CHAPTER THREE – JULIE’S STRANGE EXPERIENCE

“That was a splendid story, Tally,” said the Captain, as Tally concluded his legend.

“Yes, I like it better than those I have read of the First Horses in books from the Smithsonian Institution,” added Mrs. Vernon.

“Him true story! My Chief tell so,” declared Tally, positively, and not one of the scouts refuted his statement.

“Well, I don’t know how you girls feel, but I will confess that I’m ready for a nap,” remarked Mr. Gilroy, trying to hide a yawn.

“No objections heard to that motion,” declared Mr. Vernon.

“Not after such a day’s voyage in this schooner,” laughed Julie. “I’ll be fast asleep in a jiffy.”

So the blankets were spread out over the floor of the wagon, and the girls rolled themselves into them, and stretched out as planned. The planks of the floor were awfully hard and there seemed to be ridges just where they were not wanted. Directly under Julie’s back was a great iron bolt but she could not move far enough to either one side or the other to avoid it. So she doubled her blanket over it, and left her feet upon the bare wooden planks.

“I’m thankful there are no tall members in this Troop,” remarked the Captain, after they were all settled in a row. “If there were, her feet would have to hang over the side of the wagon.”

Tally and the two men spread out their rubber covers in front of the fire, and all were soon asleep.

Julie’s brag about falling fast asleep in a jiffy proved false, for she could not rest comfortably because of the bolt. So her sleep was troubled and she half-roused several times, although she did not fully awaken. Then, during one of these drowsy experiences when she tried to get on one side of the bolt, she heard a strange sound.

She sat up and looked around. It was still dark, although the first streaks of dawn were showing in the sky. Her companions were stretched out under their covers, and Mrs. Vernon was softly snoring. Julie lifted a corner of the canvas curtain to ascertain what it was that awakened her, and she saw a suspicious sight.

The guide was in the act of getting upon his feet without disturbing the two men who slept soundly by the fireside. He waved a hand, as a signal, towards the brush some ten feet away. And there Julie saw a hand and arm motioning him, but no other part of its owner could be seen.

“Well I never!” thought Julie to herself, as she watched Tally creep away from the fire and make for the bushes.

He was soon hidden behind the foliage, and then Julie heard sounds as of feet moving along the forest trail.

“I’m not going to let him put anything over on us, if I know it!” thought she. And she quickly stepped over the quiet forms in the wagon, and slid down from the back of the schooner. That night the scouts had on moccasins, fortunately, and her feet made no sound as she swiftly followed the Indian through the screen of leaves. Then she saw, some dozen yards ahead of her, two forms hurrying up a steep trail that ran through the forest. One was Tally, and his companion was an Indian maiden.

Unseen, Julie softly followed after them, and finally they came to a roaring mountain torrent that was bridged by a great fallen pine. On the other side of this stream were two shining black horses, with manes and tails so long and thick that the scout marveled. They were caparisoned in Indian fashion with gay colors and fancy trappings.

The maiden quickly loosed the steeds and Tally sprang up into one saddle, while the squaw got up into the other. Then they continued up along the trail without as much as a glance behind.

Julie managed to creep over the treetrunk and gained the other side of the torrent, then ran after them as fast as she could go. But they had disappeared over the crest and the scout had to slow up, as her breath came in panting gasps.

Finally she, too, reached the summit, but there was no sign of horses or riders. A wide cleared area covered the top of the mountain, from which a marvelous view of Denver and its environs could be had. Distant peaks now glimmered in the rising sun, and Julie sighed in ecstasy at such a wonderful sight.

Then she remembered what brought her there, and she ran across the clearing to look for a trail down the other side and, perchance, a glimpse of the Indians.

Passing a screen of thick pines, she suddenly came to an old flower garden, and on the other side of it stood a rambling old stone castle, similar to Glen Eyrie at Colorado Springs.

“Humph! This looks as if some one tried to imitate General Palmer’s gorgeous castle, but gave it up in despair,” thought she.

Julie walked across the intervening space and reached the moss-grown stone steps that led to a great arched doorway. She had a glance, through wide-opened doors, of gloomy hallway and a great staircase, then she skirted the wing of the building, and came out to a wide terrace that ran along the entire front of the pile. The view from this high terrace caused her to stand perfectly still and gaze in awe.

She could see for miles and miles over the entire country from the height she stood upon. It was almost as wonderful a view as that from Pike’s Peak. Sheer down from the stone terrace dropped a precipice of more than five thousand feet. Far down at its base she could see a stream winding a way between dots of ranches and narrow ribbons of roadways.

“This is the most marvelous scene yet!” murmured Julie. Then she frowned as a thought came to her. “If Tally knew of this place, – and it is evident that he did, – why did he not tell us of it, so that we could climb up and see it in the morning? And why isn’t this old castle on the road-map, with a note telling tourists of the magnificent view from this height?”

