The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure by Lizette M. Edholm

Author:Lizette M. Edholm [Edholm, Lizette M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective and mystery stories, Friendship -- Juvenile fiction, Vacations -- Juvenile fiction, Treasure troves -- Juvenile fiction, Adventure and adventurers -- Juvenile fiction, Arizona -- Juvenile fiction
Published: 2009-01-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

DOUBLE DEALING

An anxious group was waiting for the girls to arrive in camp. Ma Patten had run over to make her daily call on Mrs. Breckenridge. Even Tang and the two Chinese hoys were watching eagerly and scowling toward the tempestuous sky. A thunder and lightning storm in the hills was not a thing to laugh at. A flash! A roar! And a large mass of rock was cleft apart as if a mighty hammer had struck it.

Tommy Sharpe and Seedy Saunders had saddled their horses and gone in search of the girls as soon as the storm threatened, but not knowing in which direction they had headed, it was like hunting for a needle in a hay stack.

They did find Professor Gillette, however, soaked to the skin, a bedraggled, shivering figure that set the boys laughing in spite of the pathetic look of the old man. They helped him up the hill to the Patten household where he could be taken care of, and once more went in search of the girls.

But it was not until the storm was over and the girls were climbing up the last trail to the ranch that Tommy spied them.

"There they are, Seedy! They're safe!" Tommy's voice trembled with emotion. The mountain | storms still terrified the boy, although he had experienced so many of them.

By the time the girls reached the house, the strain they had undergone was beginning to wear off and they were able to laugh at their adventure. That all except Joy, who shuddered whenever she thought of it and turned pale when the women asked excited questions.

"I hate these mountains," whispered Joy to Shirley. "I wish I were going home tomorrow!"

"Why, Joy Evans, you know you don't." Shirley put her arm around the frightened girl. "You're having a grand time here, and the fun is just beginning. You're not going to quit over the first unpleasant thing that happens to you. That's not playing the game. What would Lady Betty Merriweather do?"

Joy laughed in spite of herself. "We always used to ask that question when we were in Lynnwood. Lady Betty meant a lot to us, didn't she? I guess she wouldn't have cried and taken on the way I did down there on the cliff."

"Do you remember," said Shirley softly, "how Lady Betty rode through the night to help her wounded husband? That was bravery!"

"But that was so long ago. The Revolutionary War seems like a story and not real life," Joy said with a toss of her head. "Maybe it didn't happen at all."

Lady Betty Merriweather had been the first owner of the Merriweather Estate, Bet's home on the Hudson, and from an old picture of her that adorned the great entrance hall of the Manor, the girls had come to feel that she was their friend and companion, an ideal for them to live up to.

"Anyway," continued Joy, "she liked horses. And I don't. And I don't like their old cactus plants with their sharp needles that seem to jump at you.

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