By this time the rest had caught up.
“Look west, girls,” said Jean, suddenly, pointing with her quirt. “See where the ground sinks, and there’s a fringe of timber? That’s Lost Chance Gulch, where father built the bridge.”
“What a queer name,” exclaimed Isabel, who was ever ready to scent a story of romance. “Who lost the chance?”
“An old trapper named Zed Reed. He built a shack down in the gulch, father says, years and years ago, and always vowed there was gold there. Folks said he was a little bit light headed. I can remember seeing him come to our place. Father used to give him work now and then to feed him. He was very tall, and had a long red beard, and curly red hair, and he wore a coonskin cap with the tail hanging down one side. I used to like to have him come because he could play on the fiddle. He carried it in an inside coat pocket that he had had made specially to hold it, and he would play the loveliest tunes on it. The people around here, and even the Indians, called him Old Darned Coat. Isn’t that a funny name?”
“Why?” asked Polly. “I never came across so many dandy stories about people and places.”
“This country up here is full of stories,” answered Jean, dreamily. “I love them. They are so real, and so full of human interest. People said that, years before, Zed had been engaged to Colette Buteau, the daughter of the French Canadian that used to keep the old trading post on the Dakota border at Twin Forks. She died a day or two before the wedding. She, with her father, was killed by the Sioux. Zed was never the same after that, and he said he would wear his wedding coat for the rest of his life. It was a green broadcloth coat, with black velvet collar and large silk-covered buttons, and it had big revers, and a skirt to it, and the lining was quilted silk. I suppose it was a very wonderful coat in those days, but Zed kept his vow, and as the years went on, and the coat grew shabbier and shabbier, he would darn each little frayed rent as tenderly and carefully as possible. Mother says that finally it seemed to be all darns, and they called him Old Darned Coat. I can remember him coming to the back door, and bowing so courteously to mother, and saying, ‘Howdy, Mis’ Murray. Could I get just a little piece of darning silk from you, I wonder—silk twist is best of all, and I’ll work it out on the wood pile.’”
“Did he die?” asked Sue, her eyes wide with interest.
“Yes. Father found him in his shack, just asleep, with Colette’s picture beside him on his fiddle, and under the two, the old darned wedding coat. He was buried in it.”
The girls were silent as they passed the level upland. The ground was dipping again, and patches of trees became frequent. Ted and Sue were in the lead now, and finally, as they came in sight of Sundance Mountain in the far distance, about forty miles off, Peggie told them why it was called that.
“I love its name,” she said, in her odd way, half shy, half abrupt. “It always makes me think of the days that Sandy tells us about, before even father came here, when the Indians would send out runners from tribe to tribe to call them to the Sun Dance, and they would all gather each year at the mountain to hold the dance and feast for seven days, I think it was.”