After a long time given to silent admiration of the country as seen from the terrace, Julie turned and slowly walked up the stone steps that led into the hall. “Wonder if the place is abandoned,” thought she, peeping inside the doorway.

As no sound or sign of life was evident, she tiptoed in and gazed about. The tiles on the floor were of beautiful design and coloring, and the woodwork was tinted to correspond. The walls were covered with rare old tapestries, while here and there adown the length of the hall stood suits of armor and mailed figures.

Bronze chandeliers hung from the high ceilings, and on each side of the hall stood bronze torchères holding gigantic wax candles.

“Well, in all my life I never dreamed of visiting such a museum of old relics!” sighed Julie, who dearly loved antiques.

Suddenly, as silently as everything else about the place, there appeared a white-haired servitor in baronial uniform. He came forward and deferentially bowed, then he spoke to Julie.

“Are you the Indian maiden the guide was to meet to-day?”

Julie was so amazed at the question that she could not reply, so she barely nodded her head.

“Then follow me, as the master waits. The guide sits below, eating breakfast,” added the old servant.

At the mention of breakfast, Julie felt her empty stomach yearn for a bite of it, but she silently turned and followed the major-domo, as she knew him to be, along the hall and up the stairs. As they reached the first landing the old man said, “The master is in his laboratory in the tower. Breakfast will be served there.”

Julie accepted this as cheerful news, so she fearlessly followed after the guide. She had seen no tower from the outside of the rambling building, but, she thought, there might have been one at the wing opposite the one around which she came when she walked to the front of the place.

Having reached the top of the stairs, Julie saw that the entire second-floor walls were covered with ancient portraits. She would have loved to stop and study the ancient costumes of the women, but the man ascended the second flight of stairs, and she must follow.

They went along the hall on the third floor, and at the end the servitor entered a small room that was heavily hung with velour portières. He pushed them aside and turned a knob that seemed to be set in the carved panel. Instantly this panel swung open and disclosed a narrow spiral stairway leading to an iron platform overhead.

Julie began to question the wisdom of this reckless act of hers; but having come so far, how could she back out gracefully? Why should this master want to breakfast with an Indian squaw – for such he was expecting?

“This way,” politely reminded the old man, and Julie had to see the thing through to the end – whatever that might be.

At the head of these spiral stairs the man pulled on a heavy cord, and another hidden door set in carved panelling opened. Through this they went, and then the man said:

“Be seated, and I will call the master.”

Julie gazed about her in profound curiosity. The room was an octagon-shaped laboratory, so dark that its corners were in shadow. The only light came from a huge glass dome ceiling. One side of the room was taken up by a great fireplace; opposite this stood a high cabinet filled with the vials and other equipment of a chemist. The paneled door through which she came took up the third side, and the five other sides were filled with tiers of shelves, where stood rows of morocco-bound books.

Great leather chairs stood about the room, and in the center, upon a magnificent Kirmanshaw rug, stood an onyx table with a great crystal globe upon it. At one side, near the narrow door through which the old servant had gone, stood a grand piano.

Julie had no time for further inspection of the room, as a unique figure suddenly appeared in the small doorway through which the servitor had gone. He was very tall and thin, and was clad in wonderfully embroidered East Indian robes. A fez cap covered the bald head on top, and a thin straggly white beard fringed the lower part of his face. Upon his scrawny finger a strange stone glittered and instantly attracted her gaze.

Julie wondered who this unusual person might be, but he vouchsafed no information. In fact, he stood perfectly still as if waiting for her to open the conversation. This proved to be the fact, for he gazed searchingly at the girl, and then murmured, “Well?”

Julie tried to summon a smile and act nonchalant, but the entire atmosphere of the place was too oppressive for such an air, so she stood, changing her weight from one foot to the other. This form of action – or to be more exact, inaction – continued for a few minutes, then the old man gave vent to a hollow laugh. It sounded so sepulchral that Julie shivered with apprehension.

He started to cross the room. When he came within a few feet of his guest he said, raspingly, “Maiden, I know thee. Thou’rt a descendant of Spotted Bear, the coward! And I – I am the young Medicine Man who won the robe and spear, and brought the horses to earth for mankind to use. Hast aught to say to that?”

At these words Julie was too amazed to answer. To see the hero of that wonderful Indian legend standing before her eyes – but oh, how old he must be, for that happened ages ago, and his yellow parchment-like skin attested to a great age.

As she thought over these facts, she could not keep her eyes from the old man’s face, and now she actually could trace a resemblance to the young guide, Tally. Could the latter be a descendant of this Medicine Man’s? As if the old fellow read her thoughts, he chuckled, “Aye! The guide is one of my tribe, and thou art a member of that of the outcast, Spotted Bear. Because I have found thee, I shall see that no descendant of that coward’s goes forth again to trouble the world.”

