_STAKING A CLAIM_
But it was rarely ever that the professor wanted company in his search.
Bet was inclined to feel offended, for she had hoped that he would
accept her offer of help and consider The Merriweather Girls as
partners.
"All right, Kit, let's do something by ourselves. What's the use of
just looking at the glorious scenery? If an old man like Professor
Gillette can go out and hunt for a lost village, we should be able to
find some copper claims or other interesting things. Let's do it."
The girls were in the saddle while Bet discussed the possibility of
discovering something. It was really adventure that Bet was seeking.
The horses stepped gingerly over the slippery rocks of the creek bed as
the girls chatted and laughed on their way to Table Mountain, a great
flat-topped summit in the high hills.
Joy Evans suddenly laughed outright. "Bet Baxter, it would take you to
think of a thing like this. What under the sun will we do with a
copper mine if we do locate one? I'm very sure I have no use for one."
"Don't be a spoil-sport, Joy! Think of the romance and the fun. Why,
we'll be mine owners!"
"What I want to know is, who will do the actual work?" It was Shirley
Williams, the practical girl of affairs who put the question.
"We'll hire the work done, of course. It would be foolish for us to
waste our valuable time digging holes in the ground," returned Bet.
"Certainly," giggled Kit. "We'll do the brain work and let the
_greasers_ do the digging."
"Please don't call the Mexicans that horrid word again. It doesn't
sound nice. I think the Mexican boys have such wonderful dreamy eyes."
"We've heard that before. Go on, Joy, rave some more!" Bet treated
Joy's outbursts of enthusiasm over boys with contempt. "I'm going to
do something useful in life."
"Like finding copper mines! Hm! What use are they?" snapped Joy.
"I'd rather think about boys any time."
"Of course you would! Go on and dream then!" Bet was angry. She and
Joy were often near to a quarrel, but somehow it was always averted.
"Quit your fighting, girls," laughed Enid. "What's to hinder us from
finding our mine and letting Joy dream of romantic brown eyes at the
same time?"
"I'm for the mine! I've always had a secret passion to locate claims,
myself, and see them develop into a big mine." Kit caught some of
Bet's enthusiasm and wanted to start out at once. She continued: "It's
lots of fun to locate a claim. Once I followed an outcropping of ore
up over a high hill, but when I got to the top I found it already
located."
"Oh, what a shame!" cried Bet. "And did you give up then?" Bet looked
her disappointment at Kit's lack of enthusiasm.
"I did for a while but I've never really given up wanting to and had a
feeling that I _would_ sooner or later. Guess I was waiting for you to
help me. Say, girls, let's follow this stream."
"What for?" asked Shirley. She was looking about her in a bewildered
way, which set Kit into peals of laughter.
"Well, you see the stream carries bits of ore and if we follow it, we
may find the place the ore comes from. Watch for copper stain on the
rocks."
"But it's such a tiny stream!" protested Joy.
Kit had already guided her horse to the right and led through a narrow
passage between the high canyon walls. "This is the Iron Gate, girls.
It's a landmark around here."
Bet looked up at the high cliffs. They towered above her.
"The Iron Gate! Doesn't that sound romantic?"
Suddenly Enid called excitedly, "Oh, Kit, is that greenish color on the
rock copper stain?"
"That's it," said Kit, "but here there is hardly more than a tint.
Let's go on farther," and Kit urged her pony ahead.
After half an hour of slow travel through the creek, the girls were
rewarded. The tiny canyon had widened out, the stream was larger and
they found sufficient emerald green stain to suggest that there might
be a large deposit of copper nearby. They also found more fragments of
ore.
Dismounting, the girls left their horses standing with trailing
bridles. Bet suggested unfastening the rope she had brought for
practising, to tie her pony to a tree. Kit laughed.
"The very idea! Don't insult a mountain horse in that way. He'd never
forgive you. Never! Look, here's a small outcrop!"
