A DISCOVERY
Up to this time the weather had been remarkably fine, but on this
particular morning the Outdoor Girls woke to find that the sky was
overcast and there was every indication of a stormy day.
"Oh bother," grumbled Mollie, as after their breakfast she gloomily
surveyed the landscape from the cretonne-curtained window. "Just as I
was about to suggest a real adventure, too!"
"What do you mean--'real adventure?'" queried Grace, lazily. The day
before she had bought a new box of candy and a magazine, and so it
happened that she was the only one of the four of them who really did
not care whether it rained or not.
Mollie turned from the window and regarded them resentfully. Then she
looked more hopeful as her eyes rested on Betty, who was sorting the
contents of a too-crowded dresser drawer.
"You are with me, anyway, aren't you, Betty?" she asked, almost
wistfully. "We'll leave these other two at home, and you and I will go
on our adventure."
"All right," said Betty, with a lack of enthusiasm that fell with a
dampening effect upon Mollie's ears. The disastrous quality of their
last adventure had had a dampening effect on the girls' enthusiasm for
this form of entertainment, and for the present they preferred the
safety of the ranch to the lure of the great unknown, as it were.
However, this condition of mind was only temporary. They would soon be
as eager as ever for new experiences. "I'm game for anything, Mollie
dear, as long as you keep away from land-slides and wild animals."
"Just hear the child!" said Mollie disgustedly. "As if an adventure
would be an adventure without a little danger mixed in!"
"Just what is your great idea, Mollie?" asked Betty mildly. Mollie was
beginning to glower. And if somebody did not stop her at the beginning,
there was sure to be a fracas. Betty knew this from experience. "Suppose
you tell us about it and get it out of your system. As I said before,
I'm willing to do anything if it isn't hunting lions and tigers."
Mollie grunted disgustedly.
"Well, there isn't a thing really exciting about it, if that's what you
mean," she said. "I just thought that since we had nothing special to do
to-day we might visit the Hermit of Gold Run again. We might be able to
solve the mystery about him in some way," she added as a special
inducement, since the girls still seemed unenthusiastic.
Grace laughed indulgently.
"Just how do you expect to solve this mystery?" she asked, with a
giggle. "You certainly can't do it by looking at him."
"Oh well, if that's the way you feel," retorted Mollie, feeling very
much abused, "I'm sorry I spoke about it. Only I thought we had already
decided to pay him a visit."
"And so we had," said Betty, closing the dresser drawer with a bang and
coming unexpectedly to her aid. "And I, for one, am with you in that,
Mollie. I have felt from the first," she went on earnestly, while Mollie
regarded her with growing hope, "that I had not only heard the selection
that that man played but that I had seen him somewhere before--quite a
long time ago."
Impressed by Betty's earnestness, Grace had laid down her magazine and
Amy was becoming interested.
"I know it's ridiculous," Betty continued, as though to justify
herself, "but I can't help feeling that way, just the same."
"That thing he played sounded familiar to me, too," Grace admitted, now
entirely abandoning her magazine and sitting up. "It has been haunting
me ever since we heard him playing that day, and yet I can't think of
the name of it."
Softly Amy began to hum a popular song, but Mollie interrupted her
impatiently.
"Well then, since you all feel that way about it," she said eagerly, "I
don't see why it wouldn't be fun to scout around his cabin a little bit
and see if we can't pick up some information. I'm really curious about
him."
"All right, let's," said Betty, with the decision for which she was
famed. "Get your riding togs on, girls, and we'll play detective."
This time it was Mollie who held back.
"How about the weather?" she demurred. "Looks as if we were likely to
get wet."
"Who cares?" said Betty airily, adding, as she stopped at the door to
make them a little bow: "It would give us an excuse to see His Highness
again."
Half an hour later they had saddled their ponies and were cantering off
briskly to visit the Hermit of Gold Run.
"Aren't you a little bit afraid to go in there?" asked Amy, reining in
as they reached the narrow trail through the woods that led near the
musician's cabin. "We might run into some wolves, as we did that other
time."
"We were much further in the woods than the Hermit's cabin," said Mollie
impatiently. "And it was in an entirely different direction, too. Go
ahead, silly, or I'll ride right over you," and as she was urging Old
Nick forward until he crowded uncomfortably against the little white
filly, Amy had no other course but to do as she was bid.
