CHAPTER XV
LOST ON MOUNT GABRIEL
A full month of school life had passed at Glenwood. The beautifulautumn had come to tint the leafy New England hills, when Mrs. Pangbornannounced that her classes might go on a little picnic to the top ofMount Gabriel. The day chosen proved to be of the ideal Indian summervariety, and when the crowd of happy students skipped away through thewoods that led to the mount, there seemed nothing to be wished for.Miss Crane had been sent in charge, and as Edna said, that meant justone more girl to make sport.
As usual Viola did not join the merry-makers. She had the continuousexcuse of her mother's illness, which had really been a matter of greatworry to her, as Mrs. Pangborn, if no other at the school, knew to betrue.
"It's as warm as August," declared Nita Brant, scaling a darling littlebaby maple and robbing it of its most cherished pink leaves.
"Oh, Nita," sighed Tavia, "couldn't you take some other tree? Thatpoor little thing never wore a pink dress before in all its young life!"
"Too young to wear pink," declared the gay Nita, affecting thebrilliant leaves herself. "I just love baby leaves," and she plantedthe wreath on her fair brow.
This started the wreath brigade, which soon terminated in every one ofthe picnickers being adorned with a crown of autumn foliage.
At the foot of the mountain the girls made an effort to procuremountain sticks, but this was not an easy matter, and much time wastaken up in the search for appropriate staffs. Those strong enoughwere invariably too hard to break, and those that could be procuredwere always too "splintery." But the matter was finally disposed of,and the procession started up the mountain.
It was growing late in the afternoon, the pilgrimage not having beentaken up until after the morning session, and when the top of themountain was finally reached, Miss Crane told her charges that theymight scurry about and get such specimen of leaves or stones as theywished to bring back, as they would only remain there a short time.
The air was very heavy by this time, and the distant roll of thundercould be heard, but the gay girls never dreamed of a storm on that lateOctober afternoon as they ran wildly about gathering bits of everyprocurable thing from moss to crystal rocks. Tavia wantedJacks-in-the-pulpit, and sought diligently for them, getting away fromall but Dorothy in her anxiety to find her home flower. She dearlyloved Jacks--they grew just against the Dale wall in dear old Dalton,and she wanted to send one flower home to little Johnnie. It would becrushed in a letter of course, but she would put some dainty littleferns beside it and they would keep the lazy look. Then she could tellJohnnie all about the mountain top--send him some bright red mapleleaves, and some yellow ones.
"Oh, Dorothy!" she exclaimed. "I see some almost-purple leaves," anddown the side of a ledge she slipped. "Come on! The footing isperfectly safe."
Dorothy saw that the place was apparently safe, and she made her wayeagerly after Tavia. Dorothy, too, wanted to send specimens home fromMount Gabriel, so she, too, must try to get the prettiest ones thatgrew there.
The roll of thunder was now heard by the pair but it was not heeded.Bit by bit they made their way along the newly-discovered slope; stepby step they went farther away from their companions.
Suddenly a flash of lightning shot down a tree! The next minute therewas a downpour of rain, like the dashing of a cloud burst.
"Oh!" screamed Dorothy. "What shall we do?"
"OH! WHAT SHALL WE DO?" CRIED DOROTHY--_Page 155.]
"Get under the cliff!" ordered Tavia. "Quick! Before the next flash!"
Grasping wildly at stumps and brush, as they made their way down thenow gloomy slope, the two frightened girls managed to get under someprotection--where trees, overhanging the rocks, formed a sort of roofto a very narrow strip of ground.
"Oh! What shall we do?" cried Dorothy again. "We can never make ourway back to the others."
"But we must," declared Tavia. "I'm sure we cannot stay here long.Isn't it a dreadful storm?"
Flash upon flash, and roar upon roar tumbled over the mountain withthat strange rumble peculiar to hills and hollows. Then the rain--
It seemed as if the storm came to the mountain first and lost half thedrops before getting farther down. It did pour with a vengeance.Several times Tavia ventured to poke her head out to make weatherobservations, but each time she was driven unceremoniously back intoshelter.
"It must be late!" sighed Dorothy.
"That it must!" agreed her companion, "and we have got to get out ofhere soon. Rain or no rain, we can't stay here all night. The thunderand lightning is not so bad now. Come on! Let's go!"
Timidly the two girls crept out. But the rain had washed their pathaway and they could barely take a step where so short a time beforethey seemed to walk in safety.
"Don't give up!" Tavia urged Dorothy. "We must get to the top."
But the stones would slide away and the young trees, loosed by theheavy rain, would pull up at the roots.
"Try this way," suggested Tavia, taking another line from that whichthe girls knew ran to the mountain top.
This proved to be safer in footing at least. The rocks did not fallwith such force, and the trees were stronger to hold on to.
But where was that path taking them? Both girls shouted continually,hoping to make the others hear, but no welcome answer came back to them.
Then they realized the truth. They were lost!
Night was coming, and such a night!
On a mountain top, in a thunder storm, with darkness falling!
The girls never knew just what they did in that awful hour, but itseemed afterwards that a whole lifetime had been lost with them in thatstorm. So far from every one on earth! Not even a bird to break thatdreadful black solitude!
And the others?
The storm, violent as it was, did not deter them from searching forDorothy and Tavia. Miss Crane had shouted her throat powerless, andthe others had not been less active. But by the strange circumstancesthat always lead the lost from their seekers, both parties had followeddifferent directions, and at last, as night came on, Miss Crane wasobliged to lead her weeping charges down Mount Gabriel and leave thetwo lost ones behind.