Kit led the way up over the hill, following an exposed vein of copper
ore that appeared at intervals. Bet squealed with delight.
"Just look at it! Isn't that lovely? Kit, do you think it's rich ore?"
"I can't tell you that, Bet, but Dad said there were a lot of fine
claims up this way."
"Oh, isn't it glorious?" enthused Bet. "We'll stake them out and own a
mine!"
"And if we find any good claims, we'll locate them today, for Dad gave
me some location blanks to give to the professor. Dad thinks that it
is all foolishness to hunt for a lost Indian village, so he was trying
to persuade the old man to go in for mining. And I have those blanks
in my saddle bag right here." And Kit waved her hand back toward the
canyon where Powder was standing patiently waiting his mistress's
return.
The girls had reached the flat and here they found a large outcropping
of greenish ore. Delightedly they set to work. On the legal forms
that they had brought with them, they filled in a description of the
claim. They erected a monument built of stones in the center and then
paced off the required number of feet and placed a small pile of stones
at four corners.
"It's a good thing I've watched Dad and other folks build their
monuments. Now I know just how to do it." Kit was jubilant. It was
thrilling to be able to show the girls the way to locate claims.
Kit took the blank that had been filled in and placed it in the center
of the monument. "There!" she exclaimed. "The first time we come back
here we'll bring a tin can and put that paper in it and bury it in the
rocks again. That will keep it dry."
"What a funny thing to do," laughed Bet.
"It's the rule up here. We're doing it the same as all the prospectors
did. Every claim was located that way!" Kit carefully covered the
blank, then folded up another, a duplicate and handed it to Bet. "Keep
this one."
"What for?" asked Shirley.
"That is the one we send in to be recorded at the County Office."
"I'm excited!" cried Bet as she dropped beside the pillar of rock in
the center of the claim. "Isn't it just too wonderful for anything to
own a mine like this? I feel rich already. And just think there may
be a big mine on this very spot some day!"
"Bet, you should have been a prospector. Every old miner in the hills
thinks that his own particular claims are going to be the biggest mine
in sight," laughed the Arizona girl. "As soon as he builds a monument
he begins to talk of private cars and mansions."
"I almost wish I were a prospector. It must be lots of fun to have
marvelous hopes of success. If I hadn't come a girl, I'd be a
prospector. Just think of it, not having anything to do in life but
roam around the hills and look at the rocks!" Bet lost herself in her
dreams.
"And build funny little play monuments!" added Enid.
"Yes, and half starve to death before you get ore enough mined to
sell," Kit reminded her.
"Oh, Kit, that isn't fair to wake me up so rudely. Why not dream
pleasant things while you're about it?" Bet laughed. "Where do we
locate the next claim?" They followed Kit to some distance from the
monument and when they had found sufficient outcropping they repeated
the same process.
There was a hot breeze that seemed to intensify the heat of the sun and
brought the aromatic scent of the greasewood. The wild beauty of the
canyon was not lost on the girls. From the cliff they could see down
into the depths, they could hear the rippling of water over the rocky
bed of the creek, the flash of a bright bird in the trees would bring
them out of their day dreams. It was good to be alive, good to be
roaming through the hills looking for romance and adventure.
"I'm glad we gave up the idea of hunting for treasure," declared Bet
with a shade of contempt in her voice as she paced off the required
number of feet for marking the fourth and last claim. "Somehow or
other that seems silly now. This is far more important and worth
while."
"After seeing those excavations that were made, I could never think of
it seriously," Enid said quietly. "Kie Wicks must have spent a fortune
trying to find treasure in that spot."
"Yes, but not _his_ fortune! He formed a company and sold stock, so it
wasn't his own money he spent," Kit reminded them.
The girls stood looking over their claims with affectionate glances.
"I love them, Bet, and I'd just hate to have anyone else do the
digging. Why can't we do it?" asked Kit.
Enid spoke up. "Don't do it, girls. Take my advice and hire it done,
it will be cheaper in the end."
