ALONG THE TRAIL
Betty's knock had to be repeated twice before the occupant of the cabin
responded.
"Knock harder, Betty, if----" Mollie was beginning when the door opened
at last and a very strange person stood upon the threshold. Tall, with
stooped shoulders and a head bent a little as though he had spent
countless hours over his violin, with long, curly hair, and with the
visioned eyes of the musician, the man was a figure that would have made
people turn to stare at him anywhere.
"I--we--we are very sorry to trouble you," said Betty hesitatingly, as
the musician made no effort to break the silence. "But it is raining
hard, as you see, and we thought----"
The man started and frowned.
"Ah yes, of course," he said, moving aside and motioning them into the
room. "You will find shelter here, but very little else, I fear."
As the girls entered rather hesitantly the man turned from them
abruptly and, lifting the violin that lay upon the rough board table, he
began with the utmost gentleness to put it in its case. The girls had
the rather uncomfortable impression that the man was forcing himself to
be polite to them--that if he had been any other than a gentleman he
would have refused them admittance.
They looked uneasily at each other and then toward the one window in the
room, and one thought was in the minds of all of them--to escape from
the enforced hospitality of this man.
"I think the rain is letting up a little," said Grace softly.
"I reckon we won't have to stay more than a few minutes," agreed Betty,
then, as their long-haired host put down his case and turned toward
them, she ventured a shy compliment.
"We heard you playing as we came along," she said. "It was very
wonderful."
"Thank you," said the man gruffly, and turned away so abruptly that
Betty felt as if some one had struck her.
Mollie looked indignant and Amy put an arm about Betty as she whispered:
"The rain has nearly stopped, honey. Don't you think we had better go?"
So, with half-hearted expressions of thanks from the girls and no
expression of regret at all from the man, the new acquaintances parted,
the girls hurrying down the dripping path to where their horses were
tethered.
Once Mollie looked back toward the cabin, and her indignation burst
forth.
"Look, he could hardly wait for us to get outside to shut the door," she
said. "Of all the ill-mannered----"
"Oh, I don't think he meant to be ill-mannered," interposed Betty
mildly, as she reached Nigger and he whinnied a welcome. "He was just
distantly polite, that's all. He didn't want to be bothered, probably,
and he had a hard time to keep from showing it."
"Huh," grunted Mollie, as she flung herself upon Old Nick's back and
patted him soothingly. "I'm sure he has some real reason for not wanting
folks around. He acted mighty funny to me," she said.
"Goodness, hear the child!" cried Grace, as they rode swiftly back the
way they had come through the fine drizzle. "She never can resist making
a thief or something out of a perfectly ordinary person."
"Seems to me he is anything but ordinary," interposed Amy thoughtfully.
"No ordinary person could play the violin the way he was playing it
when we came up to the house. That sounded like the work of a master."
"Yes," agreed Betty, a faraway look in her eyes. "He plays exquisitely,
if he does live in a little house away up in the woods. And I can't
shake off the impression that I have heard that same selection played in
just that same way somewhere before."
Though this first excursion had been somewhat of a failure, the girls
were by no means discouraged and in the days that followed they rode
almost constantly. Finally they began to know their way about like the
natives.
Their rides were taken mostly in the open country, however, for in the
woods they knew lurked very real dangers. But these they avoided more to
save Mrs. Nelson worry than from any personal fears.
But one day, feeling more than usually adventurous and growing more and
more confident of their ability to find their way around alone, they
dared venture along a rocky trail that offered wonderful romantic
opportunities.
"Oh, this is the life!" cried Grace, as Nabob stepped daintily over the
rocks and underbrush that almost completely overgrew the narrow path. "A
peach of a horse under you, the whole day before you, and nothing to do
but enjoy yourself. Whoa-up there, Nabob. What's the matter with you?"
for the horse had whinnied softly and shied almost imperceptibly to the
side of the trail.
At the same time the other horses seemed to catch some of Nabob's
uneasiness, and the girls were kept busy for the next few minutes
soothing them and coaxing them back into a normal mode of progress.
"Something scared them," said Amy nervously. "Don't you think we had
better go back, girls? This trail seems to be getting narrower and
narrower. I don't believe anybody comes along here very often."
"Well, what of it?" cried Mollie sharply. "That's what we are here for,
isn't it? If we wanted people, we could have plenty of them right back
on the ranch."
