WITHIN A MOUNTAIN CAVE
Mrs. Dunbar was busy in New York, taking an active part in an art
convention, nevertheless she made a flying trip out to Cragsnook that
afternoon, to make sure her young guests were happy and well. Being
real girls and therefore pardonably human, in telling their adventure,
the scouts did not enlarge on their meeting with Maid Mary; in fact the
detail involving the displeasure of Reda, the old nurse, was quite
lightly passed over in their account of the day as made to the hostess.
Mrs. Dunbar enjoyed the joke perpetrated by Madaline, in her suspicion
of a possible goat farm being tucked away in the mountains, thence Maid
Mary and the pompous Reda were wont to lug the roots; at the same time
she felt unequal to a better guess at the puzzle, for it was now
conspicuously clear that roots, all kinds of roots, were being gathered
continuously by the little girl and her picturesque attendant.
The three visitors and Mrs. Dunbar were enjoying a refreshing west wind
on the square porch, outside the library window, for their confab, and
in their summer uniforms the girls made a picture not wasted on the
artistic eye of Audrey Harris Dunbar.
"I can truthfully report," she remarked, smiling graciously and
betraying considerable of her own good looks, "that you three little
girls are already much improved by your visit. I have to make out a
blanket statement, as we say in club work, when we make one report
cover a number of items, and I would just like to illustrate that
statement with a color picture of you girls. You are positively rosy."
The compliment was plainly merited, for Madaline and, Grace had taken
on a generous coating of tan and color, and even Cleo's usually pale
face was prettily suffused with a shell-pink glow, which brightened her
gray eyes, and enhanced the attractive effect of a face all but plain,
too keenly intelligent to be overlooked in beauty.
"We all feel better for getting back in service," Cleo replied to her
aunt's favorable criticism. "I guess even vacation needs a little duty
to keep the play part happily outlined."
"Yes, little niece, you show your daddy's wisdom there, and of course
that means you are very like me," with a swoop of her graceful arm
coming up to the breast in mock dramatic fashion. "I always knew
brother Kimball and I were very much alike, and now I am positive. Of
course Kim aimed to be practical, and he has succeeded, while I--just
slosh around in my paints. But really, children, I must be off again
to that convention. I suppose we will plan to make interior
decorations in mural designs around the Capitol dome, to give
neighborly effect to our friends in Mars or Saturn or even Venus. Now
be good," and she embraced all three with her affectionate smile, "go
hunting if you like, but better take Lucille or Lalia along. They are
older, you know, and should be wiser, although you have quite
astonished me with your applied good sense thus far. I shall send a
be-ee-u-tiful report to Flosston. You know, of course, the factory is
moving headquarters to New York, and all your families may tour this
way eventually. By-by! I hate to go, but I can't let the other ladies
do all the gold work on the Capitol."
Sheer admiration silenced the girls for some moments after her
departure. Audrey Dunbar seemed like a breath of the refreshing west
wind herself, and it was not to be wondered at that her guests should
appreciate her generous hospitality and personal attention.
"Shall we have to take Lucille and Lalia?" It was Grace who put the
gloomy question.
"I don't know," faltered Cleo. "You see, we don't really know what we
may fall into on the other side of the mountain."
"Maybe bandits and caves--and--things," suggested Madaline,
characteristically.
"There might be caves, natural ones, I mean," Cleo remarked, "but I
don't fancy we would run into any real live bandits, Mally Mack and
Jack Hagan seem to monopolize that title in Bellaire, and you know what
perfectly little gallants they both are. But we have to live up to our
reputation, I suppose, and be wise. It might be wisest to take the big
girls along. When, do you suppose, will we ever be classed as big
girls?" she almost grumbled.
"Then suppose I run over and see if they can go," Grace proposed,
showing her impatience to be on the trail. "A shower might come up and
then we couldn't go until to-morrow."
"All right," agreed Cleo. "I'll address the postals while you run
over. I see you have both written letters home on your cards."
"And I am going into the garden with Jennie," declared Madaline. "You
won't really mind, Cleo, if I don't go along?"
