Part 20 (1/2)

”Julie, what is it, dear? Are you hurt? What has happened?”

Gerald spoke up: ”That's why we came in here. We were headin' down the mountain for the Packard ranch when Julie fell. I guess her ankle is hurt.”

Meg at once was on her knees unb.u.t.toning the high shoe. The ankle was swollen, but there were no bones broken.

”It is a bad sprain,” she said.

Then, swinging the knapsack which she always carried when on a mountain hike from her back, she took out her emergency kit. She washed the angry looking place with soothing liniment and then wound tightly about it strips of clean white cloth.

”Now,” she said, ”we will have some refreshments.”

This amazed her listeners and greatly pleased at least one of them.

”Gee-golly!” Gerald cried. ”I hadn't thought of it before, but I guess I'm starving to death more'n likely.”

Meg smiled as she produced a box of raisins. ”This may not seem much of a menu, but it is all one needs for several days to sustain life.”

The small boy took a generous handful and gobbled it with speed. Then the mountain girl brought out a canteen.

”Bring us some water from the creek,” she told him. Jane held out a detaining hand.

”Oh, Meg,” she implored, ”don't send Gerry to that raging torrent. Don't you remember how we heard it roaring?”

”But you don't hear it now,” was the reply. ”The water from the cloudburst has long since gone to the valley to be absorbed, much of it, in the coa.r.s.e gravel. You'll find Crazy Creek just as it always is.”

”That's where Julie sprained her ankle,” Gerald said. ”We were trying to reach it to get a drink.”

He soon returned with the canteen full of ice-cold water. His eyes were wide.

”Say, girls,” he began, ”we can't make it home tonight, can we? The sun's going down west of our peak right this minute.”

”We didn't expect to,” Meg replied. ”Gerald, you come with me and we will bring in pine branches or kinnikinick, if we can find any, for our beds.”

From her knapsack Meg took a folding knife as she talked.

”Kinnikinick?” the boy gayly repeated. Everything that had happened now appeared to him in the light of a jolly adventure except, of course, Julie's ankle, and she no longer seemed to be in pain. ”What sort of a thing is that?”

Meg had led the way out of the cabin.

”Here's some!” she shouted, and the boy raced over to find the girl whom he so admired bending over a dense evergreen vine.

”It's prettier in winter,” she told him, ”for then it has red berries among the bright green leaves. It makes a wonderful bed. It is so soft and springy.”

After half an hour of effort branches of pine and some of the kinnikinick were laid on the floor, Julie was made comfortable, but Jane would not lie down. She sat with her back against the wall holding the small girl's head on her lap. Dan had been right. One could carve oneself after a model. Never, never again would she lose sight, she a.s.sured herself, of her chosen goal, which was to do in all things as her dear mother would have done.

As soon as the sun sank it began to grow dark. Meg had at once barred the door, and also she had examined the floor and walls to be sure that there was no yawning knothole large enough to admit a snake.

The children slept from sheer exhaustion, but Jane and Meg stayed awake through the seemingly endless hours, while night prowlers howled many times close to their cabin.

At the first gray streak of dawn, Julie stirred uneasily and began to cry softly. Meg begged Jane to change positions with her, and, completely worn out, Jane did lie down on the pine boughs which had been so placed that they were springy and comfortable. Almost at once she fell asleep.