"Maybe Enid's right," agreed Bet. "We mustn't get too ambitious or
we'll miss half the fun."
"Say, when do we eat?" demanded Joy suddenly. "I'm famished! I can't
do another thing until I get my lunch."
"Poor starved child!" laughed Enid. "Do you suppose you could roll
down the hill so we can build a camp fire by the stream? If you think
you can't, we might fix up a stretcher and carry you."
Joy answered with a toss of her head and a puckered-up grin. "I think
I can manage to crawl there, if I am sure of a feed immediately."
The girls scrambled down the steep cliff side and began to unpack the
lunch. Joy chose a large granite rock in the middle of the stream and
perched thereon, she surveyed her surroundings.
"Isn't that a lovely copper stain? And to think it's coming from our
mine!" she enthused in a mocking tone, while the other girls unpacked
the lunch or hustled around to find sticks for a fire.
Their lunch preparations were to be quite elaborate, roast potatoes and
corn on the cob and steak. Enid and Kit built the fire with care and
soon a bed of coals was ready. While the two girls worked over the
fire and Shirley gave attention to spreading the feast, Bet sat on the
cliff, dreaming of the mine to be.
"This is adventure! This is romance!" she cried to her friends.
"Romance!" chuckled Joy. "It's not what I call romance."
"Dark brown eyes and a heavenly smile on the face of a boy, is your
only idea of romance. You are a silly girl!" Bet shrugged her boyish
shoulders and laughed at Joy as she undid her long rope, and standing
up straight, tried to send the loop over a stump in the manner approved
by Tommy Sharpe, her teacher. Her efforts were not very successful.
Out of twenty attempts she managed one that coiled over the spot that
she was aiming at. Bet decided then and there that she would not make
a good cowboy. While she practised the throw again and again, she
continued to talk to Joy who seemed half vexed as she snapped:
"You needn't talk about liking boys, Bet Baxter. I don't blush every
time the mail arrives and a letter is handed me. And you seem to have
no objection to dreamy brown eyes yourself. I've seen the way you
looked at Phil Gordon. Now Phil's eyes haven't got enough snap in them
for me--they're altogether too brooding to suit me. I think that young
Mexican's eyes are much more exciting."
"Why, Joy Evans, how dare you say that I like to look at Phil's eyes?
He's a dear boy, one of our best chums, but I don't think at all about
his eyes," retorted Bet.
"You don't think his eyes are nice? Answer me, Bet?" teased Shirley.
"They're all right I tell you, but I think you girls are just too
horrid trying to insinuate that I'm in love with Phil," protested Bet,
her face flushing, her blue eyes snapping with anger.
"We don't have to insinuate anything, Bet. You give yourself away
every time his name is mentioned," was Joy's emphatic reply.
"I move we change the subject. It's a sore point with me for I'm half
in love with Phil myself," laughed Kit. "He's one of the nicest boys
I've ever seen. But when Bet's around he won't even notice me."
"What will Bob say to that?" laughed the impish Joy for it was no
secret that Bob Evans had lost his heart to the Arizona girl from the
first time he met her. His heart was hers to crush or treasure as she
saw fit. But at present Kit preferred to hold on to her girlhood and
not allow the thought of love and grown-up responsibilities to enter
her head.
That was one nice thing about the relationship of the girls and their
boy friends. There was comradeship and loyal friendship.
Bet suddenly jumped down from her perch on the cliff and said
disgustedly: "Joy Evans, I think you are corrupting all of us with your
silly ideas regarding boys. I love Bob and Phil and Paul Breckenridge
and Tommy Sharpe just exactly the same, and I won't be teased about any
one in particular."
"Methinks thou dost protest too much, my dear!" exclaimed Joy
tantalizingly. "We'll change the subject for the time, but when I get
you alone, Bet Baxter, I'll make you own up that Phil Gordon is a
little dearer to you than any of them." Joy dodged and slid from the
granite rock just in time to miss the loop of rope that Bet had aimed
at her with no gentle hand.