Julie began to fear that she had been very indiscreet in coming into this old ruin as she had done, especially as she would find it difficult to convince this old man that she was not the Indian maiden he thought her to be. But she paid attention to his next act, which was to pull out a great chair and drop back in it as if too weary to stand longer upon his spindling legs.

“Art hungry? Even my enemy must not complain of our bounty.” So saying, the old man reached forth a long thin arm and his fingers pushed upon a button in the wall. Instantly a panel moved back and disclosed a cellaret built into the wall. Here were delicious fruits, cakes, and fragrant coffee.

“Help thyself. I will wait till thou art done,” said he, waving his hand at the food.

Julie was so hungry that the sight of the fruit made her desperate. Had her future welfare depended upon it, she could not have withstood the temptation to eat some of that fruit. She went over to take an orange, but a horrible thrust in her back caused her to cry out and put both hands behind her.

To her horror she found the old man had thrown some hard knob at her and it had made such a dent in her flesh that it could be distinctly felt at the base of her spine. The insane laughter that greeted her wail of pain made her realize that she was in the presence of a madman!

“Why not eat, Maiden? I will amuse myself, meantime,” said the old man, as he finished his laughter.

Julie saw him rise and hobble over to the piano, then seat himself before the keyboard and begin to play the weirdest music she had ever heard. But the pain in her back continued so that the thought of breakfast vanished. All she cared for now was to get rid of that suffering.

When she could stand the agony no longer, she gathered courage enough to limp over to the piano and beg him to release her, as she was in great pain.

“Aha! Didst ever think of how Spotted Bear caused the child to suffer when it went down in the water?” asked he, suspending his hands over the piano keys.

“But I hadn’t anything to do with that! Why strike me for his crimes?” retorted Julie, gaining courage in her pain.

The old man frowned at her fiercely, and mumbled, “Art obstinate? Then we’ll have to use other ways.” He turned and pushed another button in the wall back of the piano, and instantly the glass dome overhead became darkened, so that Julie could not see the objects in the room very plainly.

The host got up and started slowly for Julie. His eyes seemed afire with a maniac’s wildness, and the scout feared he was planning to attack her. She screamed for help, and ran for the door in the paneling through which she had entered. But the cry seemed muffled in her throat and no audible sound came forth.

The host laughed that same horrible laugh again, and Julie tried again, harder than ever, to shout for help. Still her vocal chords seemed paralyzed, and no sound was heard from them.

Just as she reached the paneling, the old man must have hurled another hard ball at her, for she felt the blow in her back and shrunk with the pain. And as she squirmed, she distinctly felt the painful object move from one side of her spine to the other, as if it were a button under the skin that was movable.

But the door in the panel could not be opened, and Julie worked her hands frantically over its surface, while the old Indian laughed and crept closer to her. When he was near enough to reach out and take her in his awful hands, the scout gathered all her courage and flung herself upon him.

She fought with hands and teeth, and kicked with her feet, hoping that his great age would render him too weak to resist her young muscular strength. She knew she must overpower him or he would kill her, mistaking her for the maiden descended from Spotted Bear.

She had thus far won the hand-to-hand fight, so that he was down upon his knees and she was over him with her hands at his throat, when suddenly he collapsed, and his eyes rolled upwards at her. In her horror she managed to yell for help, and then she heard —

“Julie! Julie! Have mercy! Stop tearing Betty to bits!”

Through a vague distance Julie recognized the voice of Joan. Oh, if they were only there to help! But she kept a grip on the old Chief’s neck while she waited to answer the call.

Then she heard very plainly, “For the love of Pete, Julie, wake up, won’t you!” And some one shook her madly.

Julie sat up and rubbed her eyes dazedly, while the scouts about her laughed wildly, and Betty scolded angrily.

“Oh, Julie, what an awful nightmare you must have had,” laughed Mrs. Vernon.

“Is Tally back?” asked Julie.

“He’s cooking breakfast, – smell it,” said Anne, smacking her lips.

“I can smell coffee,” mumbled Julie, still unconvinced that she had been dreaming. “It smells exactly like that old man’s.”

“What old man?” again asked the circle about her.

“Why, Good Arrow, to be sure! He lives up on that hill – and, girls, he’s as old as Methusaleh, I’m sure!” declared Julie.

The wild laughter that greeted this serious statement of hers did more to rouse the Leader from a cloudy state of mind than anything else, and soon she was up and out of the wagon to look for a trail that might run over the crest of the hill.

But there was no trail, neither was there a mountain climb such as she remembered in her dreams. At breakfast, she told the dream, to the intense amusement of every one, Tally included. Then the Indian guide remarked, “No better sleep on iron bolt, nex’ time!”