AT CLOSE QUARTERS
"I do wish you wouldn't talk like a silly," Teddy said with much
disgust. "Who ever heard the like? How could they fly over that
creek--horses and all?"
Oriole was quite embarrassed. Of course the men could not have flown
over the stream, horses, and twins, and all. But it was a puzzling
thing, to say the least.
"How did they do it, Teddy?" she asked.
"There must be some way across that we missed. You wait here. I will go
back and look," he declared.
He wheeled his mount and quickly disappeared beyond the first screen of
brush. Oriole climbed down to ease Molly's cinches and to let the pony
graze. She looked all about carefully. Right here at the deep pool, at
least, there was no possible ford across the stream. It was a perfect
mystery how the men with the stolen twins had escaped to the other side
of the river.
On this side it was plain that only a very small animal or an insect
could mount the rocky wall down which the stream tumbled. There must be
a way of crossing the stream, or else the kidnapers would not have come
this way. The ravine and its wonderful waterfall was familiar to them
at least.
Teddy was out of sight. Indeed, he was a long time gone it seemed to
Oriole. At any moment she expected to see him appear riding up the
other bank of the creek.
She began to wonder where he was. Had something happened to him? He
could not be lost, of course--not on such a plain trail as that they
had followed through this ravine. Only, so much had happened during the
last few hours that she thought she might expect almost anything to
occur!
While Molly gnawed the short grass in mild contentment, the girl went
closer to the waterfall. Here was a broad flat stone--oh, many yards
across!--which bordered the falls and was some twelve feet above the
surface of the pool into which the great volume of water poured. A fine
spray sprinkled this stone platform all of the time and--yes!--what was
this? These marks made by tiny muddy rivulets on the stone?
"Goodness me!" gasped Oriole. "They look just like horses' hoofs. They
are! What can they mean? Molly hasn't been here. Or that creature Teddy
is riding. Surely----"
She raised her eyes and stared up into the dancing rainbow in the mist.
Beyond it they had seen the two men and the twins riding out of sight
on the opposite side of the falls.
"Goodness me!" gasped Oriole again. "It can't be!"
Yet she was positive it was. She had made a most wonderful discovery.
There could be no doubt of it.
In this wonderful country she knew there must be many marvels like this
she had come upon and which the outlaws evidently knew and had often
taken advantage of in traveling through the hills. But to the casual
observer there was no sign--absolutely none--to reveal the secret.
Quickly scrambling across the wet surface of the stone platform until
she was close to the roaring stream of falling water, she pushed
through a green brush-clump--bushes that were continually wet by the
spray of the falls--and so got behind the curtain of water.
There was the path!
Oriole had read of the wonderful Falls Of Niagara, and she knew that
there was such a path as this behind one of those great curtains
of mist and water. This was a smaller wonder; but it was quite as
effective. Without any doubt the two outlaws, carrying the twins with
them and riding their horses, had passed behind the waterfall and so
crossed to the other side of the creek.
Oriole went far enough afoot to see that the passage was perfectly
feasible. The sun shone through the curtain of falling water and
illuminated the shallow cavern sufficiently. She was delighted with her
discovery.
Running back to the mildly startled Molly, she pulled up her cinches
and bitted the pony once more. Then leaping into her saddle she headed
Molly directly into the cloud of spray.
The pony shook her head and snorted; but Oriole touched her with the
whip and made the animal proceed. They came safely into the shallow
cavern behind the falling water. Oriole urged Molly on. The path was
smooth enough and certainly there was no mistaking the right direction!
The stream was only ten yards across. Oriole and her pony came out upon
a mossy rock that was marked deeply by the hoofs of the horses that had
gone before. She urged Molly a little to make her climb the heights.
She stood at last just where the two outlaws had stood--at the point
from which little Myron had screamed to her to come and get him.
She looked back in great glee now, when she heard Teddy's sharp voice
shouting:
"Oriole! Oriole Putnam! Where have you gone now?"
She "hoo-hooed" to him, and finally the boy, who had come riding back
in discouragement, saw her. He halted his mount in amazement and for a
minute could not utter a word.
"Oh, Teddy! can't you fly across the creek--like me?" she called to him.
"Oriole Putnam, you're a story-teller--that's what you are," he
declared confidently. "You know you didn't fly over there."
"Do you think Molly waded over?" she demanded, pleased at the idea of
teasing Teddy, who so often teased her.
"You'd better tell me the truth," he cried. "Hank Ridley might come
back 'most any time. Then you wouldn't want to be over there alone."
"You can come right over behind the waterfall," she told him hastily,
moved somewhat, perhaps, by his threat. "Just try it. It don't wet you
much."
