THE LEAN-TO
For answer Allen took Betty by the shoulder and shook her gently.
“Betty,” he said, “I don’t think you understand how really important
this is to me. If this old lady is who I think she is, all my
difficulties are solved.”
“But I don’t see----”
“I’ll tell you, then,” interrupted Allen. There was no doubt but what
he was terribly in earnest and something of his excitement communicated
itself to Betty.
“You remember this man who died--my client?” he began again, striding
along, his hands in his pockets, a furious frown on his face.
“Remember him?” echoed Betty. “When have I had a chance to forget----”
But again Allen interrupted impatiently.
“This old man,” said the young lawyer, and despite herself Betty was
impressed by his earnestness, “was, as I think I have told you before,
a pretty stubborn fellow. What he believed, he believed with all his
heart and, what was more, he never allowed any one to argue with him.”
For the life of her Betty could not see what this had to do with the
Old Maid of the Mountains. But she said nothing, merely wrinkling up
her nose in bewilderment as Allen rushed on.
“In his younger days,” continued Allen, “he was in partnership with a
man named James Barton. Now it seems that this old man, this client of
mine, had a bitter quarrel with his partner.
“People who knew both the men when they were young--and I have had
occasion to talk to quite a few of them in connection with the case and
in hope of clearing up the mystery--say that no one knew the cause of
the quarrel and neither of the two men would say a word about it one
way or another.”
“But what has that to do----” began Betty, becoming more and more
puzzled.
“I’m telling you,” insisted Allen. She had never known him to be so
impatient of interruption before. “Just about here enters the sister of
Luther Weeks.”
“Weeks! Weeks! Luther Weeks!” repeated Betty, gazing wide-eyed at
Allen. “Who was he?”
“Luther Weeks was the name of the old man who just died--my client,”
explained Allen, trying hard to be patient.
“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, and then as the thing came to her with full
force she gripped his arm excitedly. “Allen,” she cried, “that is the
name of our old lady--our Old Maid of the Mountains! Isabella Weeks!”
“Then that practically settles it,” returned Allen, the light of great
relief in his eyes. “By Jove, but this is luck!”
“You haven’t really told me anything,” cried Betty, shaking his arm,
for it was her turn to be impatient. “Even if our Old Maid of the
Mountains is the sister of your dead client, I don’t see----”
“That’s the romantic--and pathetic--part of it,” said Allen, softly.
“In her youth Isabella Weeks was engaged to be married to James Barton,
the partner of her brother, Luther Weeks.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Betty, then clapped her hand over her mouth, waiting
eagerly for Allen to go on.
“When the partners quarreled,” the young lawyer continued, slowly,
“Luther Weeks commanded his sister to give up Barton.”
“And did she do it?” asked Betty, with all the incredulity of a modern
girl for such weakness. “Surely she wouldn’t give her lover up because
her brother told her to.”
“No,” answered Allen, with a shake of his head, “I imagine she wouldn’t
have sent James Barton away if that had been the only reason.”
“Then what other was there?” asked Betty, adding with an impatient
shake of the head: “Oh, Allen, you are so slow!”
“Give me time,” protested Allen, with a smile for her impatience.
Impatience was marvelously becoming to Betty. “It seems,” he went on,
“that Luther Weeks got it into his crusty head that James Barton had
mishandled funds belonging to the firm.”
“Oh,” said Betty, softly, with a swift pang of pity for the Isabella
Weeks of that time. “And had he, Allen?”
Allen shook his head soberly.
“That’s just the pity of it,” he said. “After Luther Weeks had done all
the damage he could do by his accusations--driving his sister from him
and separating her from the man she loved--he found out that Barton had
been perfectly sincere and upright in all his transactions.”
“And what had happened to him then--to James Barton, I mean?” asked
Betty breathlessly.
“He had disappeared,” said Allen. “Went to some other country,
perhaps, to start life over again.”
“And Isabella never saw him again?” asked Betty, pityingly.
“Never, so far as any one knows,” replied Allen, adding grimly: “I tell
you Luther Weeks has had a good deal to answer for.”
“And so that is what he--Luther Weeks, that is--had on his conscience?”
Betty rather stated than asked. “What about his will, Allen?”
