Douglas came in, white and scared. Lewis had broken the news to her as gently as possible, but the sound of snake bite was a terrible one to her young ears. She, too, remembered old Uncle Snake-bit Peter and his withered limb.

"Helen, Helen!" she cried and burst into tears.

"Why, Douglas, buck up! Dr. Wright says I am doing splendidly and there is nothing to fear. He did everything that could be done, and because he was right on the spot, it was attended to so quickly that the poison could not get into my system. I feel fine, and mean to be up a great deal sooner than I would if it had been just a common sprain. We must keep it dark, though, and not let a soul know it is anything but what they think it is."

Douglas was rea.s.sured by the calm confidence of the doctor and relieved, indeed, to see that Helen was meaning to obey him in everything.

"She had better stay perfectly quiet for several days just to be sure, and I will treat the poor heel where I had to cauterize it. That will, of course, be sore for a while."

"All right," said Helen with unaccustomed meekness, "but I did think I might get up to-morrow. But I'll be good as I want to get well, perfectly well, so I can go to the Devil's Gorge again and get the wallet."

"But would you venture there again?"

"Certainly! But next time I'll wear high shoes and leggins and look where I step. I think I deserve some of Aunt Mandy's black snake whip as a punishment. I do wish I knew what was in that wallet--if it was a wallet."

The doctor smiled and left the tent to the sisters, who clung to each other with all the affection they had. They realized what they meant to one another more than they ever had before, now that this thing had occurred that might have proved very serious.

"We mustn't let a soul know what the trouble is, Douglas. Of course, you realize it would send our week-end boarders anywhere but to the mountains."

"Yes, I see it would, just the way they all talk about snakes. I tell you one thing, though--we must make leggins obligatory for hikers. Maybe it would be well to order a few extra pair when we order the blankets for those persons, like Tillie Wingo, who will not do what they are told."

"I believe so, too. And now, honey, please get Gwen to bring me something very simple for my supper. I believe I'll join the bread and milk club to-night and not try to eat anything heavy. I feel so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open. I do hope I am not going to dream about snakes. I'd sleep better if I only knew what was in the wallet I saw hanging in the tree."

CHAPTER XIX

THE QUEST.

Perhaps Helen might have slept better had she known what was in the wallet, but it would have been difficult. Dr. Wright, accompanied by Douglas, crept silently into the tent just before the camp broke up for the night and found her pulse absolutely normal. His patient was sleeping so peacefully that he sought his hammock thoroughly contented with the treatment he had administered in the first case of snake bite that he had met in his practice.

Dawn was in the neighborhood of four o'clock. It was so still it seemed impossible that thirty persons were camping on that mountain side. The night noises had ceased. Katy-dids and tree-frogs, who had been making as much clatter as though they had been getting out a morning paper, had gone home to rest until it should be time to commence on the next edition.

This lull between night and morning lasted only a few moments and then there was "the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds." At the first sleepy note, Dr. Wright stirred in the hammock which he had stretched tightly between two giant pines a little way from the camp. He had told himself he was to awake at dawn, and now that he had done it, what was it all about? He lay still for a few moments drowsily drinking in the beauties of the dawn. A mocking bird had const.i.tuted himself waker-up of the bird kingdom since he could speak all languages. He now began to call the different bird notes and was sleepily answered from bush and tree. When he felt that a sufficient number was awake to make it worth his while, he burst into a great hymn of praise and thanksgiving; at least that was what it seemed to the young doctor, the only human being awake on that mountain side.

"I'd like to join you, old fellow, I'm so thankful that Helen is safe,"

and then he remembered why he had set himself the task of waking at dawn.

He slid from his hammock and in a short while was taking the trail of the day before, back to the Devil's Gorge. It seemed but a short walk to the athletic young man as he swung his long legs, delighting in the exercise. He reached the gorge in much less than half the time it had taken the hikers of yesterday.

The morning light was clear and luminous but the gorge was as gruesome as ever. Sun light never penetrated its gloom, and Dr. Wright noticed that no birds seemed to sing there. He let himself carefully down the cliff, practicing what he had preached and looking where he stepped. In the exact spot where Helen had jumped, he saw a snake coiled as though waiting for another pretty little gray shoe to come his way.

"It may not be the same snake," muttered the young man, "but I am going to presume it is and kill him if I can."

He was standing on the ledge where Helen had been when she called to Lewis Somerville, just before the fatal leap. The wallet was in plain view, caught in a crotch of the scrub oak, and the hateful snake was curled up directly under the tree as though put there by some evil magician to guard a secret treasure.

"You needn't look at me with your wicked eyes. I am going to kill you if I can, and why, I don't know, because I believe in a way you have done me a pretty good turn. Helen trusts me now, at least!"

He raised a great bowlder over his head and with a sure aim hurled it down on the serpent, who was even then making his strange rattle like dry leaves in the wind.

"That was your swan song, old boy," and so it was. The snake was crushed by the blow, only his tail sticking out, twitching feebly, the rattle vibrating slowly, making a faint lonesome sound.

"I think I'll take this for a souvenir!" The doctor got out one of his ever ready instruments and deftly extracted the rattle from the now harmless reptile. "Some day we may laugh over this," but I don't know why this made him blush as it did, there all by himself in the Devil's Gorge.

The rattle in his pocket, he started back up the cliff, when he suddenly remembered his quest. "Well, by Jove, it looks as though that mysterious wallet was destined to be left in the branches of the dwarf oak!" he exclaimed, as he made his way back down to the spot and this time got the leather wallet. It was very tightly wedged into the tree, in fact, it had become incorporated, as it were, into the growth of the tree, and one of the gnarled and twisted limbs had to be cut away before he could free the object of his morning walk.

