“But where are we going?” his older sister inquired.
“Down to the ranch,” Jean replied. “I had strict orders to bring you back with me, all of you, for that visit that you were to have paid at the weekend.”
Meg was about to demur, but the lad hastened to say: “I told your father that I would telephone the forest ranger as soon as you all were located. He is waiting there for a message, and I cannot until I get you to the ranch.”
Still Meg thought she ought to climb back to her own home, but Jane implored: “Oh, don’t leave me! I do so want you to go with us.” That settled it and though the girl from the East little dreamed it, there was a warm glow of joy in the heart of the mountain girl who had so wanted a friend of her own age.
Jane shuddered as they rode down the old trail of the deserted mining camp. Shacks in all degrees of ruin stood about, machinery was rusting where it had been left. The beauty of the mountain had been marred by dark tunnels, outside of which stood heaps of orange and blue-gray refuse. Even in the more substantial log huts, made of aspen poles, windows were broken and doors hung on one hinge. “The desolation of the place will haunt my dreams forever,” the girl from the East said.
“And all this,” Jean made a wide sweep with his arm, “because the paying vein they had been so frantically following was lost. It might have been found, Mr. Packard told me, but another rich strike was made on Eagle Head Mountain and the inhabitants of this camp, to a man, deserted it and flocked to that new mine, and from there they probably followed other lures, ending, I suppose, as poor, or poorer, than when they began.”
Dan was interested. “Then the lost vein may still be here, who knows?” he commented with a backward glance at the deserted camp they had left. And yet, was it deserted? As soon as the young people were gone a stealthy figure appeared, slinking out of one of the huts. It was the old Ute Indian and since he carried a pick and shovel, it was quite evident that he had started out to dig. Was it the lost vein or some other treasure that he sought?
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE GREEN HILLS RANCH
Shielded from the fury of the storms by gently sloping foothills, the rambling Packard ranch house presented a very inviting appearance to the young people as the two big horses carefully picked their way down the last steep trail.
“O, how beautiful!” was Jane’s involuntary exclamation when the level road, having been reached, she felt freer to look about and admire the scene.