In a frenzy now, they dug, and when there seemed to be nothing more hidden under the accumulation of dirt and leaves, the two stared at each other in delighted amazement. At their feet lay little jewel bags containing the pearls of which Norma had talked, the rose topazes, the dozen cameos. Magnificent diamonds sparkled in a rusty case, ear-rings and rings lay in a little heap, and a handful of uncut stones was wrapped in a bit of chamois skin. Solid silver pitchers and goblets and trays, sadly battered by being flung against the rocks, lay just as they had fallen until Bob and Betty had uncovered the leaves which, had so long covered them.
“How are we going to get it out of here?” asked Betty, when they had satisfied themselves there was nothing left undiscovered.
“That’s the pressing question,” confessed Bob. “Incidentally, we have to get ourselves out, too. I think we’d better walk on a bit, and look for some trail out. One lucky thing, no one will take the treasure while we’re scouting.”
“Where do you suppose that goes to?” said Betty, when they had been tramping about five minutes.
She pointed to a rocky formation that led off into the side of the chasm. It was evidently the mouth of a cave.
“I don’t know, of course,” admitted Bob. “But I think we had better take a chance and follow it. It will be dark, but so will the chasm in another half hour. I’ll go first and you come after me.”
It was inky black in the cave, and there was no assurance that it would lead them anywhere and every prospect that they would have to retrace their steps. He was careful to hint nothing of this to Betty, however, and she, on her part, determinedly stifled any complaint of weariness that rose to her lips.
It was an experience they both remembered all their lives—that slow, halting groping through the winding cavern, where the rocky walls narrowed or widened without warning and the roof rose to great heights or dropped so low they must crawl on hands and knees. The thought of the found treasure sustained them and gave them courage to keep on.
“I see a light!” cried Bob after what seemed to Betty hours of this. “Betty, I do believe we’ve come to an opening!”
The pin-spot of light grew and broadened, and, as they approached it, they saw it was the winter sky. The sun was setting, for the clouds had cleared, and never was a sight half so beautiful to the anxious eyes that rested on it. What did it matter that they were miles from the school, or that both were wet and cold and tired to the point of collapse? Just to get out of that awful chasm was enough.
“I’ll go get your sled and pack the stuff on that,” proposed Bob, “I don’t suppose it would hurt to leave it there all night, but somehow I can’t. Will you go on ahead, Betty? You’re so tired.”
“I’m going back with you,” said Betty firmly. “I couldn’t rest one minute, knowing you were crawling through that awful cave again. Oh, yes, I’m coming with you, Bob—you needn’t shake your head like that.”
Bob realized that it was useless to try to persuade her to go on to the school alone. His common sense told him that it would be wiser to leave the treasure where it was and come after it the next day, but common sense does not always win out. It was actually impossible for Bob or Betty to abandon the Macklin fortune now that they had found it.
Bob found Betty’s sled, after some search, where they had left it between two trees, and together they began to thread the tortuous maze of the cave again, Bob going ahead and dragging the sled after him. Betty thought despairingly that she had never known what it meant to be tired before.
“I’ll wrap the little things in my middy tie,” she said when they came out in the chasm at last and found the heap of treasure where they had piled it, “and we can fasten down the rest of the stuff with the belt from my coat.”
Their fingers were stiff with cold, but they managed to get everything on the sled and lash it securely with a rope and the leather belt from Betty’s coat. Then, once more, they started back through the cave.
The sled was heavy and the way seemed twice as long as the first time they had followed it, but they kept doggedly on. It was dark when they emerged on the familiar hillside.
“Sit on the sled, and I’ll pull you, Betty,” offered Bob, looking a little anxiously at his companion’s white face.
But Betty resolutely refused, and she trotted beside him all the way, helping to pull the sled, till the gray buildings of Shadyside loomed up before them.
She insisted that Bob must come in with her, and they told their story to Mrs. Eustice, breathlessly and disconnectedly, to be sure, but the rope of emeralds and the gleaming diamonds filled in all gaps in the narrative. Before she went to sleep Betty had the satisfaction of knowing that Norma and Alice had been told the good news and that a telegram was speeding off to the home folks.
