"And are you really going to hunt for the village after that?" Bet's eyes were glowing.
"Yes, I'm not afraid of the curse. I'll find that village. Alicia is expecting me to. I must make good."
"That's the way to talk, Professor Gillette! And remember this, The Merriweather Girls will help you in any way we can. We're not afraid of any curse. We're with you, every one of us."
Joy started to speak. She turned pale then suddenly gave up. "All right. If Bet leads, I follow!"
But there was no wild enthusiasm in her promise.
CHAPTER XI
STAKING A CLAIM
But it was rarely ever that the professor wanted company in his search. Bet was inclined to feel offended, for she had hoped that he would accept her offer of help and consider The Merriweather Girls as partners.
"All right, Kit, let's do something by ourselves. What's the use of just looking at the glorious scenery? If an old man like Professor Gillette can go out and hunt for a lost village, we should be able to find some copper claims or other interesting things. Let's do it."
The girls were in the saddle while Bet discussed the possibility of discovering something. It was really adventure that Bet was seeking.
The horses stepped gingerly over the slippery rocks of the creek bed as the girls chatted and laughed on their way to Table Mountain, a great flat-topped summit in the high hills.
Joy Evans suddenly laughed outright. "Bet Baxter, it would take you to think of a thing like this. What under the sun will we do with a copper mine if we do locate one? I'm very sure I have no use for one."
"Don't be a spoil-sport, Joy! Think of the romance and the fun. Why, we'll be mine owners!"
"What I want to know is, who will do the actual work?" It was Shirley Williams, the practical girl of affairs who put the question.
"We'll hire the work done, of course. It would be foolish for us to waste our valuable time digging holes in the ground," returned Bet.
"Certainly," giggled Kit. "We'll do the brain work and let the greasers do the digging."
"Please don't call the Mexicans that horrid word again. It doesn't sound nice. I think the Mexican boys have such wonderful dreamy eyes."
"We've heard that before. Go on, Joy, rave some more!" Bet treated Joy's outbursts of enthusiasm over boys with contempt. "I'm going to do something useful in life."
"Like finding copper mines! Hm! What use are they?" snapped Joy.
"I'd rather think about boys any time."
"Of course you would! Go on and dream then!" Bet was angry. She and Joy were often near to a quarrel, but somehow it was always averted.
"Quit your fighting, girls," laughed Enid. "What's to hinder us from finding our mine and letting Joy dream of romantic brown eyes at the same time?"
"I'm for the mine! I've always had a secret passion to locate claims, myself, and see them develop into a big mine." Kit caught some of Bet's enthusiasm and wanted to start out at once. She continued: "It's lots of fun to locate a claim. Once I followed an outcropping of ore up over a high hill, but when I got to the top I found it already located."
"Oh, what a shame!" cried Bet. "And did you give up then?" Bet looked her disappointment at Kit's lack of enthusiasm.
"I did for a while but I've never really given up wanting to and had a feeling that I would sooner or later. Guess I was waiting for you to help me. Say, girls, let's follow this stream."
"What for?" asked Shirley. She was looking about her in a bewildered way, which set Kit into peals of laughter.
"Well, you see the stream carries bits of ore and if we follow it, we may find the place the ore comes from. Watch for copper stain on the rocks."
"But it's such a tiny stream!" protested Joy.
Kit had already guided her horse to the right and led through a narrow passage between the high canyon walls. "This is the Iron Gate, girls. It's a landmark around here."
Bet looked up at the high cliffs. They towered above her.
"The Iron Gate! Doesn't that sound romantic?"
Suddenly Enid called excitedly, "Oh, Kit, is that greenish color on the rock copper stain?"
"That's it," said Kit, "but here there is hardly more than a tint.
Let's go on farther," and Kit urged her pony ahead.
After half an hour of slow travel through the creek, the girls were rewarded. The tiny canyon had widened out, the stream was larger and they found sufficient emerald green stain to suggest that there might be a large deposit of copper nearby. They also found more fragments of ore.
Dismounting, the girls left their horses standing with trailing bridles. Bet suggested unfastening the rope she had brought for practising, to tie her pony to a tree. Kit laughed.
"The very idea! Don't insult a mountain horse in that way. He'd never forgive you. Never! Look, here's a small outcrop!"
