It did seem a shame that lessons should be as exacting as ever when outside the trees bent beneath their white burden and eager eyes were fixed longingly on the hill back of the school.
"You can't coast through the woods, anyway, Betty," Libbie whispered in the French period. "You may be a wonder, but how can you go through the tree stumps?"
"Don't intend to," whispered back Betty. "There's a cleared space in there—I'll show you."
"Young ladies, if you please—" suggested Madame politely, and the girls jerked their thoughts back to translation.
The moment lessons were over that afternoon, they dashed for their sleds. The eight who chummed together had four sleds between them which was enough for the enjoyment of all. Constance Howard had seen so little snow in her life spent in California that she was very much excited about it and had bought her sled in August to be ready for the first fall. Bobby had been to Edentown and bought a little toy affair, the best she could get there, and Frances Martin had sent home for her big, comfortable Vermont-made sled that made up in dependability what it lacked in varnish and polish. Counting Betty's, this gave them four sleds.
There was a conventional hill half a mile away from the school, toward which most of the girls turned their steps. On the first afternoon it was crowded. The Salsette cadets had come coasting, too, for on their side of the lake there was not so much as a mound of earth, and whoever would coast must perforce cross the lake.
"We'll go up to the woods," announced Betty. "There will be more room, and it's much more exciting to go down a steep hill."
So it proved. The cleared space to which Betty had referred demanded careful steering, and Frances Martin at the first glance relinquished the control of her sled.
"I can't judge distances," she explained, touching her glasses, "and I'd be sure to steer straight for a tree. Libbie, you'll have to be the skipper."
So Libbie took Frances, Betty took Bobby, Constance took Norma on her sled, and Alice steered for Louise, using Bobby's sled.
Such shrieks of laughter, such wild spills! If Ada Nansen had been there to see she would certainly have been confirmed in her statement that coasting was "for children." They were coming down for the sixth time when Bob Henderson, the Tucker twins and Timothy Derby appeared.
"We thought we'd find you here!" was Bob's greeting. "Trust Betty to pick out a mystic maze for her coasting. It's a wonder some of you girls haven't shot down into Indian Chasm!"
"Well, I like a steep coast," said Betty defensively. "I wouldn't give a cent a hundred for a little short coast down a gentle slope. Want me to take you down on my sled, Bob?"
"I don't believe I do, thank you just the same," returned Bob politely. "Six of you can pile on the bob, though, and I'll give you a thrilling ride, safety guaranteed. Who wants to come?"
It ended by all taking turns, and by that time it was half-past four and they must start back to school.
"I'm coming to-morrow," declared Betty. "I think winter is the nicest time of the whole year."
"You say that of every season," criticised Bobby. "Besides, I think it will rain to-morrow; it is much warmer than when we came out."
Bobby proved a good weather prophet for the next day was warmer and cloudy, and when lessons for the day were over at half-past two, a fine drizzle had begun to fall.
"Just the same I'm going," persisted Betty, pulling on her rubbers and struggling into a heavier sweater. "The snow hasn't all melted, and there will be enough for a good coast. I think you're a lazy bunch to want to stay cooped up in here and knit. A little fresh air would be good for you, Norma."
"I've a cold," said Norma, in explanation of her red eyes. "Anyway, I don't feel like playing around outdoors. And Alice has gone to bed with a headache and I'd rather not leave her."
Some had studying to do and others refused to be moved from their fancy work, so Betty and her sled finally set off alone. She knew, of course, that Norma's red eyes were the result of crying, as was Alice's headache. They had definitely decided the night before that they would not return to Shadyside after the Christmas holidays.
"I think this is a funny world," scolded Betty to herself, as she reached her favorite hill and put her sled in position. "Here are Norma and Alice, the kind of girls Mrs. Eustice is proud to have represent the school, and they can't afford to take a full course and graduate. And Ada Nansen, who is everything the ideals of Shadyside try to combat, has oceans of money and every prospect of staying. She'll probably take a P.G. course!"
A wild ride through the slushy snow made Betty feel better, and when, as she dragged the sled up again, Bob's whistle sounded, the last trace of her resentment vanished.
"Something told me you'd be out hunting a sore throat to-day," declared Bob, in mock-disapproval. "The fellows all said there wouldn't be enough snow to hold up a sparrow."
