CHAPTER XIV
A DISCOVERY
Up to this time the weather had been remarkably fine, but on thisparticular morning the Outdoor Girls woke to find that the sky wasovercast and there was every indication of a stormy day.
"Oh bother," grumbled Mollie, as after their breakfast she gloomilysurveyed the landscape from the cretonne-curtained window. "Just as Iwas about to suggest a real adventure, too!"
"What do you mean--'real adventure?'" queried Grace, lazily. The daybefore she had bought a new box of candy and a magazine, and so ithappened that she was the only one of the four of them who really didnot care whether it rained or not.
Mollie turned from the window and regarded them resentfully. Then shelooked more hopeful as her eyes rested on Betty, who was sorting thecontents of a too-crowded dresser drawer.
"You are with me, anyway, aren't you, Betty?" she asked, almostwistfully. "We'll leave these other two at home, and you and I will goon our adventure."
"All right," said Betty, with a lack of enthusiasm that fell with adampening effect upon Mollie's ears. The disastrous quality of theirlast adventure had had a dampening effect on the girls' enthusiasm forthis form of entertainment, and for the present they preferred thesafety of the ranch to the lure of the great unknown, as it were.However, this condition of mind was only temporary. They would soon beas eager as ever for new experiences. "I'm game for anything, Molliedear, as long as you keep away from land-slides and wild animals."
"Just hear the child!" said Mollie disgustedly. "As if an adventurewould be an adventure without a little danger mixed in!"
"Just what is your great idea, Mollie?" asked Betty mildly. Mollie wasbeginning to glower. And if somebody did not stop her at the beginning,there was sure to be a fracas. Betty knew this from experience. "Supposeyou tell us about it and get it out of your system. As I said before,I'm willing to do anything if it isn't hunting lions and tigers."
Mollie grunted disgustedly.
"Well, there isn't a thing really exciting about it, if that's what youmean," she said. "I just thought that since we had nothing special to doto-day we might visit the Hermit of Gold Run again. We might be able tosolve the mystery about him in some way," she added as a specialinducement, since the girls still seemed unenthusiastic.
Grace laughed indulgently.
"Just how do you expect to solve this mystery?" she asked, with agiggle. "You certainly can't do it by looking at him."
"Oh well, if that's the way you feel," retorted Mollie, feeling verymuch abused, "I'm sorry I spoke about it. Only I thought we had alreadydecided to pay him a visit."
"And so we had," said Betty, closing the dresser drawer with a bang andcoming unexpectedly to her aid. "And I, for one, am with you in that,Mollie. I have felt from the first," she went on earnestly, while Mollieregarded her with growing hope, "that I had not only heard the selectionthat that man played but that I had seen him somewhere before--quite along time ago."
Impressed by Betty's earnestness, Grace had laid down her magazine andAmy was becoming interested.
"I know it's ridiculous," Betty continued, as though to justifyherself, "but I can't help feeling that way, just the same."
"That thing he played sounded familiar to me, too," Grace admitted, nowentirely abandoning her magazine and sitting up. "It has been hauntingme ever since we heard him playing that day, and yet I can't think ofthe name of it."
Softly Amy began to hum a popular song, but Mollie interrupted herimpatiently.
"Well then, since you all feel that way about it," she said eagerly, "Idon't see why it wouldn't be fun to scout around his cabin a little bitand see if we can't pick up some information. I'm really curious abouthim."
"All right, let's," said Betty, with the decision for which she wasfamed. "Get your riding togs on, girls, and we'll play detective."
This time it was Mollie who held back.
"How about the weather?" she demurred. "Looks as if we were likely toget wet."
"Who cares?" said Betty airily, adding, as she stopped at the door tomake them a little bow: "It would give us an excuse to see His Highnessagain."
Half an hour later they had saddled their ponies and were cantering offbriskly to visit the Hermit of Gold Run.
"Aren't you a little bit afraid to go in there?" asked Amy, reining inas they reached the narrow trail through the woods that led near themusician's cabin. "We might run into some wolves, as we did that othertime."
"We were much further in the woods than the Hermit's cabin," said Mollieimpatiently. "And it was in an entirely different direction, too. Goahead, silly, or I'll ride right over you," and as she was urging OldNick forward until he crowded uncomfortably against the little whitefilly, Amy had no other course but to do as she was bid.
