NATURE'S WONDERS
Teddy Ford did not stop to answer Oriole. He was running to head off
the mustang that had thrown Miss Brown. It was left to the latter to
explain to the excited girl what had happened.
"The twins?" gasped Oriole. "They've stolen Myron and Marian?"
"Those fellows will wish they had been hung before they did it,"
groaned Nurse Brown, limping to the phaeton to sit down. "And now I
can't ride--nor anything!" she added with much emphasis.
Oriole was horrified. She saw the two men in the distance, and
the thought that they were carrying off the Langdon twins almost
overpowered her. What had already happened to the twins in the East
when Sadie Brown was taking them to visit their grandparents had made
Mr. Langdon very fearful for their safety. With these two scoundrels
deliberately running off with Myron and Marian, the girl knew that
their father would be alarmed to the point of desperation.
There was no use in saying Hank Ridley and his mate would not dare
injure the children. No knowing what two such thorough-going villains
would do. They were using the twins as a means to keep Langdon and his
punchers out of the hills for a certain time. And Oriole instantly
realized what that was for.
In four days Ridley hoped to get to the old prospect-hole, so often
mentioned, bring up from its depths whatever was hidden there, and then
make his escape, with Mudd, out of the country. Just what had become
of Shaffer was a matter for supposition. But Oriole had heard Ridley's
speech about the third "bad man," and she believed that Shaffer would
be unable to get possession of the chest of silver alone--if that
really was what the men had hidden up there near the Three Sisters.
"My dear!" cried Oriole at last, "we can't let them run away with the
children. Poor Marian and Myron! They----"
"How you going to stop them, you foolish girl?" snapped Sadie Brown,
nursing her ankle that now pained her exceedingly. "_I_ can't go after
them."
"But I can," Oriole cried.
"I think not! They'd shoot you or something."
"Oh, no! I'm sure they would only try to frighten me. And maybe they
will only frighten Marian and Myron."
"That boy's caught that little rascal of a horse. But I can't ride him
now," groaned Miss Brown.
Oriole turned to see Teddy scrambling into the saddle, and at once
he urged the pony toward the phaeton. Oriole shouted to him as he
approached:
"What are you going to do, Teddy?"
"I'm going after Hank Ridley. The scoundrel! Maybe he will hurt those
poor little kids."
"Never, Teddy! You don't believe that?" cried Oriole, and started Molly
at a canter to keep up with the horse Teddy rode.
"Don't know what they'll do. We want to know where they go, anyway, so
as to tell Harvey Langdon."
"I'm--I'm afraid of what they may do to us if they know we are chasing
them," gasped Oriole.
"Huh! So'm I," rejoined Teddy with his usual grin. "Don't think you've
got all the fright in the world inside you. I'm just as scared of those
fellows as I can be. But I've got to know what they do with the twins."
"You are braver than I am," confessed Oriole.
"Not much I ain't. But Harvey Langdon will want to know--and the twins
were with me in that cart when Hank and Mudd grabbed them."
"That doesn't make you to blame," declared the girl. "Brownie, of
course, was in charge."
"She is only a woman," said Teddy, with some scorn. "Grown-up women
often have hysterics or something when anything like this happens. I'm
glad you're not grown up, Oriole."
"What would you do if I were?" she asked curiously.
"I'd send you back, quick enough," replied Teddy with conviction.
"Girls aren't as bad as women--at least, you are not, Oriole. But don't
you squeal and take on if anything happens."
"I'll try not," she returned meekly. "But you are not going to come to
close quarters with those bad men, are you?"
"How can I tell what we'll have to do? Anyway, you keep back. If they
grab me, you turn around and beat it back to the ranch and tell all
about it--and where we followed them to. You understand?"
"Oh, yes, Teddy. But I hope you won't get into any danger--not right up
close to those men."
"You needn't fret. I'm not looking for trouble," he declared. "And as
you ride keep your eyes peeled for them."
Oriole was too excited to take him to task for his slang on this
occasion. The situation was fraught with too much peril for the girl
to think of anything but the twins' abduction and their own attempt
to follow the kidnapers. All the time Molly was carrying her over the
plain she was imagining the most awful accidents happening to little
Myron and Marian.
They might easily be dropped by the kidnapers--maybe fall under the
hoofs of the men's horses! That Ridley and Mudd would actually beat the
children or maltreat them, did not seem so probable. It would do the
outlaws no good to be cruel to the children. But an accident to one or
both of the twins would be quite possible while the men were riding
away so recklessly.
Ridley and his mate were long since out of sight. But Teddy had taken
careful note of the direction the abductors had followed. Nor could the
trail of their mounts be easily missed. He and Oriole did not swerve
from the direct course to that gap in the foothills beyond which the
two men had urged their wearied steeds.