Kit led the way up over the hill, following an exposed vein of copper ore that appeared at intervals. Bet squealed with delight.
"Just look at it! Isn't that lovely? Kit, do you think it's rich ore?"
"I can't tell you that, Bet, but Dad said there were a lot of fine claims up this way."
"Oh, isn't it glorious?" enthused Bet. "We'll stake them out and own a mine!"
"And if we find any good claims, we'll locate them today, for Dad gave me some location blanks to give to the professor. Dad thinks that it is all foolishness to hunt for a lost Indian village, so he was trying to persuade the old man to go in for mining. And I have those blanks in my saddle bag right here." And Kit waved her hand back toward the canyon where Powder was standing patiently waiting his mistress's return.
The girls had reached the flat and here they found a large outcropping of greenish ore. Delightedly they set to work. On the legal forms that they had brought with them, they filled in a description of the claim. They erected a monument built of stones in the center and then paced off the required number of feet and placed a small pile of stones at four corners.
"It's a good thing I've watched Dad and other folks build their monuments. Now I know just how to do it." Kit was jubilant. It was thrilling to be able to show the girls the way to locate claims.
Kit took the blank that had been filled in and placed it in the center of the monument. "There!" she exclaimed. "The first time we come back here we'll bring a tin can and put that paper in it and bury it in the rocks again. That will keep it dry."
"What a funny thing to do," laughed Bet.
"It's the rule up here. We're doing it the same as all the prospectors did. Every claim was located that way!" Kit carefully covered the blank, then folded up another, a duplicate and handed it to Bet. "Keep this one."
"What for?" asked Shirley.
"That is the one we send in to be recorded at the County Office."
"I'm excited!" cried Bet as she dropped beside the pillar of rock in the center of the claim. "Isn't it just too wonderful for anything to own a mine like this? I feel rich already. And just think there may be a big mine on this very spot some day!"
"Bet, you should have been a prospector. Every old miner in the hills thinks that his own particular claims are going to be the biggest mine in sight," laughed the Arizona girl. "As soon as he builds a monument he begins to talk of private cars and mansions."
"I almost wish I were a prospector. It must be lots of fun to have marvelous hopes of success. If I hadn't come a girl, I'd be a prospector. Just think of it, not having anything to do in life but roam around the hills and look at the rocks!" Bet lost herself in her dreams.
"And build funny little play monuments!" added Enid.
"Yes, and half starve to death before you get ore enough mined to sell," Kit reminded her.
"Oh, Kit, that isn't fair to wake me up so rudely. Why not dream pleasant things while you're about it?" Bet laughed. "Where do we locate the next claim?" They followed Kit to some distance from the monument and when they had found sufficient outcropping they repeated the same process.
There was a hot breeze that seemed to intensify the heat of the sun and brought the aromatic scent of the greasewood. The wild beauty of the canyon was not lost on the girls. From the cliff they could see down into the depths, they could hear the rippling of water over the rocky bed of the creek, the flash of a bright bird in the trees would bring them out of their day dreams. It was good to be alive, good to be roaming through the hills looking for romance and adventure.
"I'm glad we gave up the idea of hunting for treasure," declared Bet with a shade of contempt in her voice as she paced off the required number of feet for marking the fourth and last claim. "Somehow or other that seems silly now. This is far more important and worth while."
"After seeing those excavations that were made, I could never think of it seriously," Enid said quietly. "Kie Wicks must have spent a fortune trying to find treasure in that spot."
"Yes, but not his fortune! He formed a company and sold stock, so it wasn't his own money he spent," Kit reminded them.
The girls stood looking over their claims with affectionate glances. "I love them, Bet, and I'd just hate to have anyone else do the digging. Why can't we do it?" asked Kit.
Enid spoke up. "Don't do it, girls. Take my advice and hire it done, it will be cheaper in the end."
"Maybe Enid's right," agreed Bet. "We mustn't get too ambitious or we'll miss half the fun."
"Say, when do we eat?" demanded Joy suddenly. "I'm famished! I can't do another thing until I get my lunch."
"Poor starved child!" laughed Enid. "Do you suppose you could roll down the hill so we can build a camp fire by the stream? If you think you can't, we might fix up a stretcher and carry you."
