CHAPTER XV IN THE BARN LOFT
"Jerry, what did you do with the box?" Mary managed to whisper as thecowboy drew out a chair for her at the supper table.
"In the old barn loft, snug and safe," he replied. Then he sat besideher. Dora and Dick, on the opposite side of the long table, beamedacross, eager anticipation in their eyes. Although they had not heard thefew words their friends had spoken, they felt sure that they had beenabout Little Bodil's box.
"We won't wait for your father, Jerry," Mrs. Newcomb had said. "He mayhave gone in somewhere for shelter if he happened to be riding in thepath of the storm."
The kerosene lamp hanging above the middle of the table had acherry-colored shade and cast a cheerful glow over the simple meal ofwarmed-over chicken, baked potatoes, corn bread, sage honey and creamymilk, big pitchers of it, one at each end of the table. For dessert therewas apple sauce and chocolate layer cake.
Mr. Newcomb came in before they were through, tall, sinewy, his kindbrown face deeply furrowed by wind and sun. His eyes brightened with realpleasure when he saw the guests. Dora, he had met before, and Mary he hadknown since she was a little girl.
He shook hands with both of them. "Wall, wall, if that sand storm sentyou girls this-a-way, I figger it did some good after all."
Jerry glanced at his father anxiously when he was seated at the end ofthe table opposite his wife.
"Dad, do you reckon any of our cattle were hit by it?" he asked.
The older man helped himself to the food Mary passed him, before hereplied, "No-o, I reckon not. I was riding the high pasture when I heerdthe roaring. I went out on Lookout Point and stood there watching, tillthe dust got so thick I had to make for the canyon."
It was Dick who spoke. "There aren't many cows pastured down on the floorof the valley, anyway, are there, Mr. Newcomb? There's so much sand andonly an occasional clump of grass, it surely isn't good pasture."
"You're right," the cowman agreed, "but there's a few poor men strugglingalong, tryin' to eke out an existence down thar. I reckon they was hithard. I knew a man, once, who had a well and was tryin' to raise agarden. One of them sand storms swooped over it, and, after it was gone,he couldn't find nary a vegetable. Either they'd been pulled up by theroots and blown away or else they was buried so deep, he couldn't digdown to them."
"Oh, Uncle Henry," Mary smiled toward him brightly, "I see a twinkle inyour eye. Now confess, isn't that a sand-story?"
"No, it's true enough," the cowman replied, when Jerry exclaimed: "Dad, Iknow a bigger one than that. You remember that man from the East,tenderfoot if ever there was one, who started to build him a house on theNeal crossroad? He heard the storm coming so he jumped on his horse androde into Neal as though demons were after him. When the wind stoppedblowing, he went back to look for his house and there, where it had been,stood the beginning of a sand hill. The adobe walls of his unfinishedhouse had caught so much sand, they were completely covered. That wasyears ago. Now there's a good-sized sand hill on that very spot withyucca growing on it."
"Poor man, it was the burial of his dreams," Dora said sympathetically.
"He left for the East the next day," Jerry finished his tale, "and--"
"Lived happily ever after, I hope," Mary put in.
Mrs. Newcomb said pleasantly, "If you young people have finished yourmeal, don't wait for us. Jerry told me you're going out to the loft inthe old barn for a secret meeting about something."
"We'd like to help you, Aunt Mollie, if--"
"No 'ifs' to it, Mary dear." The older woman gazed lovingly at the girl."Your Uncle Henry and I visit quite a long spell evenings over our tea.It's the only leisure time that we have together."
Jerry lighted a couple of lanterns, and the girls, after having gone totheir room for their sweater coats, joined the boys on the wide, back,screened-in porch.
"I'll go ahead," Jerry said, "and Dick will bring up the rear. We'll bethe lantern bearers. Now, don't you girls leave the path."
"Why all the precautions?" Dora asked gaily, but Mary knew.
"Rattlesnakes may be abroad." She shuddered. "Have you seen one yet thissummer, Jerry?"
"Yes, this morning, and a mighty ugly one too; coiled up asleep in thechicken yard. I shot it, all right, but didn't kill it. Before I couldfire again, it had crawled under the old barn."
"Oh-oo gracious! That's where we're going, isn't it?" Dora peered intothe darkness on either side of the path.
