THE HIKE.
You could plainly see the Devil's Gorge from Camp Carter, that is, you
could see a dent in the neighboring mountain, and no one but Josh knew
that it was two hours' steady walking to that purplish dimple. Two
hours' steady walking is not possible with twenty-odd persons, and so
it took nearer four to reach the end of their journey. There were many
pauses to rest and to tie shoe strings and refresh themselves at
gurgling springs. Josh led the way with Josephus as pack mule, the lunch
strapped on his back and Bobby perched on top like a Great Mogul.
Josephus was at a great disadvantage as his short fore leg was down
hill. "Never mind, he'll play thunder goin' back," Josh consoled himself
and Bobby, who had to sit very carefully to keep from falling off on the
down side. Josephus limped cheerfully on as though there were nothing
he enjoyed more than a hike where he was allowed to carry the lunch.
"He is such a cheerful old mule that I just know if he had been born a
canary bird he would be singing all the time," declared Nan. "I think he
has a most enviable disposition."
"Yes, his disposition is more to be envied than his job," suggested one
of the party.
"Never mind, we will lighten his load for him before we return. I am
starved."
"Who is it that is hungry?"
"Me, me!" from so many mouths that the educating spinsters' precise "I,
I," was lost in the avalanche of me's.
Those worthy ladies were in a seventh heaven of bliss. They had found
many botanical specimens which they pounced upon for future analysis,
and their little hammers were going whack! whack! at every boulder that
poor Josephus stumbled over. They were really very nice and kind, and as
for their backbones, it was not their fault that they had pokers instead
of vertebrae.
The Devil's Gorge was worth the long walk, even to those who had no
hammers. Great rocks were piled high on top of one another and all down
the mountain side was an enormous crack in solid rock.
"Geewhiz! Something must have been doing here once to make such a mess,"
declared Lewis Somerville.
"Just look at that great rock balanced there on that little one! It
would take just a push to send it clattering down. To think that one
great heave of Mother Earth must have sent it up, and there it has been
just as it is for centuries!" said Douglas.
"Well, we uns bets Mr. Bill could send it over with one er his side
splitters." And with that from Josh, Bill gave a sample of his laugh
that did not dislodge the great boulder but made Tillie Wingo stop
talking for a whole minute.
"You uns ain't lowing to eat here, is you uns?" asked Josh rather
plaintively.
"Well, this is a pretty good place," suggested Dr. Wright, who had found
a pleasant companion in Miss Hill although he had made some endeavor at
first to walk beside Helen. But that young lady swished her cold-gravy
corduroy skirt by him and refused to be walked beside. Helen was looking
particularly charming on that day, although she could but confess to
herself that she was a little tired. Making sandwiches for such a lot
of persons was no joke, and she had been at it for hours before they
started on the hike. She had had plenty of helpers, but sandwiches were
her particular stunt and she had had a finger in every one.
Dr. Wright's last glimpse of Helen as she had sat in the coach of the
moving train, telling a truly true made-up story to Bobby, had remained
a very pleasant picture in his mind. He had decided that there was a lot
of sweetness in the girl and certainly a great deal of cleverness and
charm--if she would only not feel that her thorny side was the one
always to be presented to him. When he had handed her the aromatic
ammonia for Douglas and she had thanked him so sweetly, he had felt that
surely the hatchet was buried between them and now they were to be
friends. He had been thinking of her a good deal during the past week
and had quite looked forward to the possibility of becoming better
acquainted with her.
Helen had really meant to be nice, but on the young doctor's arrival a
spirit of perverseness had seized her and she had her thorns all ready
to prick him whenever he approached her, hoping for some share of the
sweetness she could lavish on others: on Bobby, for instance. That
youngster always declared Helen was his favorite sister, and there was
never a time when Bobby was too dirty or too naughty for Helen to think
he was not the sweetest and most kissable thing in the world. As Bobby's
conversation when he was with his 'ployer was taken up a great deal with
Helen, and vice versa, those two young persons perforce heard much of
one another. Helen was grateful to Dr. Wright for his kindness to Bobby
and at the same time was a little jealous of Bobby's affection and
admiration for him.
"It isn't like me," she would argue to herself, "but somehow this man
seems always to be putting me in the wrong, and now he even has Bobby
loving him more than he does me, and as for the girls--they make me
tired!"
That very morning when they were dressing for the hike and she was
putting on her cold-gravy corduroy skirt, grey pongee shirtwaist and
grey stockings and canvas shoes--all thought out with care even to the
soft grey summer felt hat and the one touch of color: a bright red tie
knotted under the soft rolling collar--she had been irritated almost to
a point of tears because Nan, who was all ready, came running back into
the tent to put on some khaki leggins because Dr. Wright said it would
be wise to wear them, as a place like the Devil's Gorge was sure to be
snaky. Douglas and Lucy had done the same thing and had wanted her to.
