start at dawn the next day and search everywhere around the
Crazy Creek Camp.
Merry shuddered. "Goodness, don't!" she ejaculated. "It was ghostly
enough before, but now that we know that old Ute is entombed in one of
those cabins, you couldn't get me within a mile of the place."
Bob retorted: "Well, we hadn't invited you girls, had we? So you need not
refuse with such gusto! We're going to take the horse, so that Dan can
ride most of the way." But that lad interrupted: "You mean that we will
take turns riding. Although I have been in the Rockies so short a time my
cold is entirely cured, and, as my lungs had not really been affected, I
am soon to be as husky as you, Bob."
"Of course you are, old man," Bob put a hand on his friend's shoulder,
"but soon isn't now. I won't go unless you will ride, when I think it is
the best for you to do so."
"All righto! Anything to be agreeable." Dan sank down on the porch step
as though he were rather tired after the climb they had just completed.
Bob then turned to the girls. "You maidens fair need not awaken. We'll be
as quiet as--as----" Dan smilingly offered: "How would Santa Claus do? He
steals around very softly, or so tradition has it." Bob laughed. "I was
going to say as a thief in the night, but I don't like to use a simile
which suggests an unpleasant picture, and it's the wrong time of the year
for Santa Claus."
"A mouse is awful quiet," Julie put in.
"Or a cat. They have cushions on their feet," Gerald added.
"We'll be as quiet as all of them," Bob said, "and tomorrow, young
ladies, we are going to bring home the box."
When the boys returned from Crazy Creek Camp they were weary and
disappointed, but not discouraged, or so Bob assured the girls. It was
quite evident that they were much excited, however, but what had caused
it they would not reveal. When Merry asked if their search had taken them
close to the tomb of the old Ute Indian, Bob had looked over at Dan and
had asked, "Shall we tell?"
The older boy nodded. "Why, yes, we might as well. Sooner or later they
are likely to find it out."
The young people were seated about the hearth in the living-room of the
cabin resting and visiting before they retired for the night. Gerald's
eyes glowed with excitement. "Julie won't sleep a wink if she knows about
it. She'll be skeered as anything, Julie will."
The small girl nestled closer to Jane and looked up at her inquiringly.
"What does Gerry mean, Janey?" she asked. "Are they trying to tease us?"
But Dan replied seriously, "No, it is the truth that something has
occurred since we were last at the Crazy Creek Camp, and the discovery of
it did startle us. Although we planned to give the tomb-cabin a wide
berth, we at once went to a position where we could look at it. You girls
can imagine our surprise, and I'll confess it, horror, when we saw the
front door standing wide open."
"Oh-oo, how dreadful!" Jane shuddered. "What did it mean? Had someone
opened the door out of curiosity, do you suppose, and what a shock it
must have been when they found that dead Indian on the floor."
Dan and Bob exchanged curious glances. Then the latter spoke up: "It is
just possible that the old Ute was not really dead and that he revived
and left the cabin."
"But how could he?" Merry looked thoughtfully into the fire. "As I
remember, the door was barred on the outside."
"True!" her brother replied, "but we also found a loose board on the
floor, which had been lifted, leaving a hole large enough for the Ute to
have crawled through. After that he may have opened the door to procure
his pick-ax and shovel, as both were gone."
Julie glanced fearfully at the dark windows of the room, and Gerald said,
almost gloatingly: "There, I told you so! Julie is skeered. She thinks
the old Ute may be prowling around our cabin this very minute."
"Mr. Heger ought to be told about this," Dan had started to say, when
Gerry grabbed his arm. "What's that noise?" he whispered. "Someone is
outside. I hear 'em coming."
Dan and Bob were on their feet at once. There was indeed the sound of
footsteps outside the cabin, then there came a rap on the door. Julie
implored: "O Dan, don't! don't open it! Get your gun first!"
The older boy hesitated for a moment, but in that brief time his own
fears were set at rest, for a familiar voice called, "Daniel Abbott, may
I speak with ye?"
The boy's tenseness relaxed and he threw open the door with a welcoming
smile. "Mr. Heger, we're mighty glad to see you! Come in, won't you?"
The mountaineer glanced at the group about the fire, but shook his head.
"No, I thank ye. I jest came down to ask if a big brown mare I found
whinnyin' around my corral is the one Mr. Packard loaned ye? I would have
asked Meg hed she been to home, but she went, sudden-like, to Scarsburg,
along of some school-work, and she'll put up at the inn there for several
days."
Dan thanked the mountaineer for the trouble he had taken, adding, "There
really is no place here to keep the horse. I suppose that is why it
wandered up to you. As soon as Jean Sawyer comes again, I will send it
back."
The mountaineer assured the boy: "No need to do that, Danny, if you'd
like to keep it. I'll jest let it into my corral along of Bag-o'-Bones.
They seem to be actin' friendly enough." The man was about to leave, when
Dan said, "Mr. Heger, we boys have been over to Crazy Creek Camp today
and we are rather puzzled about something."
He then told what they had seen, ending with, "We're afraid that old Ute
came to life, and that he will continue to blackmail Meg."
The mountaineer shook his head, saying: "No, Danny, Slinkin' Coyote'll
never more be seen in these parts, lest be it's his ghost. Arter Meg tol'
me what had happened, I went down to put the sheriff wise. He reckoned
'twouldn't do, no-how, to leave the body unburied, and that the county'd
have to tend to it."
The girls uttered sighs of relief. Jane rose, when the mountaineer had
departed, saying, "Well, now, I guess we can all sleep without fear of a
visit from Slinking Coyote."