"Come on girls, you selfish things, give your horses a chance," and Kit
stroked Powder's muzzle and gave him a nosebag of oats. All the girls
followed her example, then while the potatoes were getting ready, Bet
took a book from her pack behind the saddle and lost herself in a story.
"Do read aloud, Bet," begged Enid, dropping down beside her friend. "I
will always remember how you read to me on Campers' Trail when I was
hurt."
So while Kit tended the fire, keeping a bed of hot coals just right for
the baking, and Shirley fried steak and cooked the corn, Enid stretched
out on a flat rock and listened to Bet. She had chosen "The Wonderful
Window" by Dunsany, and when she finished Enid sighed softly.
"I like a story that gives you something to think about," said Bet,
moved by the loveliness of the tale.
"I don't see anything particularly nice to think about in that story,
Bet," objected Joy with a shrug. "It isn't lively enough to suit me."
"Of course you wouldn't!" laughed Enid. "Your idea of a story is
Cinderella. There has to be a girl, a prince and a wedding. Isn't
that right?"
"Of course," answered the butterfly girl, twirling about on her toes as
usual. "It's the only kind that counts. I wouldn't give a snap of my
finger for any other kind."
With a bound, Bet jumped to her feet, caught the slight form of Joy,
lifted her clear off the ground, then ran with her down to the creek.
"Come on, Enid, this girl needs to have her head soaked in cold water.
Let's do it." And in spite of the protests of the kicking, shrieking
Joy, the girls managed to get her to a pool of water in the creek bed.
"Now, Joy Evans, will you behave yourself?"
Bet held Joy's head under her arm, and using her arm as a dipper she
poured water freely over the girl's head.
Kit and Shirley came to the rescue at Joy's screams, but Shirley held
them off.
"She had it coming to her, girls. It will do her good."
Between Bet's bursts of laughter she managed to say, "Promise you won't
talk about boys and love for a week at least, then I'll let you go."
"Don't be as unreasonable as all that," protested Shirley. "She might
live through twenty-four hours of it, but not much longer."
"Then promise that you won't mention a boy's name for two days!" and
for good measure another handful of water splashed into Joy's laughing
face.
"I promise! I promise! Please let me go!" choked Joy who had opened
her mouth just in time to get it full of water.
"All right! Here you go!" And Bet gave a quick shove, landing the
dripping girl on her feet, then she stood back admiringly. "There is
one fine thing about you, Joy Evans. You're a good sport. I couldn't
be as good natured as that." Bet threw an arm about the smaller girl
affectionately.
"Yes, I am good natured. I let you abuse me just turrible! I'm so
kind and lovable and......"
"Give her another bath!" cried Kit, making a bound to catch Joy. But
quick as a flash the girl had sprung to a rocky ledge and was
scrambling up the cliff-side like a mountain goat.
The girls shrieked with laughter and the echoes resounded back and
forth across the canyon like the voices of a thousand imps. This set
them deliberately to letting their voices out in strange calls and
weird whisperings in order to hear the echoes coming back to them.
"Isn't it wonderful!" exclaimed Bet. "There are so many more things to
entertain one here than in the cities. And after this, Lynnwood will
seem dull."
"I could never call Lynnwood dull," said the sensible Shirley. "We
always managed to have plenty of adventure there, thanks to Bet who can
find a thrilling mystery anywhere."
"Say, girls, I wish you'd get that silly idea you have of me out of
your heads. From now on I'm a business woman, a mine-owner, and all
other adventures are out. I'm going to be known as Sensible Bet."
"Listen to her! She thinks it will be an adventure to work a copper
claim. My idea of an adventure is altogether different. I can't see
any thrill in five girls getting out in the hills, miles away from
nowhere, and without the boys......"
Bet made a dash toward Joy, who had just stepped down to the creek from
her place of refuge.
