Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp; Or, The Mystery of Ida Bellethorne

by Alice B. Emerson

  CHAPTER XXIV

  TWENTY MILES OF GRADE

  Ida slept in the room with Betty and Bobby that night. Betty had confidedto her chum, as well as to Uncle Dick, the outcome of the mystery of herlocket. Because of Ida's information, Uncle Dick had assured his niecethey would recover the trinket.

  "If Mrs. Staples is not a dishonest woman, she shades that characterpretty closely. There are people like that--people who think that a foundarticle is their own unless absolutely claimed by the victim of the loss.A rather prejudiced brand of honesty to say the least."

  The two Shadyside girls made much of Ida Bellethorne on this evening afterthey had fore-gathered in the bedroom. Just think! her Aunt Ida might takeher to South America. Ida already had traveled by boat much farther thaneven Betty had journeyed by train.

  "Although I am not at all sure how my aunt will meet me," the English girlsaid. "She was very angry with my father. She wasn't fair to him. She isimpulsive and proud, and maybe she will think no better of me. But I mustgive her father's letter and see what comes of it."

  The main difficulty was to get to New York in time to deliver the letterbefore the _San Salvador_ sailed. When the girls awoke very early and sawa sliver of moon shining low in the sky, they bounced up with glad ifmuffled cries, believing that everything was all right. The storm hadceased. And when they pushed up the window a little more to stick theirheads out they immediately discovered something else.

  "Goodness me!" gasped Bobby. "It's one glare of ice--everything! And so-ocold! Ugh!" and she shivered, bundled as she was in a blanket robe.

  First Betty and then Ida had to investigate. The latter looked verymournful.

  "The horse can never travel to-day," she groaned. "You saw how he slippedabout in the soft snow the other day when they had him out. He is not shodproperly."

  "If you only had Ida Bellethorne here!" cried Betty.

  "But she is a long way off, and in the wrong direction. Why, none of uscould walk on this ice!"

  "How about skating?" cried Bobby eagerly.

  "Mr. Canary says it is all downhill--or mostly to the railroad station,"Betty said. "I would be afraid to skate downhill."

  They dressed quickly and hastened to find Uncle Dick. He had long been upand had evidently canvassed the situation thoroughly. His face was verygrave when he met his niece and her friends.

  "This is a bad lookout for our trip," he said. "I don't really see how anyof you will get to school on Monday, let alone Ida's reaching New Yorkto-morrow morning."

  "Oh, Uncle Dick, don't say that!" cried Betty. "Is it positive that wecannot ride or walk?"

  "Walk twenty miles downhill on ice?" he exclaimed, "Does it seemreasonable? We can neither ride nor walk; and surely we cannot swim orfly!"

  "We could fly if we had an aeroplane. Oh, dear!" sighed Bobby. "Why didn'twe think of that? And now the telephone wires are down."

  But Betty was thoughtful. She only pinched Ida's arm and begged her tokeep up her courage--perhaps something would turn up. She disappeared thenand was absent from the house, cold as the morning was, until breakfasttime.

  The whole party had gathered then, excited and voluble. It was not onlyregarding Ida's need that they chattered so eagerly. In spite of the funthey were having at Mountain Camp, the thought that Shadyside and Salsettemight begin classes before they could get there was, after all, rathershocking.

  "Measles is one thing," said Bob. "But being out of bounds when classesreally begin is another. The other fellows will learn some tricks that wedon't know."

  "And somebody else may be put in our room, Betty!" wailed Bobby, as herchum now appeared.

  Betty was very rosy and full of something that was bound to spill over atonce. As soon as she had bidden Mr. and Mrs. Canary good morning she criedto all:

  "What do you think!"

  "Just as little as possible," declared Tommy Tucker. "Thinking tires medreadfully."

  "Behave, Tommy!" said Louise admonishingly.

  "There's a big two-horse pung here. I found it in the barn. Like Mr.Jaroth's. It has a deep box like his. And a tongue. It's like adouble-runner sled, Bob--you know. The front runners are independent ofthe rear."

  "I know what it is, Betty," said Bob, while the others stared at her."I've seen that pung."

  "Your observations are correct, Miss Betty," said Mr. Canary, smiling atthe girl. "I own such a pung. But I do not own two horses to draw it. AndI am sorry to say that the horse I have got cannot stand on this ice."

  "Gee!" exclaimed Teddy, "if we got old Bobsky started down that hill he'dnever stop till he got to the bottom. How far do you say it is to thestation, Mr. Canary?"

  "It is quite twenty miles down grade. Of course there are several placeswhere the road is level--or was level before the snow fell. But oncestarted there would not be many places where you would have to get out andpush," and the gentleman laughed.

  Betty's mind was fixed upon her argument. Her face still glowed and shescarcely tasted her breakfast.

  "I believe we can do it," she murmured.

  "What under the sun do you mean, Betty?" asked Louise.

  "I hope it is something nice we can do," said Libbie dreamily. "I lookedout the window and it is all like fairyland--isn't it, Timothy?"

  "Uh-huh!" said Timothy Derby, his mouth rather full at the moment. "It isthe most beautiful sight I ever saw. Will you please pass me anothermuffin?"

  But Bob gave Betty his undivided attention. He asked:

  "What do you believe we can do, Betty?"

  "Make use of Mr. Canary's pung."

  "Cricky! What will draw it? Where is the span of noble steeds to be found?Old Bobsky would break his neck."

  "One horse. One wonderful horse, Bob!" cried Betty clapping her handssuddenly. "I am sure I'm right. Uncle Dick!"

