Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 13

"I kept my promise," he went on grimly. "I went all over the mountain an'

I took them steel traps, one by one, unsprung 'em and dropped 'em down into that crack some earthquake had split into Bald Peak. It's bottomless, seems like, an' what goes into that crack never does no more harm. Now, when I kill a critter that needs killin', I shoot an' they never know what hits 'em. Meg is a sure-shot, too, though she'd never pack a gun if 'twant that I make her."

They had reached the spot where the mountain lion still lay, and the old man stooped to examine it. "I reckon that was a sure shot, all right."

Then he shouldered the limp creature. "Thar's fifty dollars bounty, so I might as well have it. I'll hunt for the cubs tomorrer. So long. Hit the trail up our way often."

As Dan walked slowly down the mountain road toward his home cabin, he found that he was more interested in this unknown Meg than he had ever before been in any girl.

Jane's headache was better when Dan returned, but her disposition was worse, and poor Julie was about ready to cry. She had been spoken to so sharply when she had really tried to help. Gerald was angry and indignant. He had at first urged his small sister and comrade to pretend that Jane was being pleasant, but, after a time, even he had decided that such a feat was too much for anyone to accomplish. Then he had intentionally slammed a door and had declared that he hoped it would make "ol' Jane's" head worse.

It was well that Dan returned just when he did. He entered the cabin living-room calling cheerily, "Good, Jane, I'm glad to see you are up."

Then he looked from one to the other. Julie, tearful, rebellious, stood near the kitchen door, and Gerald, with clenched fists, had evidently been saying something of a defiant nature. "Why, what's the matter? What has gone wrong?"

Dan was indeed dismayed at the picture before him. Jane, who had seated herself in the one comfortable chair in the room, said peevishly: "Everything is the matter. Dan, you can see for yourself what a mistake I made in coming to this terrible place, and trying to live with these two children who have had no training whatever. They are defiant and rebellious."

Even as Jane spoke, a memoried picture presented itself of Julie's sweet solicitude for her earlier that morning, but she would not heed, so she hurried on: "I have been lying in there with this frightful headache thinking it all out, and I have decided that either the children must go back or I will." A hard look, unusual in Dan's face, appeared there and his voice sounded cold. "Very well, Jane, I will help you pack. The stage pa.s.ses soon. If we hurry, we may be ready." The children could hardly keep from shouting for joy. Something which Julie was cooking, boiled over and so she darted to the kitchen, followed by Gerald, who stood upon his head in the middle of the floor. But they had rejoiced too soon, for Gerry, who a moment later went to the brook for water, returned with the disheartening news that the stage was pa.s.sing down their part of the road. Julie plumped down on the floor and her mouth quivered, but before she could cry, Gerald caught her hands, pulled her up and said comfortingly: "Never mind, Jule. The stage will be going past again on Monday. Me and you'll stay on the watch and tell Mister Sourface to stop for Jane when he goes back to Redfords on Tuesday. That is not so awful long. Oh, boy, then won't we have the time of our lives?"

Julie agreed that they would indeed and decided to be very patient during the remaining two days. So she went back to her cooking and, with Gerald's help, soon had the lunch spread.

Jane ate but little, and again shut herself up in her room for all that afternoon. Dan was almost as glad as were the children that she was to go back to the East, but Jane, strangely enough, was deeply hurt because her brother, who had been her playmate when they were little, and her pal in later years, had actually chosen the younger children in preference to herself. That proved how much he really cared for _her_ and, as for his health, he seemed to be recovering remarkably. He had coughed a while the evening before, and for a shorter time that morning.

Then he had evidently been on a long hike. Of all that had happened Dan had said nothing, knowing that Jane would not wish to hear about the mountain girl, toward whom she felt so unkindly.

That afternoon Dan gave the children another lesson at shooting cones from an old pine, far enough from the cabin to keep from disturbing Jane.

Julie grew braver as she watched Gerald's success, and at last she too tried, and when, after many failures, she sent a brown cone spinning, she leaped about wild with joy.

"Now we are both sharpshooters," Gerald cried generously. Then, glancing over at the cabin, he added: "There's Jane sitting out on the porch. She does look sort of sick, doesn't she?"

