The Best of Mary Roberts Rinehart

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  All hope seemed gone. The frail walls of our tent were no protection whatever, and as we all knew, even a tree was no refuge from a bear, which, as we had seen in the Zoological Garden at home, can climb like a cat, only swifter. Besides, none of us could climb a tree.

  It was at that moment that Tish had one of those inspirations that make her so dependable in emergencies. Feeling round in the tent for a possible weapon, she touched a large ham, from which we had broiled a few slices at supper. In her shadowy form there was both purpose and high courage. With a single sweeping gesture she flung the ham at the bear so accurately that we heard the thud with which it struck.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Bill called from a safe distance. Even then we realized that his restraint of speech was a pose, pure and simple. "If you make him angry he'll tear up the whole place."

  But Tish did not deign to answer. The rain had ceased, and suddenly the moon came out and illuminated the whole scene. We saw the bear sniffing at the ham, which lay on the ground. Then he picked it up in his jaws and stood looking about.

  Tish said later that the moment his teeth were buried in the ham she felt safe. I can still see the majestic movement with which she walked out of the tent and waved her arms.

  "Now, scat with you!" she said firmly. "Scat!"

  He "scatted." Snarling through his nose, for fear of dropping the ham, he turned and fled up the mountainside. In the open space Tish stood the conqueror. She yawned and glanced about.

  "Going to be a nice night, after all," she said. "Now, Bill, bring me that revolver, and if I catch you meddling with it again I'll put that pair of fur rugs you are so proud of in the fire."

  Bill, who was ignorant of the ham, emerged sheepishly into the open. "Where the--where the dickens did you hit him, Miss Tish?" he asked.

  "In the stomach," Tish replied tartly, and taking her revolver went back to the tent.

  All the next day Tish was quiet. She rode ahead, hardly noticing the scenery, with her head dropped on her chest. At luncheon she took a sardine sandwich and withdrew to a tree, underneath which she sat, a lonely and brooding figure.

  When luncheon was over and Aggie and I were washing the dishes and hanging out the dish towels to dry on a bush, Tish approached Bill, who was pouring water on the fire to extinguish it.

  "Bill," she stated, "you came to us under false pretenses. You swear, for one thing."

  "Only under excitement, Miss Tish," he said. "And as far as that goes, Miss Aggie herself said--"

  "Also," Tish went on hastily, "you said you could cook. You cannot cook."

  "Now, look here, Miss Tish," he said in a pleading tone, "I can cook. I didn't claim to know the whole cookbook. I can make coffee and fry bacon. How'd I know you ladies wanted pastry? As for them canned salmon croquettes with white sauce, I reckon to make them with a little showing, and--"

  "Also," said Tish, cutting in sternly, "you took away my revolver, and left us helpless last night, and in peril of wild beasts."

  "Tourists ain't allowed to carry guns."

  He attempted to look injured, but Tish ignored him.

  "Therefore," she said, "if I am not to send you back--which I have been considering all day, as I've put up a tent myself before this, and you are only an extra mouth to feed, which, as we are one ham short, is inconvenient--you will have to justify my keeping you."

  "If you will just show me once about them gems, Miss Tish--" he began.

  But Tish cut him off. "No," she said firmly, "you are too casual about cooking. And you are no dish-washer. Setting a plate in a river and letting the current wash it may satisfy cow-punchers. It doesn't go with me. The point is this: You know all about the holdup that is going to take place. Don't lie. I know you know. Now, you take us there and tell us all you know about it."

  He scratched his head reflectively. "I'll tell you," he said. "I'm a slow thinker. Give me about twenty minutes on it, will you? It's a sort of secret, and there's different ways of looking at it."

  Tish took out her watch. "Twenty minutes," she said. "Start thinking now."

  He wandered off and rolled a cigarette. Later on, as I have said, he showed Tish how to do it--not, of course, that she meant to smoke, but Tish is fond of learning how to do things. She got so she could roll them with one hand, and she does it now in the winter evenings, instead of rolling paper spills as formerly. When Charlie Sands comes, she always has a supply ready for him, although occasionally somewhat dry from waiting for a few weeks.

