Part 21 (1/2)

”Indeed I do!” Meg replied. ”They seem like live things to me, and so I was not surprised to read recently that a scientist, with some very delicate instrument, has learned that many plants are sentient, though not acutely so. Since then I have never torn a plant ruthlessly. That scientist advised cutting flowers rather than breaking them.”

It was indeed Meg's much-loved subject and her eyes glowed as she gazed at the banks of scarlet salvia, at the ma.s.ses of golden glow, and many-hued asters.

”Someone else must love flowers,” she commented, turning to look back at Jean. He nodded. ”It is my best friend, Mr. Packard. You two ought to be great cronies. I sometimes tell him that I think it is the color effect, rather than the individual flower, that he so greatly admires, but here he comes now.”

They were riding up to the circling drive which pa.s.sed under a vine-covered portico. Mr. Packard leaped down the steps with an agility which seemed to dispute the years his graying hair attributed to him.

”Welcome!” he cried, with a wide sweep of his sombrero. ”This is indeed a pleasant surprise, although I can hardly call it that as I have been watching for just such a cavalcade to come riding down my foothills ever since the dawn broke.” He held out his strong arms to lift little Julie, whose face, still tear-stained and white with pain, appealed to him. He held her close as he listened sympathetically while Gerald told what had happened to the poor little foot. Then, after giving a word of greeting to each of the guests, he bade them follow him indoors to the breakfast that had long been awaiting them.

The girls found that a wing, containing two rooms and a bath, and overlooking the little lake, had been prepared for their comfort. Gerald, with the two older boys, sought quarters elsewhere in the rambling ranch house, which had room for the accommodation of many guests.

”When you girls have prinked enough,” Mr. Packard said merrily, ”follow the scent of the coffee and you will find the rest of us.” When the door had closed and the three girls were alone, Jane held out a hand to Meg, saying: ”Will you forgive me for everything, and let me try to be a real friend?” An expression of gladness in the mountain girl's dusky eyes was her most eloquent reply.

Directly after breakfast in the dining-room, which seemed to be all windows and where they were served by a silently moving Chinaman, the girls were told that they were to go to their wing and rest until noon.

This was in no way a displeasing suggestion and in a very short while Julie and Jane in one room and Meg in the other were deep in slumber.

Gerald was also advised to rest, but he declared that he would rather stay awake and see what was going to happen. Dan laughed as he said that Gerald seemed always to believe that an adventure might begin at any moment.

”What boy does not?” Mr. Packard smiled understandingly down at the stocky little fellow whose clear blue eyes and freckled face beamed good nature. Then, quite as though he could read the small boy's thought, the man exclaimed: ”Gerald, you ought to wear my grandson's cowboy outfit.

He'd be glad to loan it to you.” That this suggestion met with the youngster's entire approval was quite evident by the wild dance which he executed then and there.

Jean led the little fellow away and before long Gerald reappeared, clothed in a costume of the most approved style, a fringed buckskin suit, a red bandana handkerchief loosely knotted about his neck, while in one hand he held a wide felt hat on which to his great joy a dried rattlesnake skin served as band. His own small gun was never out of his possession.

”Great!” Dan said with brotherly pride. ”I wish our dad and dear old grandmother might see you now, Gerry. You do indeed look ready to start on an adventure.”

”Where'll we go to look for it?” The small boy gazed eagerly, hopefully up at their genial host.

”Well, sonny, what kind of an adventure would you prefer?” the amused man asked as though he were willing, at least, to attempt to provide whatever adventure his small guest might desire.

”I'd like an Indian raid best, or a hold-up.” The boy was thinking of the most exciting things he could recall in his set of Wild-West books, but Mr. Packard shook his head. ”Sorry to disappoint you, sonny, but the Utes are a friendly tribe: peaceable, anyway, and they are no longer our near neighbors. They have moved their camp deeper into the mountains. And, as for hold-ups, since we are neither on a stage or a train we cannot provide that, but if you boys are not too weary I am going to suggest that you ride with me to the old stage road. I've been losing some calves lately and Jean believes that they might have been driven into an abandoned corral over in the foothills at night, and later were spirited away.” He hesitated. ”It's a hard ride, though. Perhaps you boys would rather not undertake it until tomorrow.”

But they were glad to go, and Gerald would not agree to being left behind. He was given a small horse that was gentle and used to boys, as the grandson had claimed it as his own, and so they rode away, having left word for the girls that they would return as soon as possible.

In the mid-morning they reached the old abandoned stage road. ”No one uses it now, that is, for legitimate purposes, as it is very dangerous.

There are washouts and cutways that make it almost impa.s.sable for stage or for auto travel.” Then, pointing to the place where the road circled a high hill, Mr. Packard concluded: ”Jean, can you see where yesterday's cloudburst washed out the road? It has started a new canon that will have to be bridged, for now and then a tenderfoot autoist does get started on that old road, thinking that it leads to Redfords. Time and again we have put up signs on the main highway, but they are hurled down in the storms, I suppose.”

Dan had been intently tracing the old road until it was lost from sight.

Suddenly he urged his horse forward to Mr. Packard's side. ”May I take the field gla.s.ses? I feel sure that I see a dark object moving along that old road and coming this way. You look first, though. Your eyes are better trained to these distances than mine.” Mr. Packard gazed long, then he turned to Jean. ”Boy,” he said, ”it looks like an auto moving slowly this way. If it ever starts on that down grade toward the washout there is going to be a tragedy.”

Jean was eagerly alert. ”What shall we do, Mr. Packard? How can it be averted?”

The automobile had disappeared as the road circled behind a hill, but the watchers well knew that if it did not meet with disaster it would soon reappear above the washout and then be unable to stop because of the steep descent.

”Follow me!” Mr. Packard gave the brief order, and, urging his horse to its utmost speed, he led the way at what seemed to Gerald a breakneck pace. The small boy clung to his wiry little pony, which kept close behind the racing mustangs. It was evident to the boys that Mr. Packard was hoping to round the foot of the hill in time to shout a warning to the autoists before they began the descent which would prove fatal. It seemed a very long distance to Dan and he could not see how they possibly could make it. He kept his eyes constantly on the crest of the hill road, dreading the moment when the car would appear, there to plunge down to certain destruction. Mr. Packard rounded the foot of the hill first, whirled in his saddle, beckoned the boys to make haste, then disappeared, leaving his horse standing riderless. ”What can _that_ mean?” Dan asked, but Jean merely shook his head. In another moment they would know. When they, also, had rounded the hill, they saw that ”ill fortune,” as autoists usually consider a blow-out, had befriended the travelers. The car had been stopped just as it had begun the ascent of the hill, on the other side of which sure death had awaited them.

Mr. Packard was seen breaking a trail through the underbrush. From time to time he hallooed, and the boys saw that at last he had been heard.

”It will be needless for us to make the climb,” Jean said, ”since Mr.