Dan's heart was touched when he saw the forlorn att.i.tude of the sister he so loved. "You youngsters amuse yourselves for a while," he suggested, "I want to have a quiet talk with Jane." Dan neglected to tell the children not to wander away.

CHAPTER XVII.

QUEER KITTENS

Left alone, Julie and Gerald scrambled to the road and looked both up and down. "Which way will we go?" Julie inquired.

"We've been down--or, I mean, we've been up the down road." Then the boy laughed. "Aw, gee! You know what I mean. We came up the road yesterday in the stage; so now, let's go on further up."

Julie hopped about, clapping her hands gleefully. "Ohee, I know what!

Let's see if we can find that cabin the innkeeper lady said was about a mile up the mountain road from our place. Wouldn't that be fun? And maybe that nice girl will be at home from school, and, if she is, I just know she'll let me ride her pony."

Gerald, nothing loath, fell into step by his sister's side, the gun over his shoulder. After the fas.h.i.+on of small brothers, he could not resist teasing. "I bet you couldn't stay on that pony, however hard you tried.

It's a wild Western broncho sort, like those we saw at Madison Square Garden that time Dad took us to Buffalo Bill's big circus." Then, in a manner which seemed to imply that he did not wish to boast, he added: "I sort of think I could ride it easy. Boys get the knack, seems like, without half trying."

They had rounded the bend and were nearing the very spot where the mountain girl had shot the lion, when Julie clutched her brother's arm and drew him back, whispering excitedly: "Gerry! Hark! What's that noise I hear?"

The boy listened and then crept cautiously toward the bushes. He also heard queer little crying sounds that were almost plaintive. "Huh!" he said boldly. "'Tisn't anything that would hurt us. Sounds to me like kittens crying for their mother."

A joyful shout from the girl, closely following him, turned into "Gerry!

That's just what they are! Great big kittens! See how comically they sprawl? They haven't learned to walk yet. Their little legs aren't strong enough to stand on. See, I can pick one right up. He doesn't seem to mind a bit." The small girl suited the action to the word, and it was well for her that the mother lion had been killed, or Julie would soon have been badly torn, despite the fact that her brother still carried his small gun.

The boy had lifted the other weak creature, which had not been alive many days, and, with much curious questioning as to what kind of "p.u.s.s.y cats"

they might be, they continued their walk and soon reached the cabin.

Meg Heger, who had remained long in the forest that day, having sought a rare lichen high on the mountain, was just descending from the trail that led into her "botany gardens" when she saw the two children entering the front yard of her home cabin. Unbuckling the basket which she carried much as an Indian squaw carries a pappoose, the girl leaped down the rocks and exclaimed: "Oh, children, where did you find those darling little mountain lion babies?"

Luckily she took the one Julie was holding in her own arms as she spoke, for if she had not, that particular "baby" would have had a hard fall, for when the small girl from the East heard that she was actually holding a mountain lion, she uttered a little frightened scream and let go her hold. But Gerald, being a boy, realized that even a future fierce wild animal was harmless when its legs were too weak for it to stand on, and so he continued to hold his pet, even venturing to admire it.

"It's a little beauty, ain't--I mean, isn't it?" He glanced quickly at Julie, but the slip had evidently not been observed, for she was intently watching the mountain girl, who was caressing the little creature she held as though she loved it, as she did everything that lived in all the wilderness.

But as Meg Heger held that helpless, hungry baby her heart was sad, for well she knew that it was unprotected and perhaps starving because she had shot and killed its mother. Of course she had to kill the lion to save the life of the lad who had gone too close to the place where the mother had her young; but, nevertheless, she felt that, in a way, her act had made her responsible for these helpless little wild creatures, since they had been brought to her.

Brightly she turned to the children. "Don't you want to come with me to the hospital?" she invited. "We'll give them some supper."

She did not ask who the children were, nor from whence they had come.

Perhaps she remembered having seen them the day before on the stage; or Sourface Wallace may have told her.

Julie and Gerald followed, wondering what the "hospital" might be.