"Indeed I won't! How did he happen to be the boss of this camp? His
power of attorney does not extend to me, I'll have him know! Besides, do
you think I am going to ruin the whole effect of my grey costume with
those old mustard colored leggins? Not on your life!"
"Helen is very tired; that's what makes her so unreasonable," Nan had
whispered to Douglas as they left the tent to Helen and her costume.
"She has worked so hard all morning on the sandwiches. When I finished
the deviled eggs, I wanted her to let me help, but she wouldn't."
"Yes, I know. I was so busy in the tents, making up cots and
straightening up things, that I had to leave it all to you and Helen,
but I thought Gwen and Susan were there to help."
"So they were, but Susan has a slap dash way of making sandwiches that
does not appeal to Helen, and while Gwen is very capable, she cannot
take the initiative in anything unless she has been taught it at school.
The next time we make sandwiches she will do it much better. She was so
anxious to make them just right that she was slower than Brer Tarripin."
"I asked Gwen to go with us this morning, but she shrank back in such
horror at the mention of the Devil's Gorge that I realized I had been
cruel, indeed, to speak of the place to her. That's where her father
killed himself, you know."
"Yes, poor girl! Doesn't it seem strange that there were no papers of
any sort found to show where he came from?"
Just then Dr. Wright joined them and they told him of the little English
girl and how her father had killed himself and how, there being no
papers to show that he had made a payment on the mountain property, Old
Dean, the country storekeeper, had foreclosed at the Englishman's death
and the property had later been given to their father in payment of a
debt Dean owed him for services in rebuilding the hotel at Greendale,
also owned by Dean.
"Aunt Mandy says it was only about a thousand dollars in all," explained
Douglas, "and she was under the impression that Mr. Brown had paid cash
for the land, but he was so reticent no one knew much about him and old
Dean said that he had never paid anything. Of course Dean is the rich
member of the community and gives them credit at his store, so all the
mountaineers are under his thumb, more or less. Father got only half
the land."
When Helen appeared, she fancied Dr. Wright looked disapprovingly at her
because of her legginless state, but on the contrary he was thinking
what a very delightful looking person she was and never even thought of
leggins. He only thought how nice it would be if she would permit him to
walk by her side and hold back the low hanging branches and briars so
that her bright, animated face would escape the inevitable scratches
that attend a hike in the mountains. He liked the way she walked,
carrying her head and shoulders in rather a gallant way. He liked the
sure-footed way she stepped along in her pretty grey canvas ties. He
liked the set and hang of her corduroy skirt and the roll of the soft
collar of her shirt--above all, he liked the little dash of red at her
throat. She reminded him of a scarlet tanager, only they were black, and
she was grey, grey like a dove--but there was certainly nothing dovelike
about her, certainly nothing meek or cooing as she swished by him.
No one laughed more or chattered more than Helen did on that hike, not
even Tillie Wingo herself, the queen bee of laughers and chatterers; but
Nan noticed that the last mile of their walk her sister's carriage was
not nearly so gallant, and Dr. Wright noticed that the scarlet of her
tie was even more brilliant because of an unwonted paleness of her
piquant face. He tapped his breast pocket to be sure that the tiny
medicine case he always carried with him was safe.
"You never can tell what will happen when a lot of youngsters start off
on a hike, and it is well to have 'first aid to the injured' handy," he
had said to himself.
"Wal, if you uns is lowing to eat here, reckon we uns will drive
Josephus round the mounting a bit. We uns feels like it's a feedin' the
Devil and starvin' God to eat in sech a spot," and Josh prepared to
unload his mule after he had assisted Bobby to the ground.
"Oh, please don't eat here," begged Nan, "this is where the Englishman
died."
"Where? Where?" the others demanded, and Josh, nothing loath to tell
the dramatic incident and emboldened by the crowd and broad daylight,
when hants were powerless, told again the tale of the man with the sad,
tired face who was always trying to get away from the ringing and
roaring in his head; how he had drifted into Greendale and bought the
land with the cabin on it from old Dean and taken his little girl up
there where they had lived about two years; and then how one night he
had not come home, and Gwen had come to their cabin early in the morning
to ask them to hunt her father, and after long search they had found him
down in the Devil's Gorge--dead.
"Dead's a door nail and Gwen left 'thout so much as a sho 'nuf name,
'cause the Englishman allus called hisself Brown, but the books what
Gwen fetched to we allses' house is got another name writ in 'em, an' my
maw, she says that Gwen's jes' as likely to be named one as tother. My
maw says that she don't hold to the notion that the Englishman took his
own life, but that was what the coroner said--susanside--an' accordin'
to law we uns is bleeged to accept his verdict."
"I agree with your mother," said Dr. Wright. "It is more apt to have
been vertigo that toppled the poor man over. That ringing in the head is
so often accompanied with vertigo."
They carried the provisions around the mountain, out of sight of the
gruesome spot, and under a mighty oak tree ate their very good
luncheon.