Joy answered with a toss of her head and a puckered-up grin. "I think I can manage to crawl there, if I am sure of a feed immediately."
The girls scrambled down the steep cliff side and began to unpack the lunch. Joy chose a large granite rock in the middle of the stream and perched thereon, she surveyed her surroundings.
"Isn't that a lovely copper stain? And to think it's coming from our mine!" she enthused in a mocking tone, while the other girls unpacked the lunch or hustled around to find sticks for a fire.
Their lunch preparations were to be quite elaborate, roast potatoes and corn on the cob and steak. Enid and Kit built the fire with care and soon a bed of coals was ready. While the two girls worked over the fire and Shirley gave attention to spreading the feast, Bet sat on the cliff, dreaming of the mine to be.
"This is adventure! This is romance!" she cried to her friends.
"Romance!" chuckled Joy. "It's not what I call romance."
"Dark brown eyes and a heavenly smile on the face of a boy, is your only idea of romance. You are a silly girl!" Bet shrugged her boyish shoulders and laughed at Joy as she undid her long rope, and standing up straight, tried to send the loop over a stump in the manner approved by Tommy Sharpe, her teacher. Her efforts were not very successful. Out of twenty attempts she managed one that coiled over the spot that she was aiming at. Bet decided then and there that she would not make a good cowboy. While she practised the throw again and again, she continued to talk to Joy who seemed half vexed as she snapped:
"You needn't talk about liking boys, Bet Baxter. I don't blush every time the mail arrives and a letter is handed me. And you seem to have no objection to dreamy brown eyes yourself. I've seen the way you looked at Phil Gordon. Now Phil's eyes haven't got enough snap in them for me – they're altogether too brooding to suit me. I think that young Mexican's eyes are much more exciting."
"Why, Joy Evans, how dare you say that I like to look at Phil's eyes? He's a dear boy, one of our best chums, but I don't think at all about his eyes," retorted Bet.
"You don't think his eyes are nice? Answer me, Bet?" teased Shirley.
"They're all right I tell you, but I think you girls are just too horrid trying to insinuate that I'm in love with Phil," protested Bet, her face flushing, her blue eyes snapping with anger.
"We don't have to insinuate anything, Bet. You give yourself away every time his name is mentioned," was Joy's emphatic reply.
"I move we change the subject. It's a sore point with me for I'm half in love with Phil myself," laughed Kit. "He's one of the nicest boys I've ever seen. But when Bet's around he won't even notice me."
"What will Bob say to that?" laughed the impish Joy for it was no secret that Bob Evans had lost his heart to the Arizona girl from the first time he met her. His heart was hers to crush or treasure as she saw fit. But at present Kit preferred to hold on to her girlhood and not allow the thought of love and grown-up responsibilities to enter her head.
That was one nice thing about the relationship of the girls and their boy friends. There was comradeship and loyal friendship.
Bet suddenly jumped down from her perch on the cliff and said disgustedly: "Joy Evans, I think you are corrupting all of us with your silly ideas regarding boys. I love Bob and Phil and Paul Breckenridge and Tommy Sharpe just exactly the same, and I won't be teased about any one in particular."
"Methinks thou dost protest too much, my dear!" exclaimed Joy tantalizingly. "We'll change the subject for the time, but when I get you alone, Bet Baxter, I'll make you own up that Phil Gordon is a little dearer to you than any of them." Joy dodged and slid from the granite rock just in time to miss the loop of rope that Bet had aimed at her with no gentle hand.
"Come on girls, you selfish things, give your horses a chance," and Kit stroked Powder's muzzle and gave him a nosebag of oats. All the girls followed her example, then while the potatoes were getting ready, Bet took a book from her pack behind the saddle and lost herself in a story.
"Do read aloud, Bet," begged Enid, dropping down beside her friend. "I will always remember how you read to me on Campers' Trail when I was hurt."
So while Kit tended the fire, keeping a bed of hot coals just right for the baking, and Shirley fried steak and cooked the corn, Enid stretched out on a flat rock and listened to Bet. She had chosen "The Wonderful Window" by Dunsany, and when she finished Enid sighed softly.
"I like a story that gives you something to think about," said Bet, moved by the loveliness of the tale.
"I don't see anything particularly nice to think about in that story, Bet," objected Joy with a shrug. "It isn't lively enough to suit me."
