now, although there had been no path up the mountain from the dell where the girls had tied their ponies, both dorothy and tavia were sure they could retrace their steps easily enough. and as the sun was already nearing the tops of the higher peaks to the westward, neither of the girls cared to linger longer on the height.
“it’s all a fizzle,” grumbled tavia. “that’s what i call it. why! i thought we would be able to look right down into the dooryard at the ranch.”
“it did look so from below. and if we could climb the trees here, i expect we would be able to see much of the range between the mountain and the ranch-house,” agreed dorothy.
“well! let us spend no time in vain repinings,” quoth tavia, briskly. “we’ll tumble down and get into the saddle again. guess we’re poor mountain climbers, doro.”
“oh, i think we have done very well.”
“not a bit of it. regular mountain climbers would have known from the start that nothing could be seen from the top of this mountain.”
“every one to his trade,” laughed dorothy.
“and mountain climbing is a trade like everything else. of course,” added tavia, whimsically, “to learn any trade, you have to begin at the bottom and work up.”
“oh, i don’t know. how about parachute jumping?” chuckled dorothy.
“dear me! how smart you are,” said tavia. “that reminds me of one my brother johnny got off—because it is so different! it was when he was going to the little old school in dalton.”
“what fun we had there,” sighed dorothy.
“yea, verily! ages and ages ago—when we were young,” sniffed tavia. “anyhow, the teacher asked johnny to tell what an anecdote was. ‘a short, funny tale,’ says johnny.
“‘true,’ says the teacher. ‘go to the blackboard and write a sentence containing the word.’
“so johnny did so,” chuckled tavia. “he wrote: ‘a rabbit has four legs and one anecdote.’”
“now, tavia!” cried dorothy, panting and laughing, too. “you know that is a made-up story. and i bet you stole it from somewhere.”
“pshaw!” returned tavia. “where do you184 suppose all the funny people since noah got their jokes?”
“out of a joke-book published just before the flood,” giggled dorothy. “and you certainly must have a copy that you read on the sly.”
just then the two girls, who had been all this time descending the hill, burst through a screen of bushes into an opening.
“here we are!” cried dorothy, with satisfaction.
“hi! is this the place?” queried tavia. “of course it is!” she added, answering her own question. “there’s that scarred tree,” pointing to a lightning-riven pine across the glade.
“oh, that is so,” admitted dorothy. then she suddenly screamed: “tavia travers! where are the ponies?”
“dorothy!” shrieked tavia, in return. “they’ve gone.”
“goodness!” said dorothy dale. “have they run away—or been stolen?”
“it’s plain to be seen they are not to be seen,” said tavia. “it’s—it’s dreadfully unfortunate, doro.”
“and we can’t walk home!” wailed dorothy.
“all right, miss. we’ll fly.”
“we’ll find the ponies,” declared the practical dorothy, recovering to a degree from her panic. “come on.”
but the two girls from the east were not familiar with the wilds. as for trailing horses through the woods, they did not know one single thing about that business. they could not even find the spot where the ponies had been tied, side by side.
“my goodness me, doro,” asked tavia, at length, “whatever shall we do? the ponies are lost. what will your aunt winnie say to that?”
“i guess she won’t trouble much about the loss of the ponies—and i’m not going to,” declared dorothy. “but we don’t want to get lost.”
“why! we can’t. we know our way back—perfectly.”
“do we?”
“right down the hill to the brink of that gorge where we saw the surveyors; then south to that water-fall. from that point there is a regular trail—you know there is, doro!”
“ye—es,” admitted dorothy, doubtfully. “it sounds simple enough.”
“it’s perfectly all right,” declared tavia, again. “come on.”
“well, dear, i’ll let you lead,” said dorothy, quietly.
while they had searched about the dell, and discussed the situation, time had been flying. already the red globe of the sun was disappearing behind a western peak.
186 all the sky there was shrouded in rolling clouds. the sun plunging into these wreaths of mist turned them all to gold and crimson. such a gorgeous sunset would have transfixed the girls with delight at another time.
but, as tavia said, this was no moment to “worship at the shrine of beauty.” “oh, doro! i’m thinking of mrs. ledger’s hot biscuit, and ham, and potato chips. goodness! how hungry i am. never mind the sunset.”
“i am not minding it,” dorothy said, quietly. “but you suggested leading the way down this ‘bad eminence’ to which we were reckless enough to climb. go on.”
tavia started, and stared about the opening in the trees. it would seem to be a simple matter to leave this place, descend through the woods to the plateau, and so down the riverside.
but there was not a landmark to guide them. they had not thought to take note of the trees and rocks, in relation to each other, while they made the ascent. their knowledge of the points of the compass were somewhat vague, despite the view they had of the setting sun.
“oh, doro!” wailed tavia, suddenly. “i’m afraid! i’m afraid of these woods. i’m afraid we’ll get down into that deep gorge where those men were. oh, dear! oh, dear! let’s not move from this spot.”
tavia was almost hysterical. that was the way it was with her—always. if she was startled she lost her self-possession entirely.
but with dorothy it was different. a situation like this brought her better sense to the surface. she was determined to keep cool—especially when her chum showed the white feather.