The discovery and recovery of the missing treasure created a wave of excitement when it became generally known. A few girls, who valued worldly possessions above everything else, made overtures of friendship to the sisters whom previously they had ignored. Their old friends heartily rejoiced with them and Norma and Alice went about in a dream of bliss compounded of joy for their grandmother and parents, plans for new frocks and the proposed holiday trip to Washington.
“It’s the nicest thing that ever happened,” Betty wrote her uncle. “Now Norma and Alice can graduate from Shadyside, and Grandma Macklin can spend the rest of the winter in Florida and dear Doctor and Mrs. Guerin can doctor and nurse half the county for nothing, if they please.”
* * * *
Doctor Guerin and his wife wrote that Norma and Alice should go happily with the Littell girls for a visit and forget the “no longer depressing question of finances.” Both Doctor and Mrs. Guerin were enthusiastic in their praise of Betty and Bob, who began to feel that too much was made of their lucky discovery, especially when, at the direction of Mrs. Macklin, the Macklin family’s old lawyer (who had taken charge of the recovered treasure and appraised it at nearly twice its value when lost) sent Betty a pair of the diamond earrings and Bob one of the priceless old silver platters.
“But you not only found it, you went through a lot to bring it to us,” said Norma affectionately. “No, Betty, you and Bob can’t wriggle out of being thanked.”
The finding of the treasure was not the last of Betty’s adventures. What happened to her and her chums the following summer will be related in the next volume of this series.
The remaining days of the term fairly flew, and almost before they realized it, school closed for the Christmas holidays. A merry party boarded the train for the Junction, where they could make connections for Washington, one crisp, sunny December morning.
“Every one here?” demanded Bobby Littell. “I don’t want to run the risk of arriving home short a guest or two.”
“I’m willing to be kidnapped,” suggested Tommy Tucker, who knew the story of Betty’s first meeting with Bobby.
Both girls laughed, and Betty was still smiling as she held out her ticket to the conductor.
“Have a good time, young ’uns,” chirped the grizzled little man cheerily. “Only one thing’s more fun than goin’ to school, and that’s goin’ home from school for a spell of play.”
And with this happy prospect before her, let us leave Betty Gordon.
BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP, by Alice B. Emerson
OR, The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne
CHAPTER I
THE GORED COW
For lack of a better listener, Betty Gordon addressed the saucy little chipmunk that sat on the top rail of the old worn fence and stared at her with bright, unwinking eyes.
“It is the loveliest vase you ever saw,” said Betty, busily sorting the tangled mass of grasses and flowers in her lap. “Heavy old colonial glass, you know, plain, but with beautiful lines.”
The chipmunk continued to regard her gravely.
“I found it this morning when I was helping Mrs. Peabody clean the kitchen closet shelves,” the girl went on, her slim fingers selecting and dis
carding slender stems with fascinating quickness. “It was on the very last shelf, and was covered with dust. I washed it, and we’re going to have it on the supper table tonight with this bouquet in it. There! don’t you think that’s pretty?”
She held out the flowers deftly arranged and surveyed them proudly. The chipmunk cocked his brown head and seemed to be withholding his opinion.
Betty put the bouquet carefully down on the grass beside her and stretched the length of her trim, graceful self on the turf, burying her face luxuriously in the warm dry “second crop” of hay that had been raked into a thin pile under the pin oak and left there forgotten. Presently she rolled over and lay flat on her back, studying the lazy clouds that drifted across the very blue sky.
“I’d like to be up in an airplane,” she murmured drowsily, her eyelids drooping. “I’d sail right into a cloud and see—What was that?”
She sat up with a jerk that sent the hitherto motionless chipmunk scurrying indignantly up the nearest tree, there to sit and shake his head angrily at her.
“Sounds like Bob!” said Betty to herself. “My goodness, that was Mr. Peabody—they must be having an awful quarrel!”