"No, indeed, Madie dear. You just suit your sweet self, and have a
good time. That's the very best way for us all to be sure of enjoying
ourselves. But look out for pinching beetles in the vines. They bite,
you know."
When Grace returned with Lalia, the three, including Cleo, lost little
time to taking up the mountain trail towards the Twin Chestnuts,
indicated by Maid Mary as marking the spot where she and her mysterious
grandfather, as well as the picturesque Reda, occupied some sort of
cottage--just what kind even Lalia did not pretend to know.
"We rarely go into Second Mountain," she explained as they started off,
"except for dogwood berries in the fall. We do go then in classes from
school, for the hills are perfectly beautiful with the red dogwood and
the dark blue 'bread and butter' vines. The berries make lovely
decorations. And the milk weed pods, too--I have some still from last
year."
"It must be glorious in autumn," Cleo answered. "If mother and father
get back from their tour in time we might take a house out here,
instead of a New York apartment."
"Let's cut through the golf links, then we will be up near the mountain
house and we can stop in the observatory. Have you taken in the view
yet?" asked Lalia.
"No, but we would love to," answered Cleo. "Auntie told us we should
take her field glasses for it though."
"It would be better to look through the glasses, of course, but even
with the naked eye you get a wonderful view. What's the matter, Grace?
Getting too warm?"
Grace had taken off her neckerchief, and was carrying her hat, and
puffing audibly.
"Yes, I am warm. Your mountains are lovely to look at, but a little
hard to tread even for us True Treds. Either that or we are going to
have a shower!" surmised Grace.
"Both!" declared Lalia, "just look at that cloud! It's swooping down
like a big black blanket. Now we have got to hurry. We must get to
the mountain house or we will be drenched. There's no other possible
shelter."
"Away up there?" inquired Cleo, pointing to the hotel on top of the
hill. "I don't believe we can ever get there before your blanket dumps
its contents. See, it threatens to burst now!"
At that moment a vivid flash of lightning cut from one black hill in
the clouds and buried itself behind another. As if piercing the
fathomless blanket and renting holes in its inky cover, a downpour of
rain broke through, and even before reaching the earth it could now be
seen descending in a heavy mist at the hill top.
"There we are!" shouted Lalia, "and here we are--all dressed up and no
place to duck! We can't reach the Mountain House. Let's make for that
rock! It may afford some shelter."
Without thought of dissent Cleo and Grace followed their leader through
the now pouring shower. The rain seemed almost solid, its sheets were
so dense in the downfall, and the terrific peals of thunder, that
echoed and rolled over the hills, gave such monstrous volumes of sound
as only the big canyons between solid rocks emit. It seemed the stones
themselves would be torn out from their pits in the frightful
vibrations.
Already thoroughly drenched, the girls in scout uniform seemed scarcely
better off than Lalia in her pretty gingham, the summer weight khaki of
the skirts, and the soisette blouses shedding the heavy rain more
readily, only because of the uniform straight lines and absence of
frilly pockets to catch the "buckets'" spill. As for hats--the girls
were utilizing these as shields, holding them at ever-swerving angles,
to keep the blinding rain out of their eyes.
The big black rock with torrents of water how gushing down its furrows
and rills, was reached at last and to the delight of the wayfarers it
did offer shelter.
"Why, just see here!" exclaimed Grace, the first to reach port, "here
is a cave. We said there ought to be caves in these mountains. And we
can all fit in out of the storm. Isn't this wonderful?"
"Port haven in our story, surely," quoth Lalia, "I thought I knew these
parts, but I never before discovered these Monte Cristo apartments.
Shall we ring for the janitor?"
"Pray do not," replied Cleo, swishing her reservoir hat around to empty
its contents. "Let us woo the wooseys undisturbed. I should like to
dump the mud out of my boots!"
The rain on the uncovered rocks was still splashing, and a strong wind
howling through the trees added to the din. Only at close range could
the girls make their voices intelligible. But it was so good to be
within shelter. Welcome indeed is any port in a storm.
