THE STORY THE LIGHT TOLD
"Strike a light, if you please," requested the guardian, as Janus stood
holding the door of the hut open for his charges to enter.
"You'll have a light directly," returned the guide, applying a lighted
match to the hanging lamp with its smoke-dimmed chimney.
"Oh, isn't it nice and cosy in here?" sighed Margery contentedly,
dropping down on a bench. Unslinging her heavy pack, she let it fall
to the floor.
"What about supper?" was Janus's first question.
"Yeth, that ith what I thay," approved Tommy. "Buthter would thay tho,
too, only thhe is afraid I'll teathe her about eating."
"Afraid of you!" exclaimed Margery disgustedly. "Well, I guess not."
During this passage at arms Janus was making an industrious hunt for a
frying-pan. He opened one of the packs that had been left behind,
thrust one hand inside, then paused, a look of astonishment on his
honest face, underneath the frown that wrinkled his weather-beaten
forehead. For a few seconds the bewildered guide stared stupidly at
the object he had taken from the pack. The girls were busy undoing
their tote-packs, so they failed to heed what he was doing until his
peculiar attitude finally attracted their attention.
Janus thrust his hand in again, but the result was no less discouraging.
"Well, I swum!" he grumbled. "I swum!"
"So you've said before," smiled Hazel.
"Anything wrong?" asked the guardian, glancing up from her own pack,
the contents of which were spread out on the floor before her.
The guide "swum" again. Miss Elting paused in her work, turning to him.
"Mr. Januth ith troubled," observed Tommy wisely.
"What is it?" demanded the guardian.
"What is it? It's a rock, Miss."
"What do you mean?"
For answer he held out on the palm of one hand a chunk of granite, the
while surveying it ruefully. Miss Elting took and examined the rock,
then directed a look of inquiry at Janus.
"I don't understand," she said, with a rising inflection on the last
word.
"Well, I swum! no more do I!" he exploded. "Will you look into that
pack and see what you find? Maybe I can't see straight this evening.
Maybe I can't."
Harriet ran to the pack he had indicated and peered into it. She
uttered an exclamation, loosened the rest of the binding ropes and
turned the contents out on the floor of the Shelter. Exclamations of
amazement fell from the lips of the Meadow-Brook Girls. Instead of the
supplies that had originally been stowed in the pack, a choice
assortment of stones, chunks of granite, small hardheads and pebbles
rolled out on the floor. They were speechless for the moment. Janus
tugged nervously at his beard, too thoroughly astonished for speech.
"I gueth thomebody hath been throwing thtoneth at uth," observed Tommy
Thompson. "I wonder who liketh uth tho much that he wanth to knock our
headth off?"
"Open the other packs," directed Miss Elting calmly.
They did so, but with the same results. Each pack was filled with
stones, and, in some instances, pieces of wood, parts of limbs of
trees, dirt, shale and the like.
"Oh, my stars, what a mess!" cried Crazy Jane.
"Did you not say that our equipment was perfectly safe here?" demanded
Miss Elting, turning sharply on the guide.
"I--I thought it was, Miss."
"Then how do you explain this?" she asked with a comprehensive wave of
the hand.
"I don't explain it. I swum! I don't know what to think about it. I
wish I could get my hands on the scoundrel."
Miss Elting sat down to think. "It is plain that we have been followed
into the mountains. The man whom Hazel saw at the 'Slide' undoubtedly
is the one who has been causing us all the trouble. He may have been
hovering about us all the time, we knowing nothing about it. I am
afraid we aren't very clever, girls. We have allowed our enemy to
outwit us."
"I don't believe he has, Miss Elting," replied Harriet. "If so, he has
been watching us from a distance. We surely should have discovered if
the man had come close to our camp."
"It must have been the man that Hazel saw, and I believe he was the one
who dropped the green goggles," was Harriet's emphatic declaration. "I
wonder what his grievance is?"
"All our stuff gone; we'll have to go back, won't we?" mourned Margery.
"We have our luggage, but that is some distance from here," replied the
guardian. "How long will it take us to get to our supplies, Mr. Grubb?"
"A day, or a day and a half, I reckon."
"Then we had better go for them to-morrow morning. We can do nothing
more this evening. But--what are we to do for food?"
"We have a little. We have some coffee and a spoonful of rice. That's
enough. We can live another twenty-four hours or so on that. I'll fix
up something now. Maybe there's something in a cache back of the hut.
I'll see." To their delight, Janus returned, not long after that, with
a small sack of flour and one of corn meal. It did not take the girls
long to start a fire in the small cook stove. They threw open the
windows, the "Shelter" warming up very quickly.
The girls began work at once, Janus showing them how to make the kind
of corn cakes that are popular with the mountain guides in the White
Mountain range. All the time Harriet Burrell was thinking intently
over their situation and the loss of the supplies. She was considering
the perplexing problems from different viewpoints, with a view toward
solving them.
"What did the thief do with our supplies?" she demanded, turning to the
guide.
"Probably took them away with him. That's the way thieves usually do.
Otherwise, what's the use in stealing?"
"I don't think so, sir. I do not believe this thief took the stuff
because he wanted it, but rather to make you trouble."
"Maybe, maybe. It's all the same thing."
"Oh, no, sir; it isn't, not if he did not carry the stuff away with
him. If he did not carry it away with him, what could he have done
with it?" She regarded Mr. Grubb inquiringly.
