THE QUEST.
Perhaps Helen might have slept better had she known what was in the
wallet, but it would have been difficult. Dr. Wright, accompanied by
Douglas, crept silently into the tent just before the camp broke up
for the night and found her pulse absolutely normal. His patient was
sleeping so peacefully that he sought his hammock thoroughly contented
with the treatment he had administered in the first case of snake bite
that he had met in his practice.
Dawn was in the neighborhood of four o'clock. It was so still it seemed
impossible that thirty persons were camping on that mountain side. The
night noises had ceased. Katy-dids and tree-frogs, who had been making
as much clatter as though they had been getting out a morning paper, had
gone home to rest until it should be time to commence on the next
edition.
This lull between night and morning lasted only a few moments and then
there was "the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds." At the first
sleepy note, Dr. Wright stirred in the hammock which he had stretched
tightly between two giant pines a little way from the camp. He had told
himself he was to awake at dawn, and now that he had done it, what was
it all about? He lay still for a few moments drowsily drinking in the
beauties of the dawn. A mocking bird had constituted himself waker-up of
the bird kingdom since he could speak all languages. He now began to
call the different bird notes and was sleepily answered from bush and
tree. When he felt that a sufficient number was awake to make it worth
his while, he burst into a great hymn of praise and thanksgiving; at
least that was what it seemed to the young doctor, the only human being
awake on that mountain side.
"I'd like to join you, old fellow, I'm so thankful that Helen is safe,"
and then he remembered why he had set himself the task of waking at
dawn.
He slid from his hammock and in a short while was taking the trail of
the day before, back to the Devil's Gorge. It seemed but a short walk to
the athletic young man as he swung his long legs, delighting in the
exercise. He reached the gorge in much less than half the time it had
taken the hikers of yesterday.
The morning light was clear and luminous but the gorge was as gruesome
as ever. Sun light never penetrated its gloom, and Dr. Wright noticed
that no birds seemed to sing there. He let himself carefully down the
cliff, practicing what he had preached and looking where he stepped. In
the exact spot where Helen had jumped, he saw a snake coiled as though
waiting for another pretty little gray shoe to come his way.
"It may not be the same snake," muttered the young man, "but I am going
to presume it is and kill him if I can."
He was standing on the ledge where Helen had been when she called to
Lewis Somerville, just before the fatal leap. The wallet was in plain
view, caught in a crotch of the scrub oak, and the hateful snake was
curled up directly under the tree as though put there by some evil
magician to guard a secret treasure.
"You needn't look at me with your wicked eyes. I am going to kill you if
I can, and why, I don't know, because I believe in a way you have done
me a pretty good turn. Helen trusts me now, at least!"
He raised a great bowlder over his head and with a sure aim hurled it
down on the serpent, who was even then making his strange rattle like
dry leaves in the wind.
"That was your swan song, old boy," and so it was. The snake was crushed
by the blow, only his tail sticking out, twitching feebly, the rattle
vibrating slowly, making a faint lonesome sound.
"I think I'll take this for a souvenir!" The doctor got out one of his
ever ready instruments and deftly extracted the rattle from the now
harmless reptile. "Some day we may laugh over this," but I don't know
why this made him blush as it did, there all by himself in the Devil's
Gorge.
The rattle in his pocket, he started back up the cliff, when he
suddenly remembered his quest. "Well, by Jove, it looks as though that
mysterious wallet was destined to be left in the branches of the dwarf
oak!" he exclaimed, as he made his way back down to the spot and this
time got the leather wallet. It was very tightly wedged into the tree,
in fact, it had become incorporated, as it were, into the growth of the
tree, and one of the gnarled and twisted limbs had to be cut away before
he could free the object of his morning walk.
It was a bulky pocket-book, made of alligator skin which, because of its
toughness, had evidently been able to withstand the weather that Dr.
Wright felt sure it must have had to undergo for years, judging by the
way the branches of the tree had grown around it.
"I won't open it now, but will take it to Helen. It was her find and I
am not going to jump her claim."
The camp was stirring when he returned. Much shouting from the
bath-house assured him that the boys were undergoing a shower of the
freezing mountain water. He waited until the last glowing, damp-haired
youth filed out and then took a sprinkle himself, which refreshed him
greatly but left him so hungry that the delightful odors from the open
air kitchen almost maddened him. Roe herring he was sure of,--that is
always unmistakable; hot rolls were holding their own in the riot of
smells; bacon was asserting itself; there was a burnt sugar effect that
must mean fried June apples; and threading its way through the symphony
of fragrance and rising supreme over all was a coffee motive.
"Do you blame any one for stealing food when he is hungry?" he asked
Gwen, whom he found in the pavilion setting the tables. "I don't."