"Put her in the creek!" Bet shouted. "This time she goes in all over!"
"Oh please!" begged Joy, taking refuge once more on the steep trail.
"Truly I forgot! I won't say it again."
"All right, come on down, and we'll let you off this once, but next
time, in you go, head and all!"
Kit had drawn away at some distance from the girls and was looking
anxiously at the sky. "Looks to me as if a storm was coming up. We'd
better get home at once."
On mountain weather forecasts, Kit was authority so the girls quickly
seized their horses' bridles, tightened the cinches as Kit directed,
then hastily mounted and started toward home.
"It's beginning to look worse and worse! Don't waste a minute. We
must reach the pass down there before it catches us. Otherwise we'll
be in a jam."
The horses sensed the excitement and the tenseness that goes before a
storm and raced through the creek-bed without any urging. Even the old
horse, Dolly, needed neither spur nor whip. Snorting and blowing in
good earnest, she held her own with the more spirited animals as they
picked their way around boulders and pools of water.
At the first drop of rain, Kit drew in her pony. "We can't make it,
girls! We'll never make it in time," she cried in a panic of fear.
"Of course we can make it. There it is right ahead of us," Enid
encouraged them. "We can get through the pass."
"No, we can't!" declared Kit anxiously.
"Then we'd better stay right here where it's dry," said Bet.
"We can't do that either," screamed Kit. "In ten minutes this will be
a raging torrent instead of a little trickle of water. You don't
understand."
It was not often that Kit lost her presence of mind, but the
responsibility of looking after the girls quite unnerved her.
"Then what shall we do?" asked Shirley, who never got excited or lost
her head.
Kit looked at the canyon walls on both sides. They were steep, they
seemed straight up.
"Oh, I shouldn't have started back, I should have waited," in Kit's
voice was a sob.
Heavy clouds had shut out all the blue of the sky. Never before had
the girls seen such black and menacing clouds. They rolled and seethed
like foaming billows. It looked as if the demons of some underworld
were engaged in a tremendous battle. Black, castle-like shapes piled
up, to be tumbled into the abyss, the next second. It was an inferno
through which a flash of lightning darted from time to time, followed
by thunderclaps.
The girls were terrified.
Joy was sobbing outright and at every blast of thunder a high-pitched,
uncontrollable shriek broke from her lips. The horses stood still,
trembling with fright.
"We're in terrible danger here. We must get out!" cried Kit,
frantically. "Come on back. Let your horse take you wherever he wants
to, and hold on for dear life."
Kit wheeled her horse back the way they had come and the girls
followed. And just at that moment the downpour came and looking back
toward the pass, the girls saw a strange sight. A body of water came
roaring through the narrow opening as if a gigantic fire-hydrant had
burst. A cloudburst in the mountain beyond had sent the water roaring
and tumbling down the bed of the stream.
Just what happened the girls could hardly tell afterwards. They held
on as Kit had directed and the horses raced madly away from the
oncoming torrent.
Bet's heart almost stopped beating as her pony took the trail up the
wall of the canyon, so steep that she would not have dared to attempt
it on foot. Half way up the wall, the horse stopped.
"I've never seen anything braver than that! This is thrilling!"
breathed Bet as she held on to the horn of the saddle with a grip that
strained her hands. Although she was as frightened as any of the
girls, she still had an eye to the adventure.
The stream bed was a river now, swirling, foaming and roaring. It made
one dizzy to look down into it.
Bet finally got up the courage to turn her head to see if the other
girls were safe, and behind her on the trail, she made out Joy's horse.
The animal had followed Bet's lead and it stood on the trail dejected
and drooping, a picture of woe.
And the saddle was empty.
"Joy! Joy!" screamed Bet. "Where are you? Joy!"
No one, even a few feet away, could have heard her call and if there
had been any answer, the roar of the storm deadened it.
