Part 12 (1/2)

”I have my heart set on teaching some of you to rope a steer,” Kit spoke up.

”Sure! It wouldn't do at all for them to go back east before they'd learned that,” agreed Tommy, his eyes glowing at the prospect of showing off his skill with the rope.

”It isn't as hard as it looks,” Kit encouraged the girls.

”I imagine we'll find it harder than it looks,” laughed Bet as she tore herself away from the map. ”It doesn't look a bit difficult when that rope twirls through the air. I've seen it in the movies and once I tried it with the clothes line but I couldn't do more than get the rope around my own neck. I know I'll never learn.”

”Before the summer is over, Bet, you'll be a regular cowboy. I'll teach you myself,” Tommy a.s.serted.

”And I don't want to be taught. I'm sure I'd hate it,” exclaimed Joy.

”n.o.body will learn if we are going to get interested in treasure maps and that sort of thing,” pouted Kit.

Bet spoke up firmly: ”I've decided not to go treasure hunting. As a work of art, that map is a treasure in itself, I love it, but I'm going to leave the treasure hunting to Tommy and Kie Wicks and the cross-eyed Mexican.”

Bet was so positive in her a.s.sertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the adventure it brought.

From early morning until late at night their one interest would be unravelling the mystery of Lost Canyon.

Even the old professor whose mind was set on Indian relics, would forget his errand to the hills and all that it involved and be heart and soul in the venture of the hidden treasure.

For Fate upsets all plans and leads into strange and undreamed-of adventures.

CHAPTER VIII

_KIT'S HOME FOLKS_

Kit's greeting to her quiet, undemonstrative father was as effusive as he would allow it to be. She threw both arms about him with a cry of joy but all he said was: ”You're home! That's good!” His tall, stooped figure was that of a hard working man, an outdoor man. His face bore criss-cross wrinkles stamped by the winds and heat of the mountain.

It was from him that Kit had inherited her deep-set brown eyes, her tall, slight body. Father and daughter were very much alike in looks but her mother had given her a disposition of joyousness that her silent father admired but utterly lacked.

Kit knew her father's way. She saw the happiness in his eyes and knew that he had missed her, perhaps even more than her sociable mother had done. Ma Patten could make friends with everybody who came near, and in that way she had worked off a lot of her loneliness at her daughter's absence. But Dad Patten confided in no one, not even Ma knew what was in his heart.

After the greeting was over the old man turned to the professor and continued his conversation without another glance at Kit. One could see that the professor and the mountaineer were already friends. Not many words had pa.s.sed between them by way of introduction but the vigorous handshake a.s.sured the city man that he was welcome, and only when they began to talk of Indians and their ways did Dad Patten speak.

The two men were in the middle of a discussion when Kit arrived home.

After a few minutes she disappeared and the next thing the professor saw was Kit trying to embrace a stout old squaw. But the two years separation from Indian Mary had made Kit a stranger to her, at least one would judge so by the graven image att.i.tude she put on.

Kit grabbed her by the shoulder. ”Now look here, Mary, don't put on any airs with me. Didn't you pretty nearly bring me up? Why, I'm almost like your own child. Tell me, don't you love me almost as much as you do Young Mary?”

The Indian woman shook her head for no, but Kit laughed. ”I don't believe you! You always liked me better than Young Mary.--Where is she? I brought her something from New York.”

”Where? What?” asked Old Mary.

”I want to give it to Young Mary myself. It's so pretty that if you saw it first you'd never let Mary have it. Where is she?”

”Way off visiting at the reservation. Pretty soon she come home. Lots of Indians come soon.”

”I'm so disappointed,” exclaimed Kit. ”Here, I brought something for you, too.” And Kit held out a large package.