"Silly things!" dimpled Betty. "There's plenty of snow for a good coast.Take me, Bob?"
"Well, if you'll come on over where there's a decent hill," Bob assented. "With only two on the bob, we want to get some grade. Here, I'll stick your sled in between these two trees and you can get it when we come back."
Together they pulled the heavy bobsled up the hill and crossed over the hollow, taking a wagon trail that led up over another hill.
"It's a long walk," admitted Bob, panting. "But wait till you see the ride we're going to get."
They reached the top of Pudding Hill presently, and Betty looked down over a rolling expanse of white country covered closely by a lowering gray sky that looked, she said to herself, like the lid of a soup kettle.
"Bully coast!" exclaimed Bob with satisfaction, swinging the bodsled into position. "All ready, Betsey?"
"Just a minute," begged Betty, with a delightful little shiver of excitement as she tucked in her skirts and pulled her soft hat further over her eyes. "Ye-s, now I guess I'm fixed."
They started. The wind sang in their ears and sharp particles of snow flew up to sting their faces. Zip! they had taken one hill, and the gallant bobsled gathered momentum. Betty clung tightly to Bob.
"All right?" he shouted, without turning his head.
"It's fine!" shrieked Betty. "It takes my breath away, but I love it!"
The bobsled seemed fairly to leap the series of gentle slopes that lay at the foot of the long hill, and for every rise Betty and Bob received a bump that would have jarred the bones of less enthusiastic sportsmen. Then, suddenly, they were in the hollow, and the next thing they knew Betty lay breathless in a soft snow bank and Bob found himself flat on his back a few feet away. The sled had overturned with them.
"Betty! are you hurt?" cried Bob, scrambling to his feet. "Here, don't struggle! I'll have you out in a jiffy."
He pulled her from the bank of snow and helped her shake her garments free from the white flakes.
"I'm not hurt a bit, not even scratched," she assured him. "Wasn't that a spill, though? The first thing I knew I was sailing through space, and I'm thankful I landed in soft snow. Where's the sled? Oh, over there!"
"Want to quit?" asked Bob, as she began to help him right the overturned sled. "We can walk over to where we left your sled, you know, Betty."
"And miss the coast?" said Betty scornfully. "Well, not much, BobHenderson. It takes more than one upset to make me give up coasting."
She seated herself behind Bob again, and with a touch of his foot they began the descent of the second hill. The snow had melted more here, and in some spots the covering was very thin. Bob found the task of steering really difficult.
"I don't think much of this," he began to say, but at the second word the bobsled struck a huge root, the riders were pitched forward, and for one desperate moment they clung to the scrubby undergrowth that bordered what they supposed was the side of the road.
Then their hold loosened and they fell.
Slipping, sliding, tumbling, rolling, a confused sound of Bob's shouts in her ears, Betty closed her eyes and only opened them when she found that she was stationary again. She had no idea of where she was, nor of how far she had fallen.
"Bob?" she called timidly at first, and then in terror. "Bob!"
"Look behind you," said Bob's familiar voice.
Betty turned her head, and there was Bob, grinning at her placidly. His cap was gone and several buttons were ripped bodily from his mackinaw, but he did not seem to be injured and when he pulled Betty to her feet, that young person found that she, too, was unhurt.
"What happened?" she asked. "Where are we?"
"The bobsled balked," explained Bob cheerfully. "Guess it knew where we were heading for better than I did. Anyway, you and I took a double header that was a beauty. If you want to see where we came down, just look up there."
Betty followed the direction of his finger and saw a trail gashed in the snow, a trail that twisted and turned down the steep, forbidding sides of a frowning gorge. Was it possible that they had fallen so far and escaped injury?
"Know where you are?" asked Bob, watching her.
Betty shook her head.
"I must have been away off the road," explained Bob. "Betsey, you and I are standing at the bottom of Indian Chasm."
Indian Chasm!
Betty stared at Bob in dismay. Afterward she confessed that her first thought was of Indians who might capture them.
"Indian Chasm," repeated Bob firmly. "Come on, Betty, we mustn't stand here. If you once get cold, there's no way to warm you up. We must walk, and try to find a way out."