  At the end of twenty minutes Tish snapped her watch shut.

  "Time!" she called, and Bill came back.

  "Well, I'll do it," he said. "I don't know as they'll put you in the picture, but I'll see what I can do."

  "Picture nothing!" Tish snapped. "You take us there and hide us. That's the point. There must be caves round to put us in, although I don't insist on a cave. They're damp usually."

  Well, he looked puzzled, but he agreed. I caught Aggie's eye, and we exchanged glances. There was trouble coming, and we knew it. Our long experience with Tish had taught us not to ask questions. "Ours but to do and die," as Aggie later said. But I confess to a feeling of uneasiness during the remainder of that day.

  We changed our course that afternoon, turning off at Saint Mary's and spending the night near the Swiss Chalet at Going-to-the-Sun. Aggie and I pleaded to spend the night in the chalet, but Tish was adamant.

  "When I am out camping, I camp," she said. "I can have a bed at home, but I cannot sleep under the stars, on a bed of pine needles, and be lured to rest by the murmur of a mountain stream."

  Well, we gave it up and went with her. I must say that the trip had improved us already. Except when terrified or kicked by a horse, Aggie was not sneezing at all, and I could now climb into the saddle unassisted. My waistbands were much looser, too, and during a short rest that afternoon I put a dart in my riding-breeches, during the absence of Bill after the pack-horse, which had strayed.

  It was on that occasion that Tish told us as much of her plan as she thought it wise for us to know.

  "The holdup," she explained, "is to be the day after to-morrow on the Piegan Pass. Bill says there is a level spot at the top with rocks all about. That is the spot. The Ostermaiers and their party leave the automobiles at Many Glaciers and take horses to the pass. It will be worth coming clear to Montana to see Mrs. Ostermaier on a horse."

  "I still don't see," Aggie observed in a quavering voice, "what we have to do with it."

  "Naturally not," said Tish. "You'll know as soon as is good for you."

  "I don't believe it will ever be good for me," said poor Aggie. "It isn't good for anybody to be near a holdup. And I don't want to be in a moving picture with no teeth. I'm not a vain woman," she said, "but I draw the line at that."

  But Tish ignored her. "The only trouble," she said, "is having one revolver. If we each had one--Lizzie, did you bring any ink?"

  Well, I had, and said so, but that I needed it for postcards when we struck a settlement.

  Tish waved my objection aside. "I guess it can be managed," she observed. "Bill has a knife. Yes, I think it can be done."

  She and Bill engaged in an earnest conference that afternoon. At first Bill objected. I could see him shaking his head. Then Tish gave him something which Aggie said was money. I do not know. She had been short of cash on the train, but she may have had more in her trunk. Then I saw Bill start to laugh. He laughed until he had to lean against a tree, although Tish was quite stern and serious.

  We reached Piegan Pass about three that afternoon, and having inspected it and the Garden Wall, which is a mile or two high at that point, we returned to a "bench" where there were some trees, and dismounted.

  Here, to our surprise, we found Mr. Bell again. As Tish remarked, he was better at walking than at talking. He looked surprised at seeing us, and was much more agreeable than before.

  "I'm afraid I was pretty surly the other night," he said. "The truth is, I was so blooming unhappy that I
didn't give a damn for anything."

  But when he saw that Bill was preparing to take the pack off the horse he looked startled.

  "I say," he said, "you don't mean to camp here, do you?"

  "Such is my intention," Tish observed grimly.

  "But look here. Just beyond, at the pass, is where the holdup is to take place to-morrow."

  "So I believe," said Tish. "What has that to do with us? What are you going to do?"

  "Oh, I'm going to hang round."

  "Well, we intend to hang round also."

  He stood by and watched our preparations for camp. Tish chose a small grove for the tent, and then left us, clambering up the mountain-side. She finally disappeared. Aggie mixed some muffins for tea, and we invited the young man to join us. But he was looking downhearted again and refused.

  However, when she took them out of the portable oven, nicely browned, and lifting the tops of each one dropped in a teaspoonful of grape jelly, he changed his mind.