"I swum! I don't know," declared Janus, looking deeply puzzled.
"Nor do I, but I propose to find out. Is there such a thing as a
lantern here, Mr. Grubb?"
He shook his head. "Better leave off everything else till we get some
food. There's the coffee pot on the steps outside, where I put it, but
the cream is all gone. We'll have to drink our coffee black."
"Yeth, and thtay awake all night," averred Tommy. "But we don't care.
We are used to thtaying awake all night, aren't we, Jane?"
"Yes, darlin', we are," agreed Jane brightly. "But I'm wishing I might
lay violent hands on the rogue who took our belongings. Where is that
Mr. Sheriff for whom you sent to come and catch our friend of the green
goggles and the black whiskers, Mr. Grubb?"
"He'll be along in good time," replied the guide, stroking his own
whiskers while regarding with squinting eyes the progress of the supper
under the deft fingers of the Meadow-Brook Girls. "Here! Let me do
that. I reckon I can be finishing the supper while you young ladies
get ready. There's a barrel of rain water just back of the hut where
you can wash. You look as though you needed it--no offense intended."
A merry laugh greeted the words of Janus Grubb. The girls agreed that
they _did_ need it. Their clothing was not in very good condition,
either, but nothing could be done with the garments until they reached
a spot where they could change them for fresh apparel. The girls ran
out laughing, and a moment later were heard splashing in the rain
barrel. They came in with dripping faces to get their towels, then,
running out again, rubbed their faces until their cheeks glowed
underneath their tan. Tommy's freckles were now more pronounced than
ever, but her usually pale face wore a healthy look and her eyes were
bright and sparkling.
Supper was late that evening, nor was it a heavy supper when at last
they sat down on the benches in the "Shelter" with their cups and their
corn cakes beside them, but they were as happy a party of girls as if
sitting at a table laden with good things and sparkling with cut glass
and silver. There were health and good-fellowship here; and there also
was the pride of achievement, for these young girls had accomplished a
great deal during the time they had been living their out-of-door life.
They made merry over their scanty supper and finished with satisfied
appetites.
After supper Harriet asked the guide to prepare some torches, saying
she wished to look about to see if she could find anything. Janus said
there was no wood at hand fit for torches. No wood, no
lantern--nothing save the smoky old lamp in the "Shelter," and very
little oil in that. Janus said there had been a can of oil there a
week before that, but that some one must have carried it off, can and
all.
"I'll hold the light for you if you want to dig," he offered.
"Yes, please do that," urged Harriet. "I know where I wish to look.
If you will hold the light out there on the edge of that bank of rocks
I will go below. It is such a convenient place to throw things.
Tommy, look out that you don't throw your dishes over when you go out.
I think I will just wash that chimney before we go any further."
"Whatever you do don't drop it!" exclaimed Miss Elting. "We cannot get
along without the lamp."
"We can build up a fire outside, if necessary. I rather think that
would be a better idea still. What do you say, Mr. Grubb?"
Janus consulted his whiskers, then decided that the idea was an
excellent one. He said he would go out and get some fuel for the fire,
and did so. While he was thus engaged, Harriet cleaned the lamp
chimney, Miss Elting hung canvas over the glassless windows and the
other girls washed and put away the few dishes that had been used. A
fine, large fire was started on the ledge of rock that extended out
from the "Shelter" to a drop-off of some twenty feet. Harriet was very
much interested in the fire that night. Then, after it was well
started, she walked to the edge, and, with her back to the flames,
peered down.
All at once she started to run down the path to the left. She called
to Jane to come with her. They had to clamber over some rough ground
in order to reach a point below the hut. The light from the fire made
the shadows dance down there.
"I saw something glisten down here," explained Miss Burrell. "I am
certain it was a tin can. Wouldn't it be fine were we to find our
canned supplies down here, Jane?"
"Then it is fine, for here's the very thing you were looking for." The
Irish girl stooped, then held up a tin can. Harriet uttered a little
exclamation and reached for it. "But it's empty," chuckled Jane.
"Oh, fudge! Some one has thrown it over. Other picnic parties have
been up here. Besides, this is not one of our cans. But that doesn't
mean we shan't find any of our own. Look hard, Jane."
"I'm looking hard, so hard that my eyes ache," replied Jane dryly. An
instant later she cried out, "Will you look at that?"
Harriet was at her side in a couple of seconds from the uttering of
that cry. Then she, too, raised her voice in a shout that called her
companions from the hut. Miss Elting came out carrying the lamp.
Janus took it from her, and, standing on the very edge in the full
light of the campfire, held the lamp above his head and peered down.
"What is it?" cried the guardian.
"We have found our canned stuff and a whole lot of our equipment,"
answered Harriet triumphantly.
"Hooee-e-e-e!" shouted the Meadow-Brook Girls in great glee.
"Wait! I'll be down there to help you gather it up," Janus called down
to them.
"Get the packs, girls," ordered Miss Elting.
Then there came an interruption that startled the girls into silence.
Something sped through the air over their heads, uttering a strange,
weird woo-woo-woo! It passed, followed by a distant report, the crack
of a rifle. Then, all at once, the lamp that Janus Grubb was holding
above his head crumbled into nothingness, the oil in the well of the
lamp streaming down over the guide's head and face.