"There must be more dugouts in this rock," Cleo said, attempting to
survey the curved bowlder that formed a huge support for the cedars
growing from its top, in a great swerving hedge, clear up into Second
Mountain.
"But one is enough for us," Grace reminded her. Then a sound
penetrated the now ceasing roar of the torrent. Voices surely,
somewhere!
"Hark!" All three girls uttered the exclamation simultaneously.
"It's at the other side!" whispered Cleo, "and it's a woman's voice."
They listened, scarcely breathing.
"That's Mary!" suddenly exclaimed Grace, in the same subdued voice. "I
know it is."
They waited a few seconds, listening. The first voice was now answered
by another. It was plainly that of the old woman Reda, for the queer,
rapid flow of language was not English.
"Reda!" whispered Cleo. "Is that Spanish?"
"Who's Reda?" repeated Lalia.
"The queer old woman with the little girl Mary," replied Cleo. "Are
you afraid of her?"
"No," answered Lalia with something of a sneer. "I guess we three
could manage her if we had to. Shall we peek?"
"Listen!" commanded Cleo.
Came a small voice through the jagged rocks: "But I will not, Reda, I
am not asleep. I saw other girls just like me, and I know I have not
the sleeping fever. You always try to make me afraid!" This was Mary.
The angered tones of the old woman that followed this mild outburst of
defiance could not be understood except through their accents and
emphasis, for the dialect was part Spanish and part West Indian, such
as might be used by natives of Central America.
"She's awfully mad!" warned Grace. "We better stay hiding!"
The other girls apparently held the same view of the situation, for
while keeping necks craned and ears attentive to the intermittent
voices, all were careful not to allow so much as the edge of a skirt to
flutter out from behind the hiding rock.
"I do not believe grandpa has it at all," came the decided tones of
Mary's round voice. "It is lost forever, and we shall never find it.
And next time Janos comes I shall tell him I will not stay here. I am
not a baby, and I feel strong and able--to--to go!" she finished,
throwing a dramatic quiver into these last words, thereby proving the
intensity of her emotion.
Almost a shriek from the old woman followed the declaration, and for a
few seconds the girls felt as if something dreadful might happen to the
child. Then, like some wild, reckless creature, the girl Mary was seen
to dash out from her shelter in the rock, unmindful of the rain still
falling, and before the eavesdroppers realized it, she was speeding
down the hill, the long braids dangling over her shoulders, and her
perpetual white dress soon climbing like a veritable swaddling cloth
about her lithe form.
As if delighted with the play of the rain drops, she would toss up her
face to defy them as she ran; then flop her arms up and down in a
flying motion, not really unlike a wild mountain bird.
While the girls watched spellbound, they saw presently the old woman
trudge along after her, still muttering the unintelligible gibberish,
easily translatable into wrath and fury, whatever its peculiar language.
"Can we go now?" ventured Cleo.
"It's almost stopped raining," replied Lalia, and as they left the cave
a sense of disappointment threw its shadow over all three.
They could not go to the Twin Chestnuts that afternoon, but they felt
more positive than ever that Maid Mary was in danger, and their
enforced delay in her rescue only served to heighten its purpose.
After explaining to Lalia as much as seemed due in point of politeness,
the three girls stopped to arrange their disordered attire in the path,
before taking the main thoroughfare through the village. As they
adjusted their hats and straightened skirts, they were suddenly
conscious of being watched--had that feeling of eyes questioning them.
All three turned suddenly as if answering a voice. As they did so they
faced a man--actually confronted him, almost brushing against him.
"Oh!" exclaimed Grace involuntarily.
"Pardon, miss," spoke the man in a distinctly foreign accent, "but were
you not with the child, the Maid Mary? Have you seen her to-day? Yes?
No?"
Cleo was the first to realize the possible significance of this
seemingly inoffensive query, and her look to the other girls signaled
them to be cautious.
"We have only been in the mountain, and were caught in the shower," she
replied evasively, "and it does not seem to be all over yet so we must
hurry. Come on, girls!" she called, and when the foreigner asked the
next question he had the echo of his own voice for an answer.