The voices and shouts came from the next field, separated from her by a brook, almost dry now, and a border of crooked young willow trees grown together in an effective windbreak.
“Anybody who’ll gore a cow like that isn’t fit to own a single dumb creature!” A clear young voice shaking with passion was carried by the wind to the listening girl.
“When I need a blithering, no-’count upstart to teach me my business, I’ll call on you and not before,” a deeper, harsh voice snarled. “When you’re farming for yourself you can feed the neighbors’ critters on your corn all you’ve a mind to!”
“Oh, dear!” Betty scrambled to her feet, forgetting the bouquet so carefully culled, and darted in the direction of the willow hedge. “I do hope Mr. Peabody hasn’t been cruel to an animal. Bob is always so furious when he catches him at that!”
She crossed the puttering little brook by the simple expedient of jumping from one bank to the other and scrambled through the willow trees, emerging, flushed and anxious-eyed, to confront a boy about fourteen years old in a torn straw hat and faded overalls and a tall, lean middle-aged man with a pitchfork in his hands.
“Well?” the latter grunted, as Betty glanced fearfully at him. “What did you come for? I suppose you think two rows of corn down flat is something to snicker at?”
They stood on the edge of a flourishing field of corn, and, following the direction of Mr. Peabody’s accusing finger, Betty Gordon saw that two fine rows had been partially eaten and trampled.
“Oh, that’s too bad!” she said impulsively, “What did it—a stray cow?”
“Keppler’s black and white heifer,” answered Mr. Peabody grimly. “Bob here is finding fault with me because I didn’t let it eat its head off.”
“No such thing!” Bob Henderson was stung into speech. “Because the poor creature didn’t get out fast enough to suit you—and you bewildered her with your shouting till she didn’t know which way to turn—you jabbed her with the pitchfork. I saw the blood! And I say nobody but an out and out coward would do a thing like that to a dumb animal.”
“Oh!” breathed Betty again, softly. “How could you!”
“Now I’ve heard about enough of that!” retorted Mr. Peabody angrily. “If you’d both attend to your own business and leave me to mind mine, we’d save a lot of time. You, Bob, go let down the bars and turn that critter into the road. Maybe Keppler will wake up and repair his fences after all his stock runs off. You’d better help him, Betty. He might step on a grub-worm if you don’t go along to watch him!”
Bob strode off, kicking stones as he went, and Betty followed silently. She helped him lower the bars and drive the cow into the road, then put the bars in place again.
“Where are you going?” she ventured in surprise, as Bob moodily trudged after the animal wending an erratic way down the road.
“Going to take her home,” snapped Bob, “Peabody would like to see Keppler have to get her out of the pound, but I’ll save him that trouble. You can go on back and read your book.”
“Just because you’re mad at Mr. Peabody is no reason why you should be cross to me,” said Betty with spirit. “I wasn’t reading a book, and I’m coming with you. So there!”
Bob laughed and told her to “come on.” He was seldom out of sorts long. Indeed, of the two, Betty had the quicker temper and cherished a grudge more enduringly.
“Just the same, Betty,” Bob announced, as he skillfully persuaded the cow to forego the delights of a section of particularly sweet grass and proceed on her course, “I’m about through. I can’t stand it much longer; and lately I’ve been afraid that in a rage I might strike Mr. Peabody with something and either kill him or hurt him badly. Of course, I wouldn’t do it if I stopped to think, but when he gets me furious as he did today, I don’t stop to think.”
“Well, for mercy’s sake, Bob Henderson,” ejaculated Betty in an instant alarm, “don’t kill him, whatever you do. Then you’d be put in prison for life!”
“All right,” agreed Bob equably, “I won’t kill him—just nick him in a few places—how will that do?”
“But I’m really serious,” insisted Betty. “Don’t let the cow turn up that lane. Think how awful you would feel if you were sent to prison, Bob.”
Bob took refuge in a masculine stronghold.
“If that isn’t just like a girl!” he said scornfully. “Who said I was going to prison? I merely say I don’t want to lose my temper and do something rash, and you have me convicted and sentenced for life. Gee, Betty, have a little mercy!”