"Of course you wouldn't!" laughed Enid. "Your idea of a story is Cinderella. There has to be a girl, a prince and a wedding. Isn't that right?"
"Of course," answered the butterfly girl, twirling about on her toes as usual. "It's the only kind that counts. I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for any other kind."
With a bound, Bet jumped to her feet, caught the slight form of Joy, lifted her clear off the ground, then ran with her down to the creek.
"Come on, Enid, this girl needs to have her head soaked in cold water.
Let's do it." And in spite of the protests of the kicking, shrieking Joy, the girls managed to get her to a pool of water in the creek bed.
"Now, Joy Evans, will you behave yourself?"
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 Shirley came to the rescue at Joy's screams, but Shirley 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 Shirley. "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 Shirley. "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 pass 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 pass."
"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 Shirley, 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 pass, 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.
Bet carefully took her feet from the stirrups and slid to the ground with a death-grip on the saddle. There was only room for one foot on the tiny shelf of rock, and that slight space was slippery with the rain. Slowly Bet lowered herself, with the aid of the stirrup, and clutching at the tough-fibred plants, she lay down flat on her stomach. Sliding and wriggling, an inch at a time, down that slippery incline, she managed to hold on to the narrow shelf.
"Joy! Joy! Where are you?" she cried.
At last Bet could hear the heavy breathing of Joy's horse, got hold of a stirrup and clung there trembling.
Again and again she called, then listened.
Finally above the roar of the storm she thought she heard a faint cry from the trail below. Bet crept along the trail, this time under Dolly's feet. She had to take a chance even though one move on the part of the horse might send her over the side of the cliff.
Then Bet saw Joy. She was clinging to a mass of bear grass, her face white and her eyes wild with fear. It was impossible to reach her. She seemed to be clinging there only with her hands, her feet swinging without any support. But of that Bet could not be certain.
It would be sure destruction to attempt to climb down that wall.
Then quick as a flash Bet thought of the reata on Joy's saddle. Bet had insisted that the girl carry the rope with her, and Joy had protested as usual.
That rope was her only chance.
Bet slowly crept up the incline to Joy's horse and managed to get to her feet and undo the long coil of rope. Then crouching to her knees once more she made a loop, thankful that she had learned to do that stunt as a child. The other end she tied to the saddle.
Bet heard a groan from the cliff and hastened toward it.
But haste was one thing that could not be attempted with safety. Bet regretted that effort. Her body slipped, a plant gave way and her feet slid over the wall.
Bet's mind was clear. She heard once more Joy's faint cry in the distance and knew that it depended on her to rescue her friend. The empty hand clutched and found another tough root, and slowly, now, she brought first one foot then the other to the ledge. She was saved! But would she reach Joy in time?
With greater caution she crept the few feet along that treacherous path until she came close above Joy's head.
"Hold on, Joy, don't give up! I'll help you in a minute." Bet encouraged her.
Working desperately, Bet got to her feet and clung there. It was the only hope for Joy. The rain had ceased to pour down in such a torrent, and Bet could now see her friend clinging to that slender plant. Leaning over as far as she dared, she dropped the loop over Joy's head and shoulders.
"Joy dear," she called. "Put one arm inside the loop, quick!"
Joy heard and understood. She let go with one hand. There was a shriek, a groan, a shower of rocks descended as Joy slipped down that steep wall.
For Bet, everything went black. She grew faint and closed her eyes, then suddenly pulled herself together, and looked over.
The rope was taut. It had held.
A second shower of rocks came from the trail, started by the sudden jerk on the saddle. The horse pawed the ground in an effort to keep its footing.
It held. And Bet gripped the stirrup with her foot and drew on the rope.
It was well that Joy was tiny. Even then, Bet had difficulty in bringing her up. She tugged, she pulled, trying to ease the girl's body over the sharp projecting rocks.
Bet was weak and trembling when she clasped Joy in her arms, perched on that narrow shelf of rock.
And that was the way Kit found them ten minutes later, when the storm had passed and the sun shone fiercely down once more.
Joy was sobbing as if her heart would break and Bet was saying in a crooning voice: "Joy dear, you can talk about the boys as much as you want to from now on. I'll never again object to anything you do."