  "I'll stay, if you don't mind," he said. "Maybe some decent food will make me see things clearer."

  When Tish descended at six o'clock, she looked depressed. "There is no cave," she said, "although I have gone where a mountain goat would get dizzy. But I have found a good place to hide the horses, where we can get them quickly when we need them."

  Aggie was scooping the inside out of her muffin, being unable to eat the crust, but she went quite pale.

  "Tish," she said, "you have some desperate plan in view, and I am not equal to it. I am worn with travel and soft food, and am not as young as I once was."

  "Desperate nothing!" said Tish, pouring condensed milk into her tea. "I am going to teach a lot of idiots a lesson, that's all. There should be one spot in America free from the advertising man and his schemes, and this is going to be it. Commercialism," she went on, growing oratorical, "does not belong here among these mighty mountains. Once let it start, and these towering cliffs will be defaced with toothpowder and intoxicating-liquor signs."

  The young man knew the plans for the holdup even letter than Bill. He was able to show us the exact spot which had been selected, and to tell us the hour at which the Ostermaier party was to cross the pass.

  "They'll lunch on the pass," he said, "and, of course, they suspect nothing. The young lady of whom I spoke to you will be one of their party. She, however, knows what is coming, and is, indeed, a party to it. The holdup will take place during luncheon."

  Here his voice broke, and he ate an entire muffin before he went on: "The holdup will take place on the pass, the bandits having been hidden on this 'bench' right here. Then the outlaws, having robbed the tourists, will steal the young lady and escape down the trail on the other side. The guide, who is in the plot, will ride ahead in this direction and raise the alarm. You understand," he added, "that as it's a put-up job, the tourists will get all their stuff back. I don't know how that's to be arranged."

  "But the girl?" Tish asked.

  "She's to make her escape later," Mr. Bell said grimly, "and will be photographed galloping down the trail, by another idiot with a camera, who, of course, just happens to be on the spot. She'll do it too," he added with a pathetic note of pride in his voice. "She's got nerve enough for anything."

  He drew a long breath, and Aggie poured him a third cup of tea.

  "I dare say this will finish everything," he said dejectedly. "I can't offer her any excitement like this. We live in a quiet suburb, where nobody ever fires a revolver except on the Fourth of July."

  "What she needs," Tish said, bending forward, "is a lesson, Mr. Bell--something to make her hate the very thought of a moving picture and shudder at the sound of a shot."

  "Exactly," said Mr. Bell. "I've thought of that. Something to make her gun-shy and camera-shy. It's curious about her. In some ways she's a timid girl. She's afraid of thunder, for one thing."

  Tish bent forward. "Do you know," she said, "the greatest weapon in the world?"

  "Weapon? Well, I don't know. These new German guns--"

  "The greatest weapon in the world," Tish explained, "is ridicule. Man is helpless against it. To be absurd is to be lost. When the bandits take the money, where do they go?"

  "Down the other side from the pass. A photographer will photograph them there, making their escape with the loot."

  "And the young lady?"

  "I've told you that," he said bitterly. "She is to be captured by the attacking party."

  "They will all be armed?"

  "Sure, with blanks. The Indians have guns and arrows, but the arrows have rubber tips."

  Tish rose majestically. "Mr. Bell," she said, "you may sleep to-night the sleep of peace. When I undertake a thing, I carry it through. My friends will agree with me. I never fail, when my heart is set on it. By the day after to-morrow the young lady in the case will hate the sight of a camera."

  Although not disclosing her plan, she invited the young man to join us. But his face fell and he shook his head.

  Tish said that she did not expect to need him, but that, if the time came, she would blow three times on a police whistle, which she had, with her usual foresight, brought along. He agreed to that, although looking rather surprised, and we parted from him.

  "I would advise," Tish said as he moved away, "that you conceal yourself in the valley below the pass on the other side."

  He agreed to this, and we separated for the night. But long after Aggie and I had composed ourselves to rest Tish sat on a stone by the camp-fire and rolled cigarettes.