Betty’s lips trembled.
“I can’t bear to think of you going away and leaving me here,” she faltered. “I’m not going to stay either, Bob, not one minute after I hear from Uncle Dick. I’m sure if the Benders knew how things were going, they would think we had a right to leave. I had the loveliest letter from Mrs. Bender this morning—but it had been opened.”
Bob switched an unoffending flower head savagely.
“You come out of that!” he shouted to the perverse cow that seemed determined to turn to the left when she was plainly asked to turn to the right. “Wait a minute, Betty; here’s Fred Keppler.”
The half-grown boy who accosted them with “What are you doing with our cow?” grinned fatuously at Betty, showing several gaps in a row of fine teeth.
“Keep your cow at home where she belongs,” directed Bob magnificently. “She’s been making her dinner off our corn.”
“Oh, gee,” sighed the boy nervously. “I’ll bet old Peabody was in a tearing fury. Look, Bob, something’s tore her hide! She must have been down in the blackberry bushes along the brook.”
“Well, see that it doesn’t happen again,” commanded Bob, gracefully withdrawing by walking backward. “Corn that’s as high as ours is worth something, you know.”
“You never told him about the pitchfork,” said Betty accusingly, as soon as Fred Keppler and the cow were out of earshot. “You let him think it was blackberry bushes that scratched her like that.”
“Well, his father will know the difference,” grinned Bob cheerfully. “Why should I start an argument with Fred? Saving the cow from the pound ought to be enough, anyway. Mr. Keppler has had to buy more than one animal out before this; he will not pay attention to his fences.”
Betty sat down on a broad boulder and leaned up against an old hickory tree.
“Stone in my shoe,” she said briefly. “You’ll have to wait just a minute, Bob.”
Bob sat down on the grass and began to hunt for four leaf clovers, an occupation of which he never tired.
“Do you think Mr. Peabody opened your letter?” he asked abruptly.
Betty paused in the operation of untying her shoe.
“Who else would?” she said thoughtfully. “It wasn’t even pasted together again, but sl
it across one end, showing that whoever did it didn’t care whether I noticed it or not. I’ll never mail another letter from that box. I’ll walk to Glenside three times a day first!”
“Well, the only thing to do is to clear out,” said Bob firmly. “You’ll have to wait till you hear from your uncle, or at least till the Benders get back. We promised, you know, that we wouldn’t run away without telling them, or if there wasn’t time, writing to them and saying where we go. That shows, I think, that they suspected things might get too hot to be endured.”
“I simply must get a letter from Uncle Dick or go crazy,” sighed Betty feverishly. She put on her shoe and stood up. “I wish he would come for me himself and see how horrid everything is.”
CHAPTER II
HOSPITALITY UNDER DIFFICULTIES
Betty Gordon had come to Bramble Farm, as Mr. Peabody’s home was known, early in the summer to stay until her uncle, Richard Gordon, should be able to establish a home for her, or at least know enough of his future plans to have Betty travel with him. He was interested in mines and oil wells, and his business took him all over the country.
Betty was an orphan, and this Uncle Dick was her only living relative. He came to her in Pineville after her mother’s death and when the friends with whom she had been staying decided to go to California. He remembered Mrs. Peabody, an old school friend, and suggested that Betty might enjoy a summer spent on a farm. These events are related in the first book of this series, called “Betty Gordon at Bramble Farm.”
That story tells how Betty came to the farm to find Joseph Peabody a domineering, pitiless miser, his wife Agatha, a drab woman crushed in spirit, and Bob Henderson, the “poorhouse rat,” a bright intelligent lad whom the Peabodys had taken from the local almshouse for his board and clothes. Betty Gordon found life at Bramble Farm very different from the picture she and her uncle had drawn in imagination, and only the fact that her uncle’s absence in the oil fields had prevented easy communication with him had held her through the summer.
The Second Girl Detective Megapack: 23 Classic Mystery Novels for Girls Page 238