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IN BLUE CREEK CANON
BY ANNA CHAPIN RAY
AUTHOR OF "HALF A DOZEN BOYS," "HALF A DOZEN GIRLS," ETC.
NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
_Printed and Electrotyped by_
ALFRED MUDGE & SON, BOSTON.
[Illustration: "A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on
skates."]
If you've wronged him, speak him fair.
Say you're sorry and make it square;
If he's wronged you, wink so tight
None of you see what's plain in sight.
When the world goes hard and wrong,
Lend a hand to help him along;
When his stockings have holes to darn,
Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn.
* * * * *
Stick to each other through thick and thin;
All the closer as age leaks in;
Squalls will blow, and clouds will frown,
But stay by your ship till you all go down!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
CONTENTS.
I. A COUNCIL ON SKATES
II. TO WELCOME THE COMING GUEST
III. THE EVERETT HOUSEHOLD
IV. ON THE CROSS-HEAD
V. THE MEETING IN THE WATERS
VI. MARJORIE'S PARTY
VII. JANEY'S PROPHECY
VIII. IN THE DARK
IX. CAMPING ON THE BEAVERHEAD
X. UP THE GULCH
XI. "SWEET CHARITY'S SAKE"
XII. HOME WITHOUT A MOTHER
XIII. AT THE NINE-HUNDRED LEVEL
XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE OLD STORY
XV. MR. ATHERDEN
XVI. THE COMPLETED STORY
XVII. THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNEXPECTED
XVIII. UNDER ORDERS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on skates."
"He cautiously moved away a few inches along the beam."
"His lamp extended in one hand, while with his other he held his cane,
which he was poking about in the soft, sticky mud."
IN BLUE CREEK CANON.
CHAPTER I.
A COUNCIL ON SKATES.
A strong southeast wind was blowing up the canon and driving before it
the dense yellow smoke which rolled up from the great red chimneys of
the smelter. To the east and west of the town, the mountains rose
abruptly, their steep sides bare or covered with patches of yellow pine.
At the north, the canon closed in to form a narrow gorge between the
mountains; but towards the south it opened out into a broad valley,
through which the swiftly rushing creek twisted and turned along its
willow-bordered bed. A half mile below the town the creek suddenly
broadened into a little lake that was now frozen over, forming a sheet
of dazzling ice, upon which a quartette of boys and girls were darting
about on skates.
"Ugh!" gasped one of the boys, as a sudden gust of wind, coming straight
from the east, brought the stifling cloud in their direction; "I'm glad
I'm not up in town this afternoon. It's getting ready for a storm, I
think, from the way the smoke comes down; and they must be catching it
all, up there."
"Oh, dear!" sighed the girl with whom he was skating; "if it storms
'twill be sure to be more snow, and spoil the ice. It's too bad, for we
get so little skating out here, and it's almost time to go home now.
Just see how low the sun is getting!"
"Never mind, Marjorie," said the boy, as he paused to breathe on his
cold fingers; then held out his hand to her once more. "We'll have one
more go across the pond, anyway, for there's no knowing when we'll have
another chance. You take Allie, Ned, and we'll race you, two and two,
over to that largest stump. Come on, and get into line. One! two!
_three!_"
Away they flew, the bright blades of their skates flashing in the long
slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, and their eyes and cheeks
glowing with the cold air and rapid exercise. Marjorie and her attendant
knight were the first to reach the goal, and turned, panting, to face
the others as they came up to them.
"That was just fine!" exclaimed Allie's companion, as he dropped her
hand and spun around in a narrow circle which sent the chips of ice
flying from under his heel. "Don't let's go home just yet, 't won't be
dark for an hour anyway, and we can go up in fifteen minutes. I'll race
you over to the other side and back again, Howard, while the girls are
getting their breath."
"You don't mind being left, Allie?" And the taller boy glanced at the
girls.
"All right, just for once," said Allie; "then we really ought to go up,
Howard; mamma wants us to be home in good season to-night, for dinner is
going to be early, so papa can get the train down."
"Is your father going away again?" asked Marjorie, as the girls skated
idly to and fro, waiting for the boys to join them. "I thought he came
in from camp only this morning."
"So he did," answered her friend, burying her small nose in her muff for
a moment, as she faced the cutting wind. "He's only going down to
Pocatello to-night, and out on the main line a little ways, to meet
Charlie MacGregor, our cousin that's coming."