It was a bulky pocket-book, made of alligator skin which, because of its toughness, had evidently been able to withstand the weather that Dr.

Wright felt sure it must have had to undergo for years, judging by the way the branches of the tree had grown around it.

"I won't open it now, but will take it to Helen. It was her find and I am not going to jump her claim."

The camp was stirring when he returned. Much shouting from the bath-house a.s.sured him that the boys were undergoing a shower of the freezing mountain water. He waited until the last glowing, damp-haired youth filed out and then took a sprinkle himself, which refreshed him greatly but left him so hungry that the delightful odors from the open air kitchen almost maddened him. Roe herring he was sure of,--that is always unmistakable; hot rolls were holding their own in the riot of smells; bacon was a.s.serting itself; there was a burnt sugar effect that must mean fried June apples; and threading its way through the symphony of fragrance and rising supreme over all was a coffee motive.

"Do you blame any one for stealing food when he is hungry?" he asked Gwen, whom he found in the pavilion setting the tables. "I don't."

"You have been up a long time, sir. I saw you a little after four on the trail near Aunt Mandy's."

"Were you up then?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I always get up early to milk and put the cabin in order before I come over here. It will be a little while before breakfast.

Shall I get you a cup of coffee now?"

"That would be very kind of you! I am famished, and perhaps a cup of coffee would keep me from disgracing myself when breakfast is ready."

Gwen had changed a great deal in the few weeks since she had come so shyly from behind the bowlder to offer herself as factotum to Lewis and Bill. She still had the modest demeanor, but had lost her extreme shyness and also much of her primness. She was now a more natural girl of fourteen, thanks to Nan and Lucy, who had tried to make her feel at home with them. Shoes and stockings had helped her to recover from her timidity. She had always had an idea that people were looking at her bare feet. Over her skimpy little dress she now wore a bungalow ap.r.o.n, which was vastly becoming to her Puritan type of beauty. The first money she made had been spent on shoes and ap.r.o.ns. Helen had wanted to present her with these things, but Gwen and Josh were alike in wanting nothing they had not honestly earned.

As the girl came towards the doctor, bearing in her steady little brown hands a tray with a smoking cup of coffee and a hot b.u.t.tered roll, just to tide him over until breakfast, he thought he had never seen a more attractive child.

"And it wasn't because she was feeding me, either," he said to Helen later on, "but because she had such a fine upstanding look to her and because her hand was so capable and steady and her gaze so open and honest. No great lady, trained in the social graces, could have handed one a cup of coffee with more a.s.surance and ease of manner."

"Miss Helen was asking for you," said Gwen, as she put down the delectable tray.

"Oh, is she all right?" and the physician jumped up, ready to leave his untasted food if he were needed.

"Oh, yes, she is as well as can be, and when I took her some coffee early this morning, she told me she had slept so well and was famished for food. I am going to straighten up her tent just as soon as the girls are out of it, so you can go in to see her. I told her I had seen you taking a walk at four o'clock. She wants to see you."

"I wonder if heavenly messengers wear blue ap.r.o.ns and tennis shoes," the young man said to himself, "because if they do, I am sure Gwen is one of them." He patted his breast pocket to make sure the bulky wallet was there, hoping it held in some way good for the little English girl but determined to say nothing about it until Helen had her first peep.

"Can it be possible that I am falling in love with Helen?" he muttered.

"She is not more than seventeen, and, besides, it was only yesterday that I determined never to put myself in the way of being insulted by her again so long as I should live. Here I am starving to death (this roll and coffee will be only a drop in the bucket of my great appet.i.te) and still I'd rather go see her than eat the breakfast I can smell cooking. I promised the father and mother to look after the children while they were taking my prescription, and this is a fine way to do it: to fall in love with one of them! Besides, Helen is not a bit prettier than Douglas, not so clever as Nan, and so spoiled that she can be certainly very disagreeable, but still--still--she is Helen--and Bobby loves her best of all. Anyhow, I think I'll eat my breakfast first before I go to her, since she does not need my professional services."

"I never see folks eat like these here week-enders," declared Oscar, as breakfast progressed and he came to the kitchen for more hot rolls. He also brought directions from Douglas for Susan to scramble a dish of eggs for some of the late comers who found nothing but herring tails for their portion of a dish ever dear to the heart of all Virginians.

"I don't see how the young ladies 'spects to clar nothin' out'n their ventur'some if'n all the payin' guests eats ekal to these here," said Susan, as she took another pan of rolls out of the oven and put a skillet on the stove to get hot for the eggs. "I's done been to many springs an' sich with Mis Carter when I was a-nussin' of Bobby an' I never yet seed any of the pr'ietors knock up a dish er eggs fer no sleepy haids. Fus' come, fus' serve, an' las' come satisfy theyselves with herrin' tails an' coffee drugs. Miss Gwen done made three pots er coffee already an' she mought jes' as well be pourin' it down the bottomless pit fer all the showin' it's done made. If'n these folks is gonter eat all mornin', I'd like ter know whin we's ter git the dishes washed."

"Well, dey won't need no sc.r.a.pin'," laughed Oscar, as he bore away the plates heaped with crusty turnovers. "I been a-bettin' on Mr. Bill Tinsley, but looks lak Dr. Wright kin hole his own with the bes' of them."