  At last she came into the tent and wakened us by prodding us with her foot.

  "Get all the sleep you can," she said. "We'll leave here at dawn to-morrow, and there'll be little rest for any of us to-morrow night."

  At daylight next morning she roused us. She was dressed, except that she wore her combing-jacket, and her hair was loose round her face.

  "Aggie, you make an omelet in a hurry, and, Lizzie, you will have to get the horses."

  "I'll do nothing of the sort," I said, sitting up on the ground. "We've got a man here for that. Besides, I have to set the table."

  "Very well," Tish replied, "we can stay here, I dare say. Bill's busy at something I've set him to doing."

  "Whose fault is it," I demanded, "that we are here in 'Greenland's Icy Mountains'? Not mine. Id never heard of the dratted place. And those horses are five miles away by now, most likely."

  "Go and get a cup of tea. You'll have a little sense then," said Tish, not unkindly. "And as for what Bill's doing, he's making revolvers. Where's your writing ink?"

  I had none! I realized it that moment. I had got it out at the first camp to record in my diary the place, weather, temperature, and my own pulse rate, which I had been advised to watch, on account of the effect of altitude on the heart, and had left the bottle sitting on a stone.

  When I confessed this to Tish, she was unjustly angry and a trifle bitter.

  "It's what I deserve, most likely, for bringing along two incompetents," was her brief remark. "Without ink we are weaponless."

  But she is a creature of resource, and a moment later she emerged from the tent and called to Bill in a cheerful tone.

  "No ink, Bill," she said, "but we've got blackberry cordial, and by mixing it with a little soot we may be able to manage."

  Aggie demurred loudly, as there are occasions when only a mouthful of the cordial enables her to keep doing. But Tish was firm. When I went to the fire, I found Bill busily carving wooden revolvers, copying Tish's, which lay before him. He had them done well enough, and could have gone for the horses as easy as not, but he insisted on trimming them up. Mine, which I still have, has a buffalo head carved on the handle, and Aggie's has a wreath of leaves running round the barrel.

  In spite of Aggie's wails Tish poured a large part of the blackberry cordial into a biscuit pan, and put in a chip of wood.

  "It makes it red," she said doubtfully. "I never saw a red revolver, Bill."

  "Seems like an awful waste," Bi
ll said. But having now completed the wreath he placed all three weapons--he had made one for himself--in the pan. The last thing I saw, as I started for the horses, was the three of them standing about, looking down, and Aggie's face was full of misery.

  I was gone for a half-hour. The horses had not wandered far, and having mounted mine, although without a saddle, I copied as well as I could the whoop Bill used to drive them in, and rounded them up. When I returned, driving them before me, the pack was ready, and on Tish's face was a look of intense satisfaction. I soon perceived the reason.

  Lying on a stone by the fire were three of the shiniest black revolvers any one could want. I eyed Tish and she explained.

  "Stove polish," she said. "Like a fool I'd forgot it. Gives a true metallic luster, as it says on the box."

  Tish is very particular about a stove, and even on our camping-trips we keep the portable stove shining and clean.

  "Does it come off?"

  "Well, more or less," she admitted. "We can keep the box out and renew when necessary. It is a great comfort," she added, "to feel that we are all armed. We shall need weapons."

  "In an emergency," I observed rather tartly, "I hope you will not depend on us too much. While I don't know what you intend to do, if it is anything desperate, just remember that the only way Aggie or I can do any damage with these things is to thrust them down somebody's throat and strangle him to death."

  She ignored my remark, however, and soon we were on our horses and moving along the trail toward the pass.

  II

  It will be unnecessary to remind those familiar with Glacier Park of the trail which hugs the mountain above timber-line, and extends toward the pass for a mile or so, in a long semicircle which curves inward.

  At the end it turns to the right and mounts to an acre or so of level ground, with snow and rocks but no vegetation. This is the Piegan Pass. Behind it is the Garden Wall, that stupendous mass of granite rising to incredible heights. On the other side the trail drops abruptly, by means of stepladders which I have explained.

  Tish now told us of her plan.