"Yes," nodded Marjorie, in acquiescence; "I remember now; I'd forgotten
he was coming so soon. What fun you'll have with him, Allie! I wish I
had a brother, or cousin, or something."
"Perhaps I shall wish I didn't have both," said Allie, laughing. "I
don't know how he and Howard will get on. I think Howard doesn't want
him much; but I'd just as soon he'd be here."
"What's he like?" queried Marjorie curiously.
"I haven't much idea; I've never seen him," said Allie. "Papa saw him
when he was east last summer, and we have a picture of him taken ever so
long ago."
"Who's that--Charlie MacGregor?" asked Howard, skating up to them at
that moment. "He's not much to look at, Marjorie, if his picture's any
good. He has a pug nose and wears giglamps, and I've a suspicion that
he's a fearful dude. He'll be a tenderfoot, of course, but he'll get
over that; but if he's a dude, we boys will make it lively for him."
"Howard, you sha'n't!" remonstrated his sister, loyally coming to the
defence of their unknown cousin. "It must be horrid for him to lose all
his friends and have to be sent out here to relations he doesn't know
nor care anything about, just like a barrel of flour." Allie's metaphors
were becoming mixed; but she never heeded that, as she went on proudly:
"And besides, we're MacGregors as much as he is, and mamma says that no
MacGregor was ever rude to a cousin, or to anybody in trouble."
"Good for you, Allie!" shouted the younger boy, as he stopped in the
middle of a figure eight to applaud her words. "You're in the right of
it; but you needn't think you'll ever keep Howard in order. How old is
this lad, anyhow?"
"Half way between Howard and me," replied Allie, as they started to
skate slowly up the creek towards home, and Howard and Marjorie dropped
a little in the rear. "He was thirteen last summer, and papa says he's a
real, true musician. He'll bring his own piano with him; but I don't
know where he'll find room to put it, for our house is full as can be,
now. Then he sings, too,--at least, he used to,--in a boy choir. Haven't
you seen his picture, Ned? It's homely, but it looks as if he might not
be so bad."
"Where's he coming from?" asked Ned.
"New York. He's lived there always; but, you know, his father died two
years ago, and his mother last month. He hasn't any relations but just
us, so he is to live here for a while. You and Howard will stand by
him, won't you, Ned?" she added persuasively, laying her mittened hand
on his. "I'm afraid the other boys will run on him and make fun of him.
Don't tell Howard I said so, but I don't expect to like him much myself,
only I'm sort of sorry for him; and then he's our cousin, so I suppose
we must make sure he has a good time."
"I won't be hard on him, Allie," her companion answered her, laughing a
little at the unwonted seriousness of her tone; "as long as he doesn't
put on airs and talk big about New York and 'the way _we_ do East,' and
all that poppycock, I'll stand by him. But if he's coming out here to
show us how to do it, the sooner it's taken out of him the better."
"Wait till the train comes in, day after to-morrow morning, Ned," said
Howard, as, with a few quick strokes, he and Marjorie overtook them once
more. "We'll take a look at him and see what he's like, before we make
too many promises. Now, then, ma'am," he added, as he and Marjorie
paused at a great stone on the bank of the creek; "if you'll be good
enough to sit down, I'll have your skates off instanter."
Marjorie laughed, as she dropped down on the stone and put one little
foot on Howard's knee, while Ned performed a similar service for Allie.
"I'm crazy to see your cousin, Allie," she said. "I know he's going to
be great fun, only I'm afraid he'll think we are hopeless tomboys.
Probably he's been used to girls that sit in the parlor and sew
embroidery, instead of skating and riding bronchos bareback, and playing
hare and hounds with the boys."
"Don't care if he has!" And Allie made a little grimace of defiance as
she scrambled to her feet. "I'm not going to give up all my good times
and take to fancy work, when it's as much as I can do to sew on my own
buttons. He can stay in the house, and sing songs and sew patchwork all
day long, if he wants to, but I'm not going to give up all my frolics;
need I, boys?" she concluded, in a mutinous outburst, quite at variance
with her recent plea for their expected guest.
Howard laughed teasingly.
"Catch Allie turning the fine young lady! If you shut her up in a
parlor, she'd jump over the chairs and play tag with herself around the
table; and Marjorie is about as bad."
"Perhaps I am," she assented placidly; "but you boys could never get
along without us. I've heard you say, over and over again, that we can
catch a ball as well as half the boys in town, and I can outrun you any
day. Want to try?"