Nevertheless, she was not the only one who was uneasy, and it might havebeen observed that the girls glanced often into the shadows of theunderbrush on either side of the narrow trail.
There were wild animals in that forest, as they had good reason to know,and though they seldom ventured this close to civilization, still therewas no use in tempting fate!
"I didn't know it was as far in as this," said Grace, after they hadridden some distance in silence. "Are you sure we haven't passed thecabin, Betty?"
"Why, we aren't nearly there yet," was Betty's discomforting reply."It's quite a way beyond that next turn in the trail."
Grace said nothing, but she gripped the reins harder in her hands. Shehad made up her mind that at the first sign of danger she would turnNabob and make a dash back down the trail for safety.
After that the silence became so pronounced that Mollie noticed it andlaughed nervously.
"Why all the noise?" she asked jocosely. "It nearly breaks my eardrums."
"Hush," cried Amy warningly. "I thought I heard something."
"That was your own heart hammering against the tree trunks," retortedMollie dryly, at which the girls giggled and the tension relaxed.
"Let's talk about something nice," Betty suggested. "Gold, forinstance."
"Or Allen," teased Grace. "I reckon you won't be glad or anything whenhe gets here."
"I guess mother will be gladder than any of us," replied Betty promptly,trying to shift the spotlight from herself. "She was so excited when Itold her what Dan Higgins said about the possibility of there being goldon the ranch that she hardly closed her eyes all night. I told her shewas getting to be a regular adventuress."
"Like her daughter," said Mollie, with a chuckle.
"Just think of the story we can tell the boys when we get home," saidAmy rapturously, adding apologetically as the girls glanced at her: "Ifwe find the gold, I mean."
"Listen to the child!" cried Betty gayly, while the other girls laughed."And we haven't begun to dig yet. Hold your horses, Amy dear, hold yourhorses."
They did this very thing literally the next moment, for they came insight of the queer little cabin of the man whom the natives called theHermit of Gold Run.
Quickly they jumped down, tethered the horses as they had done before onthe day when they had first made the acquaintance of this remarkableman, and started rather hesitantly down the path toward the house.
As they came nearer the haunting strains of the music that had puzzledthem before once more floated out through the open windows and theypaused, lost once again in the spell of it.
The music stopped, and they went on, hardly knowing what their next movewas to be, yet drawn irresistibly by their curiosity. Then once morethey heard the violin, but evidently the mood of the player had changed.The melody fraught with pathos, wailing, pleading, no longer reachedthem. The theme had changed--light, airy, sparkling, it reminded thegirls of fairies dancing on the grass in the moonlight.
Mollie grasped Betty's arm.
"I know that!" she cried excitedly. "It's something of Chopin's, anocturne, I think. Girls, I know where I heard that selection playedjust that way before."
They gazed at her, their eyes asking the question b
efore their lipscould form it.
"At the Hostess House!" cried Mollie. "Don't you remember that concertwe gave with some of the great artists?"
"That big benefit!" cried Betty excitedly. "You've got it, Mollie!That's what I was trying to think of!"
"Sh-h," said Grace, a finger to her lips. "He has stopped playing. Hemay hear us."
"All right," said Betty. "Let's get back to the trail where we can talkthis thing over."
They did not stop at the trail, however, for some memory of the dangerlurking in the woods drove them out on to the main road where they mighttalk in peace.
"Now then," said Betty eagerly, as they reached the road, crowding theirhorses close together and reining them in to a walk. "What do you makeof this, girls? If this man is really one of those artists that playedat that big concert, then he is famous and there is something more thanstrange in his hiding up here in the woods."
"Goodness, we don't need anybody to tell us that," said Grace. "Hecertainly must be in hiding for something he's done--unless he has beendisappointed in love," she added sentimentally.
"I don't believe he was ever in love with anything but his violin," saidMollie.
"Can't somebody think of the name of the violinist that played at thebenefit?" asked Betty, who had been trying for some minutes past toaccomplish that very thing.
"It was something like Croup, I think," said Mollie, wrinkling herforehead.
"Goodness, how romantic," said Grace, with a laugh.
"I tell you how we can find out the name," said Amy suddenly.
"How?" they questioned.
"I think I have a program, and I can send home for it," said Amy.
"Good girl!" cried Mollie, slapping her on the back with a violence thatnearly threw her from Lady's back and caused that gentle little animalto turn her head inquiringly. "We little thought we had a genius in ourmidst!"