CHAPTER XIV
THE MOUNTAIN HUT
If Bobby had not gone first and had not stuck half way down the hole withher feet kicking madly just at the mouth of the tunnel, without doubtBetty Gordon would have been driven by her own fears back into the Pullmancoach.
That shaggy beast diving from the top of the embankment, plunging, yelpingand whining, through the softer drifts of snow, frightened Betty just asmuch as it had Bobby Littell. The latter had got away with a flying start,however, and her writhing body plugged the only means of escape. So Bettyreally had to face the approaching terror.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Betty, turning from the approaching beast in despair."Hurry! Hurry, Bobby Littell! Do you want me to be eaten up?"
But Bobby had somehow cramped herself in the winding passage through thesnow, and her voice was muffled as she too cried for help.
However, Bobby's demands for assistance were much more likely to bring itthan the cries of the girl outside. The porter heard Bobby first, andwhen he opened the door of the coach several men who were near heard thegirl.
"Help! Help! A wolf is eating her!" shrieked the frightened Bobby.
"Ma soul an' body! He must be a-chawin' her legs off!" cried the darkeyand he seized Bobby by the wrists, threw himself backward, and the girlcame out of the tunnel like an aggravating cork out of a bottle.
"What's this?" demanded Mr. Richard Gordon, who happened to be coming backto the end of the train to look for his niece and her chum.
"Oh, Mr. Gordon!" sputtered Bobby, scrambling up, "it's got her! A wolf!It's got Betty!"
"A wolf?" repeated Uncle Dick. "I didn't know there were any wolves leftin this part of the country."
Major Pater was with him. Mr. Gordon grabbed the latter's walking stickand went up that tunnel a good deal quicker than Bobby had come down it.And when he got to the surface he found his niece, laughing and crying atonce, and almost smothered by the joyful embraces of a big Newfoundlanddog!
"A wolf indeed!" cried Mr. Gordon, but beating off the animalgood-naturedly. "He must be a friend of yours, Betty."
"Oh, dear me, he did scare us so!" Betty rejoined, getting up out of thedrift, trying to brush off her coat, and petting the exuberant dog at thesame time. "But it is a dear--and its master must be somewhere about,don't you think, Uncle Dick?"
Its master was, for the next moment he appeared at the top of the bankdown which the "wolf" had wallowed. He hailed Uncle Dick and Betty with agreat, jovial shout and plunged down the slope himself. He was a young manon snowshoes, and he proved to be a telegraph operator at that stationthree miles south.
"Wires are so clogged we can't get messages through. But we knew thatNumber Forty was stalled about here. Going to be a job to dig her out.I've got a message for the conductor," he said when he reached the top ofthe drift that was heaped over the train.
"Wasn't it a hard task to get here?" Mr. Gordon asked.
"Not so bad. My folks live right over the ridge there, about half a mileaway. I just came from the house with the dog. Down, Nero! Behaveyourself!"
"We are going to be hungry here pretty soon," suggested Mr. Gordon.
"There will be a pung come up from the station with grub enough beforenight. Furnished by the company. That is what I have come to see theconductor about."
"I tell you what," said Betty's uncle, who was nothing if not quick inthinking. "My party were bound for Cliffdale."
"That's not very far away. But I doubt if the train gets there this week."
"Bad outlook for us. We are going to Mountain Camp--Mr. Canary's place."
"I know that place," said the telegraph operator. "There is an easy roadto it from our farm through the hills. Get there quicker than you can bythe way of Cliffdale. I believe my father could drive you up thereto-morrow."
"In a sleigh?" cried Betty delightedly. "What fun!"
"In a pung. With four of our horses. They'd break the road all right.Ought to start right early in the morning, though."
"Do you suppose you could get us over to your house to-night?" asked Mr.Gordon quickly. "There are a good many of us----"
"How many in the party?" asked the young man. "My name's Jaroth--FredJaroth."
Mr. Gordon handed him his card and said:
"There are four girls, four boys, and myself. Quite a party."
"That is all right, Mr. Gordon," said Fred Jaroth cheerfully. "We oftenput up thirty people in the summer. We've a great ranch of a house. And Ican help you up the bank yonder and beat you a path through the woods tothe main road. Nothing simpler. Your trunks will get to Cliffdale sometimeand you can carry your hand baggage."
"Not many trunks, thank goodness," replied Mr. Gordon. "What do you think,Betty? Does it sound good?"
"Heavenly!" declared his niece.
Just then a brakeman came up through the tunnel to find out if the wolfhad eaten both the gentleman and his niece, and the telegraph operatorwent down, feet first, to find the conductor and deliver his message.
"Then the idea of going on to Mountain Camp by sledge suits you, does it,young lady?" asked Mr. Gordon of Betty.
"They will all be delighted. You know they will, Uncle. What sport!"
The suggestion of the telegraph operator did seem quite inspired. Mr.Gordon and Betty reentered the train to impart the decision to the others,and, as Betty had claimed, her young friends were both excited anddelighted by the prospect.