"You have been up a long time, sir. I saw you a little after four on the
trail near Aunt Mandy's."
"Were you up then?"
"Oh, yes, sir. I always get up early to milk and put the cabin in order
before I come over here. It will be a little while before breakfast.
Shall I get you a cup of coffee now?"
"That would be very kind of you! I am famished, and perhaps a cup of
coffee would keep me from disgracing myself when breakfast is ready."
Gwen had changed a great deal in the few weeks since she had come so
shyly from behind the bowlder to offer herself as factotum to Lewis and
Bill. She still had the modest demeanor, but had lost her extreme
shyness and also much of her primness. She was now a more natural girl
of fourteen, thanks to Nan and Lucy, who had tried to make her feel at
home with them. Shoes and stockings had helped her to recover from her
timidity. She had always had an idea that people were looking at her
bare feet. Over her skimpy little dress she now wore a bungalow apron,
which was vastly becoming to her Puritan type of beauty. The first money
she made had been spent on shoes and aprons. Helen had wanted to present
her with these things, but Gwen and Josh were alike in wanting nothing
they had not honestly earned.
As the girl came towards the doctor, bearing in her steady little brown
hands a tray with a smoking cup of coffee and a hot buttered roll, just
to tide him over until breakfast, he thought he had never seen a more
attractive child.
"And it wasn't because she was feeding me, either," he said to Helen
later on, "but because she had such a fine upstanding look to her and
because her hand was so capable and steady and her gaze so open and
honest. No great lady, trained in the social graces, could have handed
one a cup of coffee with more assurance and ease of manner."
"Miss Helen was asking for you," said Gwen, as she put down the
delectable tray.
"Oh, is she all right?" and the physician jumped up, ready to leave his
untasted food if he were needed.
"Oh, yes, she is as well as can be, and when I took her some coffee
early this morning, she told me she had slept so well and was famished
for food. I am going to straighten up her tent just as soon as the girls
are out of it, so you can go in to see her. I told her I had seen you
taking a walk at four o'clock. She wants to see you."
"I wonder if heavenly messengers wear blue aprons and tennis shoes," the
young man said to himself, "because if they do, I am sure Gwen is one of
them." He patted his breast pocket to make sure the bulky wallet was
there, hoping it held in some way good for the little English girl but
determined to say nothing about it until Helen had her first peep.
"Can it be possible that I am falling in love with Helen?" he muttered.
"She is not more than seventeen, and, besides, it was only yesterday
that I determined never to put myself in the way of being insulted by
her again so long as I should live. Here I am starving to death (this
roll and coffee will be only a drop in the bucket of my great appetite)
and still I'd rather go see her than eat the breakfast I can smell
cooking. I promised the father and mother to look after the children
while they were taking my prescription, and this is a fine way to do it:
to fall in love with one of them! Besides, Helen is not a bit prettier
than Douglas, not so clever as Nan, and so spoiled that she can be
certainly very disagreeable, but still--still--she is Helen--and Bobby
loves her best of all. Anyhow, I think I'll eat my breakfast first
before I go to her, since she does not need my professional services."
"I never see folks eat like these here week-enders," declared Oscar, as
breakfast progressed and he came to the kitchen for more hot rolls. He
also brought directions from Douglas for Susan to scramble a dish of
eggs for some of the late comers who found nothing but herring tails for
their portion of a dish ever dear to the heart of all Virginians.
"I don't see how the young ladies 'spects to clar nothin' out'n their
ventur'some if'n all the payin' guests eats ekal to these here," said
Susan, as she took another pan of rolls out of the oven and put a
skillet on the stove to get hot for the eggs. "I's done been to many
springs an' sich with Mis Carter when I was a-nussin' of Bobby an' I
never yet seed any of the pr'ietors knock up a dish er eggs fer no
sleepy haids. Fus' come, fus' serve, an' las' come satisfy theyselves
with herrin' tails an' coffee drugs. Miss Gwen done made three pots er
coffee already an' she mought jes' as well be pourin' it down the
bottomless pit fer all the showin' it's done made. If'n these folks is
gonter eat all mornin', I'd like ter know whin we's ter git the dishes
washed."
"Well, dey won't need no scrapin'," laughed Oscar, as he bore away the
plates heaped with crusty turnovers. "I been a-bettin' on Mr. Bill
Tinsley, but looks lak Dr. Wright kin hole his own with the bes' of
them."
"One thing sho," grumbled Susan, who had the customary bad humor of the
Sunday morning cook, "th'ain't no use'n a clock up'n in this here camp.
Whin you gits through with breakfast, it's time ter begin dinner."