"For a nickel I'd kick myself for not guessing it," shouted Teddy, and
pushed his agitated mount right in behind the bushes and so under the
falling water. In five minutes he was at Oriole's side. They pushed on
up the steep path which they had seen the kidnapers follow.
"That does beat all!" Teddy declared. "Ridley and his gang must know
this country pretty well. Better than Harvey Langdon's punchers do,
maybe. I wonder where George Belden and his bunch went. They must be up
here somewhere, but not just around here I guess. Otherwise we would
have heard something of them."
There was no indication of the presence of anybody at this time. Even
the two outlaws and the stolen children had got so far in advance that
after an hour, and after Teddy and Oriole were quite to the rim of the
interior basin guarded by the Three Sisters, they came neither in sight
nor sound of Ridley and his party.
"We must have lost 'em," complained the boy, stopping his horse where
they would be well screened by bushes. "What do you think, Oriole?"
It was quite nice of him to confer with her, the girl felt. "Teddy
considers that I have some judgment at least," she told herself.
"We may get into trouble if they see us," the girl declared. "But, oh!
I do want to find Myron and Marian. What will Mr. Langdon say if we
cannot tell him just where that horrid Hank Ridley has taken the twins?"
"I'd like better to come across George Belden and his men," the boy
returned. "He must be somewhere in this neighborhood. That is sure. And
perhaps Hank and Mudd don't know a thing about Belden's bunch. Hey!
who's that?"
He pointed off to the west of their standing-place. Something--or
somebody--was moving in a patch of brush. It was not a horseman, or the
rider's torso would have shown plainly above the low bushes.
"Bet it's another bear," suggested Teddy Ford.
"Oh, don't!" gasped Oriole. "I don't want to see another one--so close
as this."
"Ssh! Let's wait. There he is!"
But it was not a bear that appeared at the edge of the bushes. It was
a man, and he pushed aside the fringe of brush carefully and leaned
forward to look down into a hollow that the boy and girl farther up the
rim of the basin could not observe.
"Look at that!" ejaculated Teddy, in great excitement. "It's Shaffer!
Don't you see it is?"
"Oh, surely not!" murmured Oriole.
"Can't be mistaken," said the boy, with great confidence. "I'd know his
mouse-colored hair and that brown coat he wears. Sure, it's Shaffer.
Wonder where his horse is."
"_I_ wonder what he is looking at," said Oriole. "It must be----"
"Come on! Leave your horse here and let's slip down behind that
bowlder," said Teddy quickly. "Then we can see too."
"Oh, Teddy!"
"Pooh! What you afraid of?" demanded the boy. "They will never see us
in the world."
"Who else do you suppose is there?" whispered Oriole, obeying her
friend's suggestion, but in no little trepidation.
"We'll find out. Shaffer knows who it is, I bet. Wonder what's happened
to the horse he rode away from the ranch on."
There was nobody to answer this question. Teddy and Oriole left their
steeds to graze behind the summit of the ridge and crept down the slope
to the back of the big bowlder previously pointed out by the boy.
Shaffer was now out of sight. Suddenly they heard harsh voices, the pop
of a pistol, and next were electrified by the screaming of Myron and
Marian. There was no mistake to be made in the voices of the twins.
"Something is happening!" cried Oriole and started to run around the
bowlder.
But Teddy grabbed her and held her tight.
"Say! have a bit of sense, will you?" he demanded. "Do you want to run
right into trouble? Go easy. They are not hurting the kids. Myron and
Marian are only frightened."
"How do you know?" demanded Oriole fiercely. "Oh! Hear that!"
They could scarcely help but hear it, for it was the clash of men's
voices raised in anger. Although Teddy clung to her, Oriole insisted
upon going around the big rock and into sight of the "rumpus."
Ridley and Mudd had stopped here with the stolen children, evidently
to rest their steeds. At the first appearance of Shaffer, trouble had
commenced. The third outlaw had evidently tried to hold his former
friends up, but the weapon had been knocked out of his hand by Mudd,
who was now struggling with Shaffer most desperately.
Hank Ridley was circling around and around the two fighting men, pistol
in hand, evidently trying to help Mudd but afraid of shooting him if he
attempted to shoot Shaffer. It was a desperate and wicked struggle, and
at another time--when she was under less excitement--Oriole would have
been so horror-stricken that she could not have moved.
But there by a small campfire, over which a pan of bacon was burning,
were little Myron and Marian, and their danger almost wiped other
thoughts from the bigger girl's mind. With a scream she ran out of
cover and dashed toward the twins, who were clinging together near the
outlaws' saddles.
[Illustration: WITH A SCREAM ORIOLE DASHED TOWARD THE TWINS.]
"Oh, Oriole! Oriole!" shrieked Myron, seeing her coming. "Take us away!
Take us home to Brownie and papa!"