The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure Part 19

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 s.h.i.+rley came to the rescue at Joy's screams, but s.h.i.+rley 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 s.h.i.+rley. "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 s.h.i.+rley. "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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s."

"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 s.h.i.+rley, 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 pa.s.s, 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.