The mounts ridden by Teddy and Oriole were much fresher than those of
Ridley and Mudd. Undoubtedly the latter had been in the saddle most of
the night, and it was now past noon. The pony Sadie Brown had ridden
was quite as spirited as Molly. The friends were surely making better
time on the trail, and with less effort, than the outlaws.
In half an hour, or even less, they had lost sight of Sadie Brown and
the pony phaeton. They knew the nurse was urging old Blooey toward the
ranch house.
"And I'd lots rather have her driving the old beast than me," declared
Teddy. "He'd out-try the patience of Job, that horse would."
They reached the gap in the hills. Neither Teddy nor Oriole had
ever been so far in this direction before. It was all of five miles
beyond the mouth of Squaw Canyon, and while that place was a familiar
picnicking ground to the people of the Langdon Ranch, this valley into
which Teddy and Oriole now ventured was quite out of their familiar ken.
"But it goes right up into the hills toward the Three Sisters, just
like the Squaw," the boy declared. "I bet, as I said, Ridley and Mudd
are going back to the basin. You don't know much about the territory up
there----"
"Oh, yes, I do," Oriole interrupted. "I have been up to that place this
very morning."
"You don't mean it?"
She told him in detail of her trip up the side-canyon and what she had
seen in the upland plain. Teddy was deeply interested.
"Then we know just what to expect of Ridley and Mudd. They _are_ horse
thieves."
"I guess they are worse than that. Stealing children is worse," said
Oriole with vigor.
"I suppose so. And they are desperate. We want to look out," said
Teddy, with caution. "I don't see what they are really after, stealing
the twins. Why, the whole country will be aroused. They won't have a
chance to get away."
"They will use little Myron and Marian to buy Mr. Langdon and the other
ranchmen off."
"I suppose that's so. And Ridley hinted as much when he threw Brownie
out of her saddle. I heard him tell her to tell Mr. Langdon that he
would communicate with him about the twins at that cabin we were in the
other night."
"It is plain enough that the man means to win a chance to get at that
prospect-hole, where I am sure he has hidden the silver stolen from the
ranch. Oh, Teddy, if we could only catch them at it!"
"Getting back those twins is the more important job," sighed Teddy.
"Now take great care, Oriole. This is a covert we are riding through
and maybe they are lying in wait for us. You keep back. Don't follow
me too close. And if they grab me, _you_ run!"
Oriole promised with meekness. She felt that Teddy knew more about such
ventures as this than she did, although she did not like the idea of
running away to leave him to the mercy of the kidnapers. Still, he had
not been caught as yet--which was a comfort.
She noticed at once that a deep stream flowed out of this valley into
which they ventured. It did not flow in the direction of the ranch
house, so she had never chanced to see it before. But Teddy said it was
Byson's Creek and that it joined other streams to make the river they
had crossed in coming from Timmins Station.
This creek was deep and strong, and as they advanced along its bank by
a well cleared trail they began to hear the thunder of a heavy fall. By
and by, looking up and ahead as the horses climbed, Oriole beheld the
sun shining through a cloud of spray. Indeed, she exclaimed aloud that
she saw a rainbow.
"Never mind. It won't bite you," growled Teddy. "You look out. Those
fellows will hear you yet."
The way was rough and great trees bordered the stream. In half an hour
they came in full sight of the falls. It was quite fifty feet high--a
wide, foam-fretted stream of water flowing over the edge of a cliff and
dropping sheer, and with a thunderous sound, into the pool beside which
Oriole and Teddy stood.
"Gee!" ejaculated the boy suddenly, "where do we go from here?"
They had actually come to what appeared to be a wall, too steep and too
rugged to be climbed either by man or beast. They must have passed the
two men and the twins. Or, had they?
Above the sound of the falling water Oriole suddenly heard a faint
scream. She looked across the creek, and upward. She knew it to be
Myron Langdon who had called to her:
"Oriole! Oriole! Come!"
"Do you hear that?" demanded Teddy, greatly excited.
"Oh, see!" gasped the girl, pointing.
He understood her gesture although her voice was drowned by the waters.
On the other side of the river, and far up toward the head of the
falls, the two horsemen were climbing by a rocky and steep trail. Myron
was reaching over Hank Ridley's shoulder and screaming at the top of
his voice to his friends below--to Oriole in particular.
In another minute both of the kidnapers were out of sight and the boy
and girl could no longer hear Myron's voice. They stared at each other
in amazement and alarm.
"How did they get there?" demanded Oriole.
"I give it up. I never saw any chance to cross the creek--not even on
horseback," Teddy declared. "And I've been watching for just such a
place all the way up."
"My!" gasped Oriole in wonder, looking again across the deep and angry
flood, "do you suppose they could have flown over?"