Back of the cabin, on a rocky ledge, the children saw a queer a.s.sortment of wooden boxes, small cages and little runways. "This is the hospital."

Meg flashed a merry smile at them over her shoulder. "There aren't many patients just now. Most of them have been cured. Here's one little darling, and I'm afraid he never will be well. Some prowling creature caught him and had succeeded in breaking a wing when it heard me coming.

Why it dropped its prey when it ran, I don't know, but I brought the little fellow home and Pap helped me set its wing. It's ever so much better, but even yet can't fly, but it can scuttle along the ground just ever so fast."

Gerald was much interested.

"What kind of a bird is it, Miss Heger?" he began, very politely, when the girl's musical laughter rippled out. "Don't call me that!" she pleaded. "It makes me feel as old as the thousand-year pine Teacher Bellows told our cla.s.s about. It's a little quail bird, dearie. You'll see ever so many of them in flocks. There are sixty different kinds of cousins in their family. The Bob Whites with their reddish brown plumage have a black and white speckled jacket. They live in the gra.s.s rather than in trees and are good friends of the farmer because they devour so many of the insects that destroy grain and fruits. This one is a mountain quail; it is one of the largest cousins. The one that lives in the South is called a partridge."

Gerald listened politely to the life history of the pretty bird, but his attention had been seized and held by what Meg had said about the very ancient pine. "Was there ever a tree that lived a thousand years?" he asked with eager interest. The girl nodded. "Indeed, there are many that have lived much longer, but this pine was blown over, and Teacher Bellows was allowed to cut it up to read its life history. He found that it had been in two forest fires, and about five hundred years ago an Indian battle had been fought near it, for there were arrow heads imbedded in the rings that indicated that year of its life."

Then Meg concluded with her bright smile: "Some day, when Teacher Bellows is up here, I'll have him tell you the names and probable ages of all our neighbor trees! It's a fascinating study."

Julie was not much interested in the length of a tree's life and so she began eagerly: "Miss--I mean--do you want us to call you Meg?" she interrupted herself to inquire.

The older girl nodded. Every move she made seemed to express bubbling-over enthusiasm and interest. "Haven't you any more patients?"

Gerry was peering into empty boxes in which there were soft, leaf-like beds.

"Only just Mickey Mouse. He's a little cripple! His left foot was cut off in a trap, but he gets around nicely on one stump. That's his hole over there. I put grain and bits of cheese in front of it. Keep ever so still and I'll put a kernel of corn right by his door. Then perhaps you'll see his bright eyes." And that is just what happened. As soon as the corn kernel rolled in front of the hole, out darted a sharp brown nose with twitching whiskers and two beady black eyes appeared just long enough for their owner to drag his supper into the safe darkness of his particular box.

Meg laughed happily. "He's the cunningest, Mickey is! I sometimes take him with me in my pocket. He likes to ride there, or so it seems. At any rate he is just as good as he can be. Often he goes to sleep, but at other times, he stands right up and looks out of the pocket, just as though he were enjoying the scenery."

At that moment a sharp, almost impatient cry from the small creature she held recalled to the head doctor of the hospital the fact that she had started out to feed the baby lions. She brought milk from a cave-like room, only the front wall of which was wood, the rest being in the mountain. "That's our cooler," she told Gerald, whom she could easily observe was interested in all the strange things he saw. Dipping one corner of her handkerchief into the milk, she put it in the mouth of her tiny lion and the children were delighted to see how readily and joyfully the creature seemed to feast upon it. Having gathered courage, Julie wished to feed the other baby lion and then Meg suggested that they be put in a soft lined box on the rocks near, since they were used to being high up. The baby lions, being no longer hungry, cuddled down and went to sleep. Gerald's conscience was troubling him. "We'll have to be going,"

he said. "n.o.body knows where we are." Then he hesitated. He knew that it would be polite to ask the mountain girl to call upon them, but he was afraid that Jane would not treat her kindly, so, in his embarra.s.sment, he caught Julie by the hand and fairly dragged her away as he called, "Goodbye, Meg, I'm coming up often." When they were on the down-road, the boy cautioned Julie to say nothing whatever of their adventure to their sister, but just to Dan.