CHAPTER XXI—TWO COURAGEOUS GIRLS.
Half an hour later the two girls were in the saddle, cantering toward the distant mountains.
“Isn’t it good to be alive on a day like this?” Margaret exclaimed as she gazed over the wide desert that was gleaming white in the early afternoon sun. “Somehow, when everything is sparkling and seeming to rejoice, I just can’t be skeered of a bear or even an outlaw that may be lurking on Second Peak.”
“I love the desert,” Virginia declared, “but then, I have always lived here. I do believe that I will feel smothered and as shut in as a bird in a cage if you and I go east to boarding school next winter.”
The two girls were riding side by side. A mile ahead of them the Seven Peak Range loomed rugged and uninviting.
“Yes, I suppose that boarding school will seem strange to you,” Margaret continued the conversation, “and probably the chatter of so many girls will make you dizzy just at first. It did me, for although I had never lived in as silent a place as this, I had been an only child, unused to the merriment of many girls, but one soon becomes accustomed to it.” Then suddenly she turned toward her friend with eyes that glowed. “Oh, Virg,” she exclaimed, “before we do go, I will write to Mrs. Martin, she’s the principal and such a dear, and ask her if we may reserve the big, sunny corner room that overlooks the orchard. There are three single beds in it and so you and Babs and I can be roommates.”
Virginia laughed. “Megsy,” she said, “we are letting our imaginations run riot. We are like the old woman who counted her chickens before they were hatched. Here we are spending the money that we hope the mine will bring to us when, as yet, the location papers have not been recorded.”
“But they will be, won’t they?” Margaret asked, turning questioning eyes toward the speaker. “Surely in a short 24 hours no one else will discover the place when it has been there for centuries undisturbed.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Virginia said, “but here’s where we go single file, Megsy. The trail is very steep in places. Don’t try to direct Star. Let him climb as he wishes and he will carry you to the old hut in safety.”
“How dark it is in the canyon,” Margaret said as she looked ahead with a shudder. “No one would dream that the sun is shining so brightly out on the desert.”
“You’ll get used to the dimness in a minute and then you will see many interesting things,” her friend assured her. Megsy did not reply but she sincerely hoped that the interesting things would not be a bear nor the rumored outlaw.
Virginia had been right. As soon as their eyes became accustomed to the dimness of the canyon after the glaring sunlight on the desert, Margaret did see many things that interested her. This was not the trail they had ascended on the day of the storm.
“It is a shorter way,” Virginia had said. “I am so eager to reach the old hut at least an hour before sunset that we may make ourselves comfortable before the night settles down.”
The trail in some places seemed perilously steep to the eastern girl and how glad she was that Virginia was riding ahead, for, she did not wish her friend to know how truly terrorized she was, and there were times when she even closed her eyes tight and clung to the pony. Luckily her trust was not misplaced, for Star, being accustomed to mountain trails ascended slowly and without stumbling until the wider upper trail was reached. There, Margaret once again breathed freely. Then to her surprise Virginia swung around in her saddle and called merrily, “Bravo, Megsy! You took that climb like a true Westerner. Honestly I expected any moment to hear you protest that you simply couldn’t make it.”
Margaret was half tempted to explain that she had closed her eyes tight that she might not see the sheer descent below her, but she decided not to tell at present. She was pleased with Virginia’s praise and hoped that in time she would be courageous enough to deserve it.
“Just another turn or two and then we will see the hut among the pines,” Virg called over her shoulder when suddenly Margaret whispered, “Hark! Did you hear a noise?”
They drew rein and listened intently, but heard and saw nothing. However, when they started on again, a lithe, cat-like creature leaped from near jutting rocks, darted ahead of them up the trail and then disappeared.
Margaret was terrorized. She had seen Virginia reach for her small gun, and then, as though seemingly on second thought, replace it allowing the creature to escape.
“What was it, Virg, and why didn’t you shoot it?” she inquired.
“It was only a small lion,” the western girl replied, “and it was more afraid of us than we were of it.” Margaret doubted this statement, but said nothing.
Then Virginia added. “My brother Malcolm does wish me to shoot them whenever I see them because they prey upon our young calves, but I didn’t this time because I do not wish anyone who might be near to know of our presence.”
This was not very reassuring to the eastern girl, for it suggested that Virginia believed that someone might be lurking near whose closer acquaintance they would not wish to make. This was truer than either of the girls dreamed.