Nevertheless, she was not the only one who was uneasy, and it might have
been observed that the girls glanced often into the shadows of the
underbrush on either side of the narrow trail.
There were wild animals in that forest, as they had good reason to know,
and though they seldom ventured this close to civilization, still there
was no use in tempting fate!
"I didn't know it was as far in as this," said Grace, after they had
ridden some distance in silence. "Are you sure we haven't passed the
cabin, Betty?"
"Why, we aren't nearly there yet," was Betty's discomforting reply.
"It's quite a way beyond that next turn in the trail."
Grace said nothing, but she gripped the reins harder in her hands. She
had made up her mind that at the first sign of danger she would turn
Nabob and make a dash back down the trail for safety.
After that the silence became so pronounced that Mollie noticed it and
laughed nervously.
"Why all the noise?" she asked jocosely. "It nearly breaks my ear
drums."
"Hush," cried Amy warningly. "I thought I heard something."
"That was your own heart hammering against the tree trunks," retorted
Mollie dryly, at which the girls giggled and the tension relaxed.
"Let's talk about something nice," Betty suggested. "Gold, for
instance."
"Or Allen," teased Grace. "I reckon you won't be glad or anything when
he gets here."
"I guess mother will be gladder than any of us," replied Betty promptly,
trying to shift the spotlight from herself. "She was so excited when I
told her what Dan Higgins said about the possibility of there being gold
on the ranch that she hardly closed her eyes all night. I told her she
was getting to be a regular adventuress."
"Like her daughter," said Mollie, with a chuckle.
"Just think of the story we can tell the boys when we get home," said
Amy rapturously, adding apologetically as the girls glanced at her: "If
we find the gold, I mean."
"Listen to the child!" cried Betty gayly, while the other girls laughed.
"And we haven't begun to dig yet. Hold your horses, Amy dear, hold your
horses."
They did this very thing literally the next moment, for they came in
sight of the queer little cabin of the man whom the natives called the
Hermit of Gold Run.
Quickly they jumped down, tethered the horses as they had done before on
the day when they had first made the acquaintance of this remarkable
man, and started rather hesitantly down the path toward the house.
As they came nearer the haunting strains of the music that had puzzled
them before once more floated out through the open windows and they
paused, lost once again in the spell of it.
The music stopped, and they went on, hardly knowing what their next move
was to be, yet drawn irresistibly by their curiosity. Then once more
they heard the violin, but evidently the mood of the player had changed.
The melody fraught with pathos, wailing, pleading, no longer reached
them. The theme had changed--light, airy, sparkling, it reminded the
girls of fairies dancing on the grass in the moonlight.
Mollie grasped Betty's arm.
"I know that!" she cried excitedly. "It's something of Chopin's, a
nocturne, I think. Girls, I know where I heard that selection played
just that way before."
They gazed at her, their eyes asking the question before their lips
could form it.
"At the Hostess House!" cried Mollie. "Don't you remember that concert
we gave with some of the great artists?"
"That big benefit!" cried Betty excitedly. "You've got it, Mollie!
That's what I was trying to think of!"
"Sh-h," said Grace, a finger to her lips. "He has stopped playing. He
may hear us."
"All right," said Betty. "Let's get back to the trail where we can talk
this thing over."
They did not stop at the trail, however, for some memory of the danger
lurking in the woods drove them out on to the main road where they might
talk in peace.
"Now then," said Betty eagerly, as they reached the road, crowding their
horses close together and reining them in to a walk. "What do you make
of this, girls? If this man is really one of those artists that played
at that big concert, then he is famous and there is something more than
strange in his hiding up here in the woods."
"Goodness, we don't need anybody to tell us that," said Grace. "He
certainly must be in hiding for something he's done--unless he has been
disappointed in love," she added sentimentally.
"I don't believe he was ever in love with anything but his violin," said
Mollie.
"Can't somebody think of the name of the violinist that played at the
benefit?" asked Betty, who had been trying for some minutes past to
accomplish that very thing.
"It was something like Croup, I think," said Mollie, wrinkling her
forehead.
"Goodness, how romantic," said Grace, with a laugh.
"I tell you how we can find out the name," said Amy suddenly.
"How?" they questioned.
"I think I have a program, and I can send home for it," said Amy.
"Good girl!" cried Mollie, slapping her on the back with a violence that
nearly threw her from Lady's back and caused that gentle little animal
to turn her head inquiringly. "We little thought we had a genius in our
midst!"