“now, tavia! do be sensible,” begged dorothy dale. “we’ve got to face the thing squarely. of course, without the horses we could not get home to-night. and to wander around in the dark, seeking a way that is none too clear by daylight, would be a perfectly ridiculous thing to do, under any circumstances.”
“well, doro! do you mean to stay here?”
“why not?”
“the bears—wolves—cat-o’-mountains——”
“are probably creations of nat’s vivid imagination,” interposed dorothy, with decision.
“well, there was a snake,” murmured tavia.
“we’ll build a fire. that will keep away snakes, at least,” dorothy said, cheerfully.
“oh, doro!” shrieked tavia. “you don’t mean to stay in this awful place all night?”
“do you know a better? it is open. there is shelter beside that big boulder. there’s a little rill that must be sweet water—— by the way! i didn’t notice that stream when we came here first. did you, tavia?”
“oh, i don’t know!” wailed tavia.
“do you suppose we have found the place where we left the ponies tied?” asked dorothy, anxiously.
“of course. and the nasty things have run away. i’ll never trust one of those broncs again.”
“don’t be foolish, dear. it must have been our own fault. we did not tie them properly.”
“i know i tied mine tight enough,” grumbled tavia. “and say! how you going to build a fire?”
“just the same as anybody else would build one,” dorothy declared.
“but you can’t.”
“why not?” asked dorothy, in surprise.
“by rubbing two sticks together?” scoffed tavia.
“by rubbing one stick upon a stone,” chuckled dorothy. “i have matches.”
“i’m glad you find it such a joke, dorothy dale.”
“you talk as though you had never been out in the open all night before.”
“but it wasn’t like this, you know very well. this isn’t like our woods at home. this is the west——”
“the wild and woolly west, eh?” laughed dorothy. “come! don’t be a goose, dear. let’s gather plenty of fuel before it grows too dark.”
they did this, breaking off the dead branches of the trees which skirted the glade and gathering sticks already fallen on the ground. but tavia cast fearful glances into the now darkening forest and would not venture beneath the trees at all.
“we don’t know what’s in there,” she said.
“well! we haven’t got to know,” her chum said, cheerfully. “we’ll keep out of the woods to-night.”
“maybe something will come out of them after us.”
“not if we keep a fire burning. and in the morning, as soon as it’s light, we’ll start for home. we can walk it by noon.”
“if we are alive,” sighed tavia.
dorothy refused to be depressed by her friend’s melancholy. she proposed making a couch of leaves and branches, and they did this. when it really grew dark and the stars came out, she produced matches and lit the fire.
she did not make a big blaze. really, there was no need of it at all, for the evening was warm enough and a spark of light on this hillside would never be seen by any party looking for them.
by this time, of course, word had gone over the ranch that the girls were lost. aunt winnie would be worried. ned and nat would be out after them with all the men who could be spared.
“and in all probability,” dorothy said, gravely, “nobody—not even flores—noticed in which direction we headed on leaving the corral.”
“well! we should worry about their worries. it’s our worries that worry me.”
dorothy laughed. “you speak quite as intelligibly,” she said, “as the old catch question and answer: ‘what sort of a noise annoys an oyster? why, a noisy noise annoys an oyster!’”
“my goodness! i wouldn’t mind being an oyster right now.”
“mercy! what for?”
“’cause i could close my shell tight and nothing could get at me. oh, doro! what is that?”
a belated bird flew overhead and its cry had startled tavia. dorothy laughed at her again.
“let’s be brave, tavia.”
“what for? there’s nobody to see us. it’s other folks looking on that makes people brave. i know you so well, doro, that i don’t care if you do know i’m afraid.”
the sky arched them like a dome of dark blue velvet on which silver spangles had been sewn. the woods were filled with deep shadows.
a breathless silence seemed to have fallen over the hillside. the girls, huddled together on their rude couch, could distinguish the faint tinkle of the little rill at which they had quenched their thirst.
“but our appetites!” groaned tavia. “there’s nothing to quench them. oh, doro! you are so nice and plump. i’d like to bite you.”
“you are the most savage animal in all this forest, i do believe, tavia,” laughed dorothy.
dorothy’s cheerfulness had its limits. as they huddled there in the shelter of the overhanging boulder, the night seemed to drop down upon them, and tavia hid her eyes against dorothy’s shoulder. with their arms about each other they remained speechless for a while, and then both girls must have dozed.
suddenly tavia tightened her grip upon her chum and uttered a terrified gasp. it awoke dorothy—her eyes opened wide. tavia was pointing straight out into the darkness before them, and she was trembling hysterically.
the fire had died down to a little bed of embers, but one stick laid across the coals suddenly snapped in two and the ends burst into flame.
the flickering light glittered upon two bright spots which were seemingly across the glade, just at the edge of the forest.
without a word passing between them the terrified girls knew what those sparkling objects were. the firelight was reflected in the eyes of some beast which was staring fixedly at them!