Betty stumbled after him, her mind a bewildered maze. She could not yet grasp the explanation that Bob, turned about by their spill in the hollow, had followed an old trail instead of the hill road. The trail had led straight to the border of the chasm.
Bob ploughed along, head bent, a heavy sense of responsibility keeping him silent. He knew better than Betty the difficulties that in all probability lay before them.
He glanced back at Betty, wearily toiling after him.
"Want to rest a moment?" he suggested. "Sit on that rock till you begin to feel chilly."
Betty accepted the suggestion gratefully. She was very tired and she was hungry. Her rubbers had been torn on the stones she had encountered in her fall and her shoes were damp.
"What a funny rock," she said idly.
It was a huge slab that had once been a part of another huge rock which still stood upright. Some force of nature had slit the two like a piece of paper—from the looks of it, the break was a recent one—and had forced a section outward, making it look like a wall about to topple over.
Rested a little, Betty rose and walked around to the other side of the rock on which she sat, moved by an impulse of curiosity. She went close to the rock that stood upright like a sentinel.
"What's the matter?" called Bob as she started back.
"I—I thought I kicked against something," answered Betty. "There, did you hear that?"
"Something clinked," admitted Bob. "Wait, I'll help you look."
He ran around to her and together they began to dig in the snow and dead leaves.
"Bob! Bob!" Betty's voice rose in delight. "Look!"
She held up a small rusty iron box that, as she tilted it, yawned to disgorge a shower of gold coins.
"The Macklin treasure! We've found it!" cried Betty, beginning to dig like an excited terrier. "Help me hunt, Bob! It must be Mrs. Macklin's treasure, mustn't it?"
"Looks that way," admitted Bob.
As he spoke he drew something from under the shadow of the rock that settled the question immediately. Something that sparkled and glittered and slipped through his cold red fingers like glass.
"The emeralds!" breathed Betty. "Oh, Bob, aren't they beautiful!"
"Look, Betty! That slab was forced outward not long ago. Before that this treasure was concealed in a narrow crack between the two rocks. That's why no one was able to find it when the search was made soon after the loss! Isn't it great that we have found it?"
In a frenzy now, they dug, and when there seemed to be nothing more hidden under the accumulation of dirt and leaves, the two stared at each other in delighted amazement. At their feet lay little jewel bags containing the pearls of which Norma had talked, the rose topazes, the dozen cameos. Magnificent diamonds sparkled in a rusty case, ear-rings and rings lay in a little heap, and a handful of uncut stones was wrapped in a bit of chamois skin. Solid silver pitchers and goblets and trays, sadly battered by being flung against the rocks, lay just as they had fallen until Bob and Betty had uncovered the leaves which, had so long covered them.
"How are we going to get it out of here?" asked Betty, when they had satisfied themselves there was nothing left undiscovered.
"That's the pressing question," confessed Bob. "Incidentally, we have to get ourselves out, too. I think we'd better walk on a bit, and look for some trail out. One lucky thing, no one will take the treasure while we're scouting."
"Where do you suppose that goes to?" said Betty, when they had been tramping about five minutes.
She pointed to a rocky formation that led off into the side of the chasm.It was evidently the mouth of a cave.
"I don't know, of course," admitted Bob. "But I think we had better take a chance and follow it. It will be dark, but so will the chasm in another half hour. I'll go first and you come after me."
It was inky black in the cave, and there was no assurance that it would lead them anywhere and every prospect that they would have to retrace their steps. He was careful to hint nothing of this to Betty, however, and she, on her part, determinedly stifled any complaint of weariness that rose to her lips.
It was an experience they both remembered all their lives—that slow, halting groping through the winding cavern, where the rocky walls narrowed or widened without warning and the roof rose to great heights or dropped so low they must crawl on hands and knees. The thought of the found treasure sustained them and gave them courage to keep on.
"I see a light!" cried Bob after what seemed to Betty hours of this."Betty, I do believe we've come to an opening!"
The pin-spot of light grew and broadened, and, as they approached it, they saw it was the winter sky. The sun was setting, for the clouds had cleared, and never was a sight half so beautiful to the anxious eyes that rested on it. What did it matter that they were miles from the school, or that both were wet and cold and tired to the point of collapse? Just to get out of that awful chasm was enough.