In half an hour the party was off, Betty and her friends bundled up andcarrying their bags while Mr. Gordon followed and Fred Jaroth led the wayon his snowshoes and carrying two suitcases. He said they helped balancehim and made the track through the snow firmer. As for Nero, he cavortedlike a wild dog, and that, Bobby said, proved he was a wolf!
Once at the top of the bank they found it rather easy following Jaroththrough the woods. And when they reached the road--or the place where thehighway would have been if the snow had not drifted over fences andall--they met the party from the station bringing up food and othercomforts for the snowbound passengers. As the snow had really stoppedfalling it was expected that the plow would be along sometime the next dayand then the train would be pulled back to the junction.
"But if this man has a roomy sled and good horses we shall not be cheatedout of our visit to Mountain Camp," Mr. Gordon said cheerfully.
The old farmhouse when they reached it certainly looked big enough toaccommodate them all. There was a wing thrown out on either side; butthose wings were for use only in the summer. There were beds enough and tospare in the main part of the house.
When they sat down to Mrs. Jaroth's supper table Bob declared that quiteevidently famine had not reached this retired spot. The platters wereheaped with fried ham and fried eggs and sausages and other staplearticles. These and the hot biscuit disappeared like snow before a hot sunin April.
Altogether it was a joyous evening that they spent at the Jaroth house.Yet as Betty and Bobby cuddled up together in the bed which they shared,Betty expressed a certain fear which had been bothering her for some time.
"I wonder where she is, Bobby?" Betty said thoughtfully.
"Where who is?" demanded her chum sleepily.
"That girl. Ida Bellethorne. If she came up here on a wild goose chaseafter her aunt, and found only a horse, what will become of her?"
"I haven't the least idea," confessed Bobby.
"Did she return before this blizzard set in, or is she still up here inthe woods? And what will become of her?"
"Gracious!" exclaimed the sleepy Bobby, "let's go to sleep and think aboutIda Bellethorne to-morrow."
"And I wonder if it is possible that she can know anything about mylocket," was another murmured question of Betty's. But Bobby had gone fastasleep then and did not answer.
Under the radiance of the big oil lamp hanging above the kitchen table,the table itself covered with an old-fashioned red and white checkedcloth, the young folks bound for Mountain Camp ate breakfast. And such abreakfast!
Buckwheat cakes, e
ach as big as the plate itself with "oodles of butterand real maple syrup," to quote Bob.
"We don't even get as good as this at Salsette," said Tommy Tucker grimly."Oh, cracky!"
"I want to know!" gibed his twin, borrowing a phrase he had heard NewEngland Libbie use on one occasion. "If Major Pater could see us now!"
Libbie and Timothy forgot to quote poetry. The fact was, as Bobby pointedout, buckwheat cakes like those were poems in themselves.
"And when one's mouth is full of such poems, mere printed verses lackvalue."
Romantic as she was, Libbie admitted the truth of her cousin's remark.
A chime of bells at the door hastened the completion of the meal. The boysmight have sat there longer and, like boa-constrictors, gorged themselvesinto lethargy.
However, adventure was ahead and the sound of the sledge bells excited theyoung people. They got on their coats and caps and furs and mittens andtrooped out to the "pung," as the elder Jaroth called the low, deep,straw-filled sledge to which he had attached four strong farm horses.
There were no seats. It would be much more comfortable sitting in thestraw, and much warmer. For although the storm had entirely passed thecold was intense. It nipped every exposed feature, and their breath hunglike hoar-frost before them when they laughed and talked.
During the night something had been done to break out the road. Mr.Jaroth's horses managed to trample the drifts into something like a hubblypath for the broad sled-runners to slip oven They went on, almost alwaysmounting a grade, for four hours before they came to a human habitation.
The driver pointed his whipstock to a black speck before them and higherup the hill which was sharply defined against the background of purewhite.
"Bill Kedders' hut," he said to Mr. Gordon. "'Tain't likely he's therethis time o' year. Usually he and his wife go to Cliffdale to spend thewinter with their married daughter."
"Just the same," cried Bob suddenly, "there's smoke coming out of thatchimney. Don't you see it, Uncle Dick?"
"The boy's right!" ejaculated Jaroth, with sudden anxiety. "It can't bethat Bill and his woman were caught by this blizzard. He's as knowingabout weather signs as an old bear, Bill is. And you can bet every bear inthese woods is holed up till spring."
He even urged the plodding horses to a faster pace. The hut, buried in thesnow to a point far above its eaves, was built against a steep hillsideat the edge of the wood, with the drifted road passing directly before itsdoor. When the pung drew up before it and the horses stopped with a suddenshower of tinkling bell-notes, Mr. Jaroth shouted:
"Hey, Bill! Hey, Bill Kedders!"
There was no direct reply to this hail. But as they listened for a replythere was not one of the party that did not distinguish quite clearly thesound of weeping from inside the mountain hut.