"Stop quarreling, girls," said Betty, matter-of-factly. "We'll eat
pretty soon and that will make everybody feel better." Kindly Mrs.
Cummins had put up an appetizing lunch for the girls.
"Look!" she cried a moment later, as the trail broadened out and they
reached a rather open space in the woods through which they could look
straight down--for they were on a considerable elevation--into the
thriving little mining town of Gold Run. "I didn't know you could see
Gold Run from here."
"Doesn't it look funny and tiny?" cried Mollie, reining in beside her.
"It must be an awfully long way off."
"Wouldn't this be a good place to eat?" queried Amy hopefully, and the
girls laughed at her.
"We aren't hungry enough yet," said Betty, as she turned her horse to
continue down the trail.
They rode on, following the trail as it wound deeper and deeper into the
woodland, catching glimpses now and then of the mining camp down in the
hollow.
It seemed as if they were really getting closer to Gold Run and,
fascinated by the new game they were playing, forgetting their fears in
the new sights and sounds all about them, the girls rode farther and
farther into the heart of a forest, whose smiling face often served to
hide some hideous danger.
But to the girls all was beauty and sunshine and they conversed merrily
as they cantered along.
"When is Allen coming, Betty?" asked Grace. "I had an idea he would be
here before this."
"Why, dad has written, asking him to come as soon as he can," answered
Betty, striving to look unconscious. "You know what that girl Lizzie
said about mother's relatives--she never knew she had them till she came
here--and dad thinks some of these people may make up their minds to
contest the will. They haven't made trouble yet--but you never can tell.
Listen, girls," she added suddenly. "Will you promise not to breathe a
word of it if I tell you a big secret?"
"Hope to die," they chorused piously.
"Well, our old friend Peter Levine has been around pestering mother
again."
At this news, Grace, who was riding ahead, checked her mount so suddenly
that Betty had all she could do to keep Nigger from swallowing Nabob's
tail.
"For goodness' sake, put out your hand when you do that next time,"
laughed Betty.
"Well," said Grace as she gave Nabob a gentle slap that started him on
again, "Peter Levine must want that ranch very badly, to be following us
all over the continent this way."
"He seems to be rather anxious," said Betty dryly. "He has offered
mother twenty thousand for it this time."
"Going up," cried Mollie, with a chuckle. "If your mother holds on much
longer, Betty, she will be a millionaire."
"Well, mother is more certain than ever that there is something unusual
about Gold Run Ranch," went on Betty, as she urged Nigger up a gentle
slope. "She confidently expects to discover a gold mine, and so that's
another reason why she thinks Allen ought to be here."
"Goodness, let's all get out and dig," cried Mollie.
"Can we have all we find, Betty?" called Amy, with a laugh.
"Every last gold brick," answered Betty happily, and then they came upon
another open space, and there, lying not more than half a mile below
them, was the mining town of Gold Run.
"Now here's the place to have some lunch," said Betty, slipping to the
ground and leading Nigger off a little way into the woods where she
tethered him securely. "We can look right down into the town and eat our
lunch at the same time."
The girls followed suit, and it did not take them long afterward to
discover that they were very hungry. So out came the lunch basket, and
never did biscuits and cheese and fried chicken taste more delicious
than they did to the girls right there in that romantic little spot in
the woods.
"I hope it doesn't rain the way it did the other day," said Mollie, as
she lazily surveyed a cloudless sky.
"We haven't even a cabin in the woods to go to this time," said Grace,
adding, as the thought brought up a picture of the long-haired musician
who had been so painfully polite: "I wonder what our friend, Long Hair,
lives on, anyway. Maybe he goes out and kills bears and things. They say
bear meat is very good eating," she added reflectively.
"Maybe we can catch one ourselves and take it home for dinner,"
suggested Mollie, and the girls looked as if they did not like her
suggestion at all.
"Methinks the bear would be more likely to catch us," Betty was saying
when a chorus of low whinnyings and stampings coming from where the
horses were tethered caused them to jump to their feet in alarm.
Suddenly the nervousness of the animals changed to panic and they began
to rear and plunge, straining madly at the tethering straps, snorting
and screaming with terror.
"Look!" cried Mollie, her voice shrilling above the noise. "There! In
the woods! Oh, run for your lives, girls! Run!"