"I'll go get your sled and pack the stuff on that," proposed Bob, "I don't suppose it would hurt to leave it there all night, but somehow I can't. Will you go on ahead, Betty? You're so tired."
"I'm going back with you," said Betty firmly. "I couldn't rest one minute, knowing you were crawling through that awful cave again. Oh, yes, I'm coming with you, Bob—you needn't shake your head like that."
Bob realized that it was useless to try to persuade her to go on to the school alone. His common sense told him that it would be wiser to leave the treasure where it was and come after it the next day, but common sense does not always win out. It was actually impossible for Bob or Betty to abandon the Macklin fortune now that they had found it.
Bob found Betty's sled, after some search, where they had left it between two trees, and together they began to thread the tortuous maze of the cave again, Bob going ahead and dragging the sled after him. Betty thought despairingly that she had never known what it meant to be tired before.
"I'll wrap the little things in my middy tie," she said when they came out in the chasm at last and found the heap of treasure where they had piled it, "and we can fasten down the rest of the stuff with the belt from my coat."
Their fingers were stiff with cold, but they managed to get everything on the sled and lash it securely with a rope and the leather belt from Betty's coat. Then, once more, they started back through the cave.
The sled was heavy and the way seemed twice as long as the first time they had followed it, but they kept doggedly on. It was dark when they emerged on the familiar hillside.
"Sit on the sled, and I'll pull you, Betty," offered Bob, looking a little anxiously at his companion's white face.
But Betty resolutely refused, and she trotted beside him all the way, helping to pull the sled, till the gray buildings of Shadyside loomed up before them.
She insisted that Bob must come in with her, and they told their story to Mrs. Eustice, breathlessly and disconnectedly, to be sure, but the rope of emeralds and the gleaming diamonds filled in all gaps in the narrative. Before she went to sleep Betty had the satisfaction of knowing that Norma and Alice had been told the good news and that a telegram was speeding off to the home folks.
The discovery and recovery of the missing treasure created a wave of excitement when it became generally known. A few girls, who valued worldly possessions above everything else, made overtures of friendship to the sisters whom previously they had ignored. Their old friends heartily rejoiced with them and Norma and Alice went about in a dream of bliss compounded of joy for their grandmother and parents, plans for new frocks and the proposed holiday trip to Washington.
"It's the nicest thing that ever happened," Betty wrote her uncle. "Now Norma and Alice can graduate from Shadyside, and Grandma Macklin can spend the rest of the winter in Florida and dear Doctor and Mrs. Guerin can doctor and nurse half the county for nothing, if they please."
* * * * *
Doctor Guerin and his wife wrote that Norma and Alice should go happily with the Littell girls for a visit and forget the "no longer depressing question of finances." Both Doctor and Mrs. Guerin were enthusiastic in their praise of Betty and Bob, who began to feel that too much was made of their lucky discovery, especially when, at the direction of Mrs. Macklin, the Macklin family's old lawyer (who had taken charge of the recovered treasure and appraised it at nearly twice its value when lost) sent Betty a pair of the diamond earrings and Bob one of the priceless old silver platters.
"But you not only found it, you went through a lot to bring it to us," said Norma affectionately. "No, Betty, you and Bob can't wriggle out of being thanked."
The finding of the treasure was not the last of Betty's adventures. What happened to her and her chums the following summer will be related in the next volume of this series.
The remaining days of the term fairly flew, and almost before they realized it, school closed for the Christmas holidays. A merry party boarded the train for the Junction, where they could make connections for Washington, one crisp, sunny December morning.
"Every one here?" demanded Bobby Littell. "I don't want to run the risk of arriving home short a guest or two."
"I'm willing to be kidnapped," suggested Tommy Tucker, who knew the story of Betty's first meeting with Bobby.
Both girls laughed, and Betty was still smiling as she held out her ticket to the conductor.
"Have a good time, young 'uns," chirped the grizzled little man cheerily. "Only one thing's more fun than goin' to school, and that's goin' home from school for a spell of play."
And with this happy prospect before her, let us leave Betty Gordon.
End of Project Gutenberg's Betty Gordon at Boarding School, by Alice Emerson