"I suppose it had a mate equally big and ugly under the barn?" Mary'sstatement was also a question.
Dick replied, "Undoubtedly, but if they stay _under_ the barn and don'ttry to climb up to the loft, they won't trouble us any."
Mary, glancing up at the sky that was like soft, dark blue velvet studdedwith luminous stars, exclaimed, "How wonderfully clear the air is, andhow still. You never would dream that a sand storm had--"
She stopped suddenly, for Dora had gripped her arm from the back."Listen! Didn't you hear a--"
"Gun shot?" Dick supplied gaily. "Now that we're about to open up LittleBodil's box, I certainly expect to hear one. You know we heard a gunfired, or thought we did, when we passed through the gate in front ofLucky Loon's rock house, and again when old Silas Harvey was telling usthe story. Was that what you thought you heard, Dora?"
"No, it was not," that maiden replied indignantly. "I thought I heard arattle." She had stopped still in the path to listen, but, as Jerry andMary had continued walking toward the old barn, Dora decided that she hadbeen mistaken and skipped along to catch up. Dick, sorry that he hadteased her, evidently at an inopportune time, ran after her with thelantern. "Please forgive me," he pleaded, "and don't rush along that waywhere the path is dark."
Jerry turned to call, "We're going in the side door, Dick." Thenanxiously, "You girls can climb a wall ladder, can't you?"
"Of course we can," Dora replied spiritedly. "We're regular acrobats inour gym at school."
Having reached the barn, Dick opened a low door, then holding the lanternhigh, that the girls might see the step, he assisted them both over thesill and followed closely.
Mary was standing in the small leather-scented harness-room, lookingabout the old wooden floor with an anxious expression.
"I was wondering," she explained when the light from a lantern flashed inher face, "if there are any holes in the floor large enough for thoserattlers to crawl through."
"I'm sorry I mentioned that ugly old fellow," Jerry said contritely, "andyet we do have to be constantly on the watch, but we're safe enough now.Here's the wall ladder and the little loft storeroom is just above us.The only hard part is at the top where one of the cross bars is missing."
Dick suggested, "We boys can go up first and reach a hand down to thegirls when they come to that step."
"Righto," Jerry said. "I'll leave my lantern on the floor here. You takeyours up, old man. Then we'll have illumination in both places."
The girls had worn their knickers under their short skirts as they alwaysdid when they went on a hike or a mountain climb and so they went up therough wall ladder as nimbly as the boys had done. The last step was moredifficult, but, with the help of strong arms they soon stood on the floorof the low loft room. All manner of discarded tools, harness and boxeswere piled about the walls.
Dora was curious. "Jerry, _why_ did you select this out-of-the-way placefor Bodil's trunk?"
"Because I reckoned no one would disturb us. The Dooley twins overrun theold barn sometimes but they can't climb up here with the top boardmissing."
The battered leather box lay in the middle of the room and the two girlslooking down at it had a strangely uncanny feeling. Jerry evidently hadnot, for he was about to lift the lid when Mary caught his arm,exclaiming, "Big Brother, _what_ was it Silas Harvey said about a ghost?I mean, didn't Mr. Pedersen threaten to haunt----"
The interruption was the crackling report of a gun that was very close tothem.
"Great h
eavens, _what_ was that?" Mary screamed and clung to Jerryterrified.
"It wasn't a ghost who fired that shot," the cowboy told them. "It wassomeone just outside the barn. Don't be frightened, girls. It can't beanyone who wants to harm us. Wait, I'll call out the window here."
Jerry pulled open a wooden blind and shouted, "_Who's_ there?"
His father's voice replied, "Lucky I happened along when I did. An uglyrattler was wriggling, half dead from a wound, right along the path hereand its mate was coiled in a sage bush watching it."
Dora seized Dick's arm. "I heard it!" she cried excitedly. "_That's_ whatI heard when you began to--"
"Aw, I say, Dora," Dick was truly remorseful, "I'm terribly sorry. I justdidn't want you to be using your imagination and frightening yourselfneedlessly."
Mary sank down on a dusty old box. "I'm absolutely limp," she said. "Now,if a ghost appears when we open that trunk, I'll simply collapse."