  "What do you mean, Betty?" cried Bobby, shaking her. "What horse?"

  "Gravitation," announced Betty, her eyes shining. "That's his name."

  "Great goodness!" gasped Bob. "I see a light. But Betty, how'd we steerit?"

  "The front runners are attached to the tongue. Tie ropes to the tongue andsteer it that way," Betty said, so eagerly that her words tumbled overeach other. "Can't we do it, Uncle Dick? We'll all pile into the pung,with a lot of straw to keep us warm, and just slide down the hills to therailroad station. What say?"

  For a while there was a good deal said by all present. Mr. and Mrs. Canaryat first scouted the reasonableness of the idea. But Mr. Gordon, being anengineer and, as Bob said, "up to all such problems," considered Betty'ssuggestion carefully.

  In the first place the need was serious. Especially for the much troubledIda. If she could not reach the dock on New York's water-front by eleveno'clock the next morning, her aunt would doubtless sail on the _SanSalvador_, and then there was no knowing when the English girl would beable to find her only living relative.

  The party had ridden over the mountain road in coming to Mountain Camp,and Uncle Dick remembered the course pretty well. Although it was acontinual grade, as one might say, it was an easy grade. And there werefew turns in the road.

  Drifted with snow as it was, and that snow crusted, the idea of coastingall the way to the railroad station did not seem so wild a thought. Theroad was fenced for most of the way on both sides. And over those fencesthe drifts rose smoothly, making almost a trough of the road.

  "When you come to think of it, Jack," Uncle Dick said to Mr. Canary, "itis not very different from our toboggan chute yonder. Only it is longer."

  "A good bit longer," said Mr. Canary, shaking his head.

  However, it was plain that the idea interested Uncle Dick. He hastened outto look at the pung. Bob followed him, and they were gone half an hour ormore. When they returned Bob was grinning broadly.

  "Get ready for the time of your lives, girls," he whispered to Betty andBobby. "The thing is going to work. You wait and see!"

  Uncle Dick called them all into the living room and told them to pack atonce and prepare for a cold
ride. There was plenty of time, for the trainthey had to catch did not reach the station until noon.

  "If our trip is successful--and it will be, I feel sure--it will not takean hour to reach the station. But we shall give ourselves plenty of time.Now off with you! I guess Mrs. Canary will be glad to see the last of us."

  But their hostess denied this. The delight of having young people at thelonely camp in the hills quite counterbalanced the disturbance they made.But she bustled about somewhat anxiously, aiding the girls and the boys tomake ready for departure. The Canarys, being unused to roughing it, evenif they did live in the Big Woods, were much more afraid of thepossibility of an accident arising out of this scheme Betty had conceivedthan was Uncle Dick.

  A little after ten o'clock they all piled out of the bungalow with theirbaggage. The two men working at the camp had filled the box of the pungwith straw and had drawn it out to the brow of the hill where the roadbegan. The tongue was raised at a slant, as high as it would go, and halfof it had been sawed off. Ropes were fastened from this stub of the tongueto ringbolts on either side of the pung-box.

  "It will take two of us to steer," said Uncle Dick, "and we must worktogether. Get in here, Bob, and I'll show you how it works."

  It worked easily. The girls and the baggage were piled into the pung. TheTucker twins were each handed an iron-shod woodsman's peavey and wereshown how the speed of the pung might be retarded by dragging them in thecrust on either side.

  "You boys are the brakes," sang out Uncle Dick, almost as excited as theyoung people themselves. "When we shout for 'Brakes!' it is up to youtwins to do your part."

  "We will, sir!" cried Tommy and Teddy in unison.

  "And don't hang your arms or legs over the sides," advised Uncle Dick."Farewell, Jack! Take care of him, Mrs. Canary. And many, many thanks fora jolly time."

  The boys and girls chorused their gratitude to the owner of Mountain Campand his wife. The men behind gave the pung just the tiniest push. Therunners creaked over the ice, and the forward end pitched down the slope.They had started.

  And what a ride that was! It is not likely that any of them will everforget it. Yet, as it proved, the danger was slight. They coasted theentire down-grade to the little railroad station where Fred Jaroth wastelegraph operator with scarcely more peril than as though they had beenriding behind the Jaroth horses.

  But they were on the _qui vive_ all the time. Bobby declared her heart wasin her mouth so much that she could taste it.

  There were places when the speed threatened disaster. But when Uncle Dickshouted for "Brakes!" the twins broke through the crust with their peaveysand the hook broke up the thick ice and dragged back on the pung so thatthe latter was brought almost to a stop. The handles of the peaveys werebraced against the end staffs of the pung, and to keep them in positiondid not exceed the twins' strength.

  Once Ted's peavey was dragged from his hands; but he jumped out andrecovered it, and then, falling, slid flat on his back down the slipperyway until he overtook the slowly moving pung again amid the delightedshouts of his chums.

  Otherwise there were no casualties, and the pung flew past the Jarothhouse a little before eleven to the great amazement of the whole family,who ran out to watch the coasting party.

  "I don't know how Jonathan Canary will recover his pung," said Mr. Gordonwhen they alighted on the level ground. "But I will leave it in Jaroth'scare, and when the winter breaks up, or before, it can be taken back toMountain Camp.

  "Now how do you feel, young folks? All right? No bones broken?"

  "It was delightful," they cried. But Ida added something to this. "I feelrather--rather dazed, Mr. Gordon," she said. "But I am very thankful. AndI know whom I have most to thank."

  "Who is that; my dear?" asked Uncle Dick smiling.

  "Betty."