"Not much," returned Howard, laughing, though there rankled in his mind
the memory of recent races in which he had not been the winner. "You
only beat me because you've been used to this air longer than I have.
Besides, it would hurry us home too much, and I've an idea that this may
be the last time that we four chums will be off together, for one while.
I shall have to trot round with that fellow, for the next week, and show
him the ways of the country, so he won't make too great a jay of
himself. But, I say, if it doesn't storm to-morrow, we'll come down here
again in the afternoon, and have an hour or two on the ice before it's
spoiled."
With their skates strapped together and slung over their shoulders,
their collars turned up around their ears, and their hands plunged deep
into pockets and muffs, they turned northward along the bank of the
creek for a short distance, and then struck off across the level, open
ground till they came into one of the streets of the little town, which
they followed until they reached the main business street. There they
parted, Ned and Marjorie turning to the west, while Howard and Allie
kept straight on towards the north, and finally stopped at a small brick
house, a low, one-story affair, yet much more elaborate than the average
dwelling of the town, where the architecture was largely of the
log-house species, though often covered with a layer of boards to
disguise the primitive nature of the materials.
The front door opened directly into the little parlor, and into this
cosy room Howard and Allie plunged, laughing and breathless after their
quick walk in the cold. A bright-faced little woman sat sewing by the
front window, holding up her work to catch the last fading light, and a
rosy boy, two years old, was tumbling about on the carpet, rolling over
and over the great dog, who was dozing as peacefully as if such
demonstrations were quite to his liking.
"Hullo, mammy! Hullo, Vic! Dinner ready?" exclaimed Howard, casting his
skates into the nearest chair, and moving up to the stove to warm his
chilled fingers.
"How was the skating?" asked his mother, looking up from her work to
smile at Allie, as she pulled off her coat and hat, and then caught up
the child from the floor.
"Fine; but we're 'most starved--at least, I am," returned Howard, as he
wriggled himself out of his coat and handed it to Allie, who received it
quite as a matter of course, and went away to hang it in its usual
place.
"Well, dinner is all ready, and papa will be here in a minute; so you
can go and tell Janey to take it up. Do you know," she added, with a
laugh which took all the sting from the reproof; "I think it is time my
boy learned to take his sister's coat for her, instead of expecting her
to wait on him."
"All right," answered Howard, by no means abashed by the rebuke. "Here,
sis, if you'll just bring back your coat and put it on again, I'll see
what can be done about it." And he bent over to stroke his mother's hair
with a boyish affection which filled her heart with gratitude for having
such a son, even while it sent her off to her toilet table to repair the
damages which his fingers had wrought. Then he marched out to the
kitchen to tease Janey, until she threatened to pour the soup over his
favorite pudding, unless he left her to take up the dinner in peace.
Mr. Burnam, Howard's father, was a successful civil engineer, who, in
the line of his professional life, had been ordered up and down the
West according to the demands of the great railroad corporation by whom
he was employed. The life of a locating engineer is much like that of
the soldier, in its need for strict obedience to orders, and for
eighteen years Mr. Burnam had been stationed, now here, now there,--on
the rolling prairies of Iowa, in the Dakota bad lands, in the alkali
deserts of Wyoming, and among the canons and passes of the Colorado
Rockies. Six months before this time he had been ordered to western
Montana, to lay out a possible railway across the mountains, which
should give the Pacific-coast cities a more direct connection with their
eastern neighbors. The survey for this line would occupy him for a year
or more, and in order to have his family near him during this time, he
had made his headquarters in the little mining camp, which the first
prospectors along the canon, some four years before, had christened
"Blue Creek," from the clear, bright waters of the mountain stream. Here
he established his family in the most comfortable house that the town
afforded, and here he had his office, which served as headquarters for
his corps of men, whenever they came in town for a few days. By virtue
of his position as chief of the party, Mr. Burnam often spent weeks at
a time at home, working up his estimates and maps, and only driving out
to camp now and then, for a day or two, to see that all was well in his
absence. Then, just as his family were settling down to the full
enjoyment of his society, he would be sent for, to oversee some
difficult bit of work, and Mrs. Burnam and Allie would be left to the
protection of Howard, and of Ben, the great Siberian bloodhound, who was
as gentle as a kitten until molested, when all his old savage instincts
sprang into life.