The rain came down in a heavy sheet, soaking her to the skin and
shutting out the hills across the canyon. She was alone in this
blinding downpour. It seemed as if the inferno she had witnessed in
the sky had fallen upon her and was eager to swallow her up. And yet
Bet was thrilled.
She wanted to huddle over her pony, hold on to the saddle horn, but she
dared not do it. She must find Joy.
What had happened to the other girls? Kit was probably with them, and
leading them to safety. Joy was near and in need of help.
Bet carefully took her feet from the stirrups and slid to the ground
with a death-grip on the saddle. There was only room for one foot on
the tiny shelf of rock, and that slight space was slippery with the
rain. Slowly Bet lowered herself, with the aid of the stirrup, and
clutching at the tough-fibred plants, she lay down flat on her stomach.
Sliding and wriggling, an inch at a time, down that slippery incline,
she managed to hold on to the narrow shelf.
"Joy! Joy! Where are you?" she cried.
At last Bet could hear the heavy breathing of Joy's horse, got hold of
a stirrup and clung there trembling.
Again and again she called, then listened.
Finally above the roar of the storm she thought she heard a faint cry
from the trail below. Bet crept along the trail, this time under
Dolly's feet. She had to take a chance even though one move on the
part of the horse might send her over the side of the cliff.
Then Bet saw Joy. She was clinging to a mass of bear grass, her face
white and her eyes wild with fear. It was impossible to reach her.
She seemed to be clinging there only with her hands, her feet swinging
without any support. But of that Bet could not be certain.
It would be sure destruction to attempt to climb down that wall.
Then quick as a flash Bet thought of the reata on Joy's saddle. Bet
had insisted that the girl carry the rope with her, and Joy had
protested as usual.
That rope was her only chance.
Bet slowly crept up the incline to Joy's horse and managed to get to
her feet and undo the long coil of rope. Then crouching to her knees
once more she made a loop, thankful that she had learned to do that
stunt as a child. The other end she tied to the saddle.
Bet heard a groan from the cliff and hastened toward it.
But haste was one thing that could not be attempted with safety. Bet
regretted that effort. Her body slipped, a plant gave way and her feet
slid over the wall.
Bet's mind was clear. She heard once more Joy's faint cry in the
distance and knew that it depended on her to rescue her friend. The
empty hand clutched and found another tough root, and slowly, now, she
brought first one foot then the other to the ledge. She was saved!
But would she reach Joy in time?
With greater caution she crept the few feet along that treacherous path
until she came close above Joy's head.
"Hold on, Joy, don't give up! I'll help you in a minute." Bet
encouraged her.
Working desperately, Bet got to her feet and clung there. It was the
only hope for Joy. The rain had ceased to pour down in such a torrent,
and Bet could now see her friend clinging to that slender plant.
Leaning over as far as she dared, she dropped the loop over Joy's head
and shoulders.
"Joy dear," she called. "Put one arm inside the loop, quick!"
Joy heard and understood. She let go with one hand. There was a
shriek, a groan, a shower of rocks descended as Joy slipped down that
steep wall.
For Bet, everything went black. She grew faint and closed her eyes,
then suddenly pulled herself together, and looked over.
The rope was taut. It had held.
A second shower of rocks came from the trail, started by the sudden
jerk on the saddle. The horse pawed the ground in an effort to keep
its footing.
It held. And Bet gripped the stirrup with her foot and drew on the
rope.
It was well that Joy was tiny. Even then, Bet had difficulty in
bringing her up. She tugged, she pulled, trying to ease the girl's
body over the sharp projecting rocks.
Bet was weak and trembling when she clasped Joy in her arms, perched on
that narrow shelf of rock.
And that was the way Kit found them ten minutes later, when the storm
had passed and the sun shone fiercely down once more.
Joy was sobbing as if her heart would break and Bet was saying in a
crooning voice: "Joy dear, you can talk about the boys as much as you
want to from now on. I'll never again object to anything you do."