“His will makes restitution as far as restitution is possible,”
returned Allen. “He left all his money to his sister, Isabella Weeks,
in case she could be found.”
Betty’s face lighted joyfully.
“Oh, Allen,” she cried, “did he leave much money?”
“It isn’t a fortune, but it’s enough. Forty thousand dollars.”
Betty drew in her breath sharply.
“Allen,” she breathed, “do you realize what that will mean to our Old
Maid of the Mountains? Not a fortune! It will seem limitless wealth to
her. Oh, I’m so glad--I’m so glad!”
They heard the voices of the other girls and boys directly ahead of
them and, taking Allen by the hand, the Little Captain dragged him
eagerly forward.
“Oh, hurry, hurry!” she begged. “I can’t wait to tell them!” She
paused, eyeing Allen half doubtfully. “It will be all right to tell
them, won’t it?” she asked.
“Perfectly,” said Allen, cheerfully. “I don’t care how many of them
know about it now. The more the merrier.”
So Betty experienced the unutterable delight of breaking the glad news
to the girls. And, even before she had finished, they were all, by
mutual consent, starting in the direction of the cabin of the Old Maid
of the Mountains.
“I can’t believe it yet,” said Mollie, her eyes looking as if they were
about to pop out of her head with wonder and delight. “And to think
that just the other day we were wondering what we could do to help her.”
“I can’t wait to see her face when we tell her,” said Grace, smiling in
happy anticipation. “I reckon she will turn all rosy and pink, the way
it does sometimes when she forgets to be sad.”
“It seems too wonderful to be true,” said quiet Amy, adding in a soft
little voice as if she were half ashamed of what she was saying:
“Sometimes it does seem that if you try very hard to help some one and
wish very hard for their happiness, something beautiful happens in the
end.”
“It surely seems that way,” said the Little Captain.
Will took Amy’s hand in his for a moment saying, with an adoring look:
“Any one is lucky to have you rooting for him, Amy Blackford.”
And so absorbed were they all that no one noticed they had taken the
wrong path until they had gone for a considerable distance into the
woods.
This was the easiest kind of mistake to make, for at one point the two
woods paths intersected, going on from the point of intersection almost
at right angles, one to the other. In their pre-occupation, the young
folks had taken the wrong path.
“A perfectly simple thing to do,” Roy declared. “But not a very serious
mistake except in that it will take us a little longer to reach the Old
Maid of the Mountains with the glad news.”
In their present state of impatience, however, any sort of delay seemed
almost tragic, and the girls grumbled considerably as they turned to
retrace their steps.
They had gone only a few feet when a call from Frank brought them to a
startled standstill. There was something in his voice that made them
turn quickly toward him.
“Look,” he said in a cautiously lowered tone, as he pointed ahead into
the woods. “See that smoke over there? Means a camp of some sort.”
“Let’s go and investigate,” said Will immediately, feeling a sudden
terrific thirst for battle. “It was just a little further on that those
tramps attacked us the other day. Maybe--say maybe----” He said no more
but began running full speed through the woods toward the spiral of
smoke that curled upward through the trees.
The girls had almost forgotten about the tramps by that time, but
Will’s excitement and lust of battle communicated itself to them and
they followed him hotfoot, careful the while to make as little noise as
possible.
“We’re probably following a false scent again,” gasped Mollie. “There
isn’t one chance in a hundred there are tramps anywhere around here.”
As they approached closer to their goal they could distinctly hear
the sound of voices, and their approach became still more cautious.
Creeping closer, they saw through the trees the most curious little
structure they had ever laid eyes on.
It was a hut, hardly more than a lean-to, made of logs and piled
together in haphazard fashion. Grass and leaves had been used to
stuff up the cracks, and on one side--the side nearest the girls and
boys--was a small opening, evidently intended for a window.
“I wonder what they do when it rains,” Betty whispered to Mollie, who
had pressed up close beside her. “They haven’t thought to put glass in
their window.”
“Maybe,” said Mollie, with a suppressed chuckle, “it never rains on
this side of the house.”
But Will had stolen near enough to the cabin--if such it could be
called--to look in through the window. Now he crept back to them
holding up a cautioning hand.
“They’re in there!” he whispered, his eyes black with excitement and
eagerness. “The roughnecks who robbed us and a couple of others as
well!”