One of the early graduates from Cornell, Mr. Burnam had gone West when a
mere boy, fresh from college; and now, at forty, he had made himself a
brilliant reputation in his profession. The chief, as they called him,
was adored by all his men, who knew, from long experience, that however
great the danger and hardship might be, he was always ready to share it
with them, and that he made it a part of his creed never to ask a
subordinate to take a risk which he himself would shun. Quick-tempered
and outspoken in the presence of any suspicion of shirking or deceit, he
was yet a just, honorable man in dealing with his "boys," who loved and
respected him accordingly. At home, he was a different man; for he
threw aside his professional dignity, to tease his wife, or romp with
his children, lavishing upon them all the love of which his great,
generous nature was capable.
For the sake of her husband, Mrs. Burnam had willingly cut herself
adrift from her family and friends in New York, and for sixteen years
she had patiently followed him here and there through the West; now
living in camp for a summer, now boarding at tiny country hotels, in
order to be within driving distance of his party; now left for months at
a time in the busy solitude of a great city hotel, while Mr. Burnam was
far away in unexplored forests, and often, as now, settled near him for
a few months of housekeeping which should give her children at least a
slight knowledge of home life and its charms.
Two years after her marriage, a little son had come to her, and, soon
after that, a daughter had helped to fill out the family circle. It
seemed to Mrs. Burnam but a few months since then; but Howard was
fourteen now, and Allie twelve, while, two years before this time, a
third child had come to brighten the home with his baby prattle and
pranks. For weeks, his name had been a subject of almost constant
discussion, until, one day, Howard had solved the problem in a most
unexpected fashion.
"I'll tell you what," he said suddenly; "name him Victor, for my new
bicycle." And the name was decided upon accordingly.
Howard, himself, was a worthy son of the handsome, brown-bearded man
whom he called papa. Tall, slender, and yellow haired, he was as bonnie
a laddie as ever filled a mother's heart with pride; a healthy, happy
boy, affectionate and generous, and full of a rollicking fun which made
him at once the delight and terror of his sister, who never knew in what
direction his next outbreak would come. In spite of his merciless
teasing, the brother and sister were close friends and constantly
together. Girls were scarce in the town, and Allie and her one friend,
Marjorie Fisher, would have been largely left to their own devices, had
it not been for Howard and Ned Everett, through whose influence they
were received on equal terms among the boys, and had a share in most of
their good times. It was no uncommon thing to hear them speak of "Allie
and Marjorie and the other boys," and neither Mrs. Burnam nor Mrs.
Fisher felt any desire to have it otherwise. They were too sensible
mothers to force their little daughters towards womanhood, and much
preferred the tone of free-and-easy companionship to the childish
flirtations so commonly indulged in. They could trust to their influence
over their children to keep them gentle and womanly, and the boys were
all gentlemen, largely sons of Eastern men whom business had brought to
the town. So the girls walked and rode, skated and romped with the lads,
unconsciously teaching them many a pretty lesson in chivalry, while in
return the boys gave them a training which made them enduring and
courageous, and hardy as a pair of little Indians. For six months, this
had been their life, and by this time there had formed one
well-recognized set whose members were constantly together, and, though
they mingled more or less with the other young people, yet kept
themselves distinct from their companions. Four of this number were the
little group of skaters, the fifth was Ned's younger brother, Grant, who
was usually the central figure in their frolics.
The one other member of the Burnam household, who is as yet in the
background, deserves at least a passing remark. This was Janey, the
young negro maid who ruled their kitchen. What had ever brought her
from the warm South into the midst of Rocky Mountain snows, it would be
hard to tell; but, two months before, she had answered to Mrs. Burnam's
advertisement for a servant, and was promptly installed in her kitchen,
where she convulsed the family with her pranks, and averted many a
well-merited lecture by some sudden, artless remark, which sent Mrs.
Burnam hurrying out of the room, in search of a corner where she could
laugh unseen. Surely, since the days of Topsy, the immortal, there was
never such an imp as Janey. Mrs. Burnam declared that she was as good as
a tonic, and Mr. Burnam made no secret of his enjoyment of her antics,
which were always as original as they were unexpected.
"My name's Edmonia Jackson," she had said, in answer to Mrs. Burnam's
question; "but dey mos'ly calls me Janey. But laws, Mis', ef you 'll
on'y let me stay yere, you all can call me what you want. Names is
nothin', but I don' want to work in one o' them log-cabins; they 's too
much like what our po' w'ites lives in. Give me brick or nothin'!"