there was double excitement at the breakfast table that morning. not only were the young folk eager to get away on the trip of exploration planned the day before; but old john dempsey’s find among the discarded papers in the office excited them.
the letter written in lincoln’s angular hand was passed from one to the other. mrs. white of course agreed with dorothy that the letter belonged to the grand army man.
“he shall certainly have it—to keep, or to sell,” she said.
“your protégé is turning out pretty well, dot,” said ned. “and if he keeps on finding valuable letters like that, he’ll soon be as rich as the other ‘john d.’ some collectors would give a round sum for this letter.”
“he’s already had one offer,” dorothy said, hesitatingly.
“what!” cried tavia. “you never offered to buy it?”
“certainly not. and mr. dempsey says he wouldn’t sell.” then she related what the old man had said regarding philo marsh.
“‘snake in the grass!’” exclaimed tavia. “that’s just what he is.”
“hush,” said aunt winnie. “the man is really bothering me a good deal. he has gone off with mr. ledger to breakfast. i did not care to invite him in here——”
“i should hope not!” exclaimed ned.
“well, i am free to confess,” said his mother, thoughtfully, “that i do not know just how to treat mr. marsh. he tried to have me invite him to ride with us to-day; but i do not want him.”
“you say the word, mother,” said nat, belligerently, “and ned and i will send him to the right-about-face.”
mrs. white laughed. “oh, i fancy he is not very dangerous, my boy.”
“then, if that’s the case,” added nat, grinning, “why not sick tavia onto him?”
“nathaniel!”
“you horrid thing!” exclaimed tavia, perfectly able to fight her own battles with the boys. “you talk as though i might be a bulldog.”
“you’re a sight more dangerous,” chuckled nat. “if you once rolled those big eyes of yours at philo—as you did at that cowboy, lance, for instance——”
“nathaniel!” exclaimed his mother again. “i am ashamed of you.”
“you’d have been ashamed of tavia if you’d seen her,” grunted the young fellow.
that was the beginning of a tiff between tavia and nat. “you wait, mr. smartie!” she whispered, giving him a vicious pinch as he passed her chair. “i’ll get square with you for saying that.”
but afterward, when she and dorothy were together, the latter spoke seriously to her chum.
“you must have a care, my dear. aunt winnie would be horrified if she knew you were in the least flirtatious with these men——”
“what men?” demanded tavia, with some anger.
“lance petterby, we’ll say. if he comes here with his mother, you behave.”
“oh, you’re a regular grandmother grunt. and i’ll fix nat for saying that to his mother, see if i don’t.”
tavia was, indeed, quite vexed, and they were several miles from the ranch house that forenoon before she became her jolly irresponsible self.
before noon the exploring party had seen much of the range and pasturage. hank ledger said even after this drouth the pasture could well support ten thousand steers.
“but we ain’t had that many critters on the ranch for ten year. cattle ain’t what they was—no144 sir! we’ve got a couple of thousand, and that’s full and plenty. i reckon, miz white, you won’t want to increase the number much?”
“we shall talk about that later,” said the lady. “at present i want to see about this water privilege.”
“all right, ma’am. i’ll take you right up there, and we can eat our snack beside lost river.”
“that sounds very romantic,” said tavia.
“especially the eating part,” laughed dorothy. “riding does give one such an appetite.”
ledger escorted them into the low hills. soon they were riding up a sharply inclined gully, and reached higher land. the woods grew denser. ahead the murmur of falling water soon rose to a steady volume of sound which, although it did not deafen them, made a background for all other noises.
huge boulders cropped out of the thin soil. the trees were not tall, but were standing in very thick groups. in some places the ponies pushed through thickets that seemed to be almost impassable.
at last a plateau was reached—several hundred feet higher than the knoll upon which the ranch-house stood—and at once, when they came into the clear, dorothy and tavia broke into a simultaneous cry of surprise and delight.
sweeping across this level plain, directly toward them, came a broad, silver stream. small groves of soft-barked trees fringed its banks. here and there a boulder intruded, around the base of which the otherwise peaceful river boiled and sprayed the rock with foam.
all the surface of the stream was sparkling as though the banks actually brimmed with molten silver. such a refreshing looking mountain stream dorothy had never before seen—or one-half so beautiful.
just in front of the cavalcade a veil of mist rose some twenty feet into the air. in this mist the sunshine played delightfully, lending itself to a dozen different rainbows.
the almost impalpable moisture drifted across a stretch of grass, as green as it could be—a veritable fairy lawn. the curtain of mist hid from them what appeared to be the abrupt ending of the river.
“what a marvel!” gasped dorothy. “why! mr. ledger! where does the water go?”
ledger grinned and wheeled his horse aside, following a distinct path which approached the nearer bank of the stream. the spray swept over them for a moment, and then they came out above it, and upon the steep bank.
right beside them was a narrow chasm in the rock—a yawning gulf the full width of the stream which was here all of twenty yards across. into this opening in the earth the river plunged.
“lost river, indeed!” cried dorothy, looking back at the others, with shining eyes. “did you ever see anything so wonderful, aunt winnie?”
a deep, thunderous murmur, like the bass notes of a great organ, came up from the depths. the perfectly clear water advanced to the lip of rock over which it flowed, falling into the chasm with scarcely a ripple. but the spray rising in so thick a cloud showed that the volume of water must strike some ledge not far below the surface of the plain, from which it caromed against the wall of the crevice.
“say! this is some river,” said nat, in awe.
“how beautiful!” repeated dorothy.
the foreman told them that the stream was fed above by numberless mountain springs, and had never been known to go dry.
“such a waste of good water!” exclaimed tavia. “no wonder those people in the desert want it. why, it ought to make the desert blossom like the rose! that’s poetry, i want you to notice. but goodness! i won’t do a thing to those sandwiches and the coffee—when mr. ledger gets it made.”
