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                         IN BLUE CREEK CANON

                         BY ANNA CHAPIN RAY

      AUTHOR OF "HALF A DOZEN BOYS," "HALF A DOZEN GIRLS," ETC.




    NEW YORK: 46 EAST 14TH STREET
    THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
    BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET

    COPYRIGHT, 1892,
    BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.

    _Printed and Electrotyped by_
    ALFRED MUDGE & SON, BOSTON.




[Illustration: "A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on
skates."]




    If you've wronged him, speak him fair.
    Say you're sorry and make it square;
    If he's wronged you, wink so tight
    None of you see what's plain in sight.

    When the world goes hard and wrong,
    Lend a hand to help him along;
    When his stockings have holes to darn,
    Don't you grudge him your ball of yarn.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Stick to each other through thick and thin;
    All the closer as age leaks in;
    Squalls will blow, and clouds will frown,
    But stay by your ship till you all go down!

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.




CONTENTS.


        I. A COUNCIL ON SKATES

       II. TO WELCOME THE COMING GUEST

      III. THE EVERETT HOUSEHOLD

       IV. ON THE CROSS-HEAD

        V. THE MEETING IN THE WATERS

       VI. MARJORIE'S PARTY

      VII. JANEY'S PROPHECY

     VIII. IN THE DARK

       IX. CAMPING ON THE BEAVERHEAD

        X. UP THE GULCH

       XI. "SWEET CHARITY'S SAKE"

      XII. HOME WITHOUT A MOTHER

     XIII. AT THE NINE-HUNDRED LEVEL

      XIV. THE BEGINNING OF THE OLD STORY

       XV. MR. ATHERDEN

      XVI. THE COMPLETED STORY

     XVII. THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNEXPECTED

    XVIII. UNDER ORDERS




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"A quartette of boys and girls were darting about on skates."

"He cautiously moved away a few inches along the beam."

"His lamp extended in one hand, while with his other he held his cane,
which he was poking about in the soft, sticky mud."




IN BLUE CREEK CANON.




CHAPTER I.

A COUNCIL ON SKATES.


A strong southeast wind was blowing up the canon and driving before it
the dense yellow smoke which rolled up from the great red chimneys of
the smelter. To the east and west of the town, the mountains rose
abruptly, their steep sides bare or covered with patches of yellow pine.
At the north, the canon closed in to form a narrow gorge between the
mountains; but towards the south it opened out into a broad valley,
through which the swiftly rushing creek twisted and turned along its
willow-bordered bed. A half mile below the town the creek suddenly
broadened into a little lake that was now frozen over, forming a sheet
of dazzling ice, upon which a quartette of boys and girls were darting
about on skates.

"Ugh!" gasped one of the boys, as a sudden gust of wind, coming straight
from the east, brought the stifling cloud in their direction; "I'm glad
I'm not up in town this afternoon. It's getting ready for a storm, I
think, from the way the smoke comes down; and they must be catching it
all, up there."

"Oh, dear!" sighed the girl with whom he was skating; "if it storms
'twill be sure to be more snow, and spoil the ice. It's too bad, for we
get so little skating out here, and it's almost time to go home now.
Just see how low the sun is getting!"

"Never mind, Marjorie," said the boy, as he paused to breathe on his
cold fingers; then held out his hand to her once more. "We'll have one
more go across the pond, anyway, for there's no knowing when we'll have
another chance. You take Allie, Ned, and we'll race you, two and two,
over to that largest stump. Come on, and get into line. One! two!
_three!_"

Away they flew, the bright blades of their skates flashing in the long
slanting rays of the late afternoon sun, and their eyes and cheeks
glowing with the cold air and rapid exercise. Marjorie and her attendant
knight were the first to reach the goal, and turned, panting, to face
the others as they came up to them.

"That was just fine!" exclaimed Allie's companion, as he dropped her
hand and spun around in a narrow circle which sent the chips of ice
flying from under his heel. "Don't let's go home just yet, 't won't be
dark for an hour anyway, and we can go up in fifteen minutes. I'll race
you over to the other side and back again, Howard, while the girls are
getting their breath."

"You don't mind being left, Allie?" And the taller boy glanced at the
girls.

"All right, just for once," said Allie; "then we really ought to go up,
Howard; mamma wants us to be home in good season to-night, for dinner is
going to be early, so papa can get the train down."

"Is your father going away again?" asked Marjorie, as the girls skated
idly to and fro, waiting for the boys to join them. "I thought he came
in from camp only this morning."

"So he did," answered her friend, burying her small nose in her muff for
a moment, as she faced the cutting wind. "He's only going down to
Pocatello to-night, and out on the main line a little ways, to meet
Charlie MacGregor, our cousin that's coming."

"Yes," nodded Marjorie, in acquiescence; "I remember now; I'd forgotten
he was coming so soon. What fun you'll have with him, Allie! I wish I
had a brother, or cousin, or something."

"Perhaps I shall wish I didn't have both," said Allie, laughing. "I
don't know how he and Howard will get on. I think Howard doesn't want
him much; but I'd just as soon he'd be here."

"What's he like?" queried Marjorie curiously.

"I haven't much idea; I've never seen him," said Allie. "Papa saw him
when he was east last summer, and we have a picture of him taken ever so
long ago."

"Who's that--Charlie MacGregor?" asked Howard, skating up to them at
that moment. "He's not much to look at, Marjorie, if his picture's any
good. He has a pug nose and wears giglamps, and I've a suspicion that
he's a fearful dude. He'll be a tenderfoot, of course, but he'll get
over that; but if he's a dude, we boys will make it lively for him."

"Howard, you sha'n't!" remonstrated his sister, loyally coming to the
defence of their unknown cousin. "It must be horrid for him to lose all
his friends and have to be sent out here to relations he doesn't know
nor care anything about, just like a barrel of flour." Allie's metaphors
were becoming mixed; but she never heeded that, as she went on proudly:
"And besides, we're MacGregors as much as he is, and mamma says that no
MacGregor was ever rude to a cousin, or to anybody in trouble."

"Good for you, Allie!" shouted the younger boy, as he stopped in the
middle of a figure eight to applaud her words. "You're in the right of
it; but you needn't think you'll ever keep Howard in order. How old is
this lad, anyhow?"

"Half way between Howard and me," replied Allie, as they started to
skate slowly up the creek towards home, and Howard and Marjorie dropped
a little in the rear. "He was thirteen last summer, and papa says he's a
real, true musician. He'll bring his own piano with him; but I don't
know where he'll find room to put it, for our house is full as can be,
now. Then he sings, too,--at least, he used to,--in a boy choir. Haven't
you seen his picture, Ned? It's homely, but it looks as if he might not
be so bad."

"Where's he coming from?" asked Ned.

"New York. He's lived there always; but, you know, his father died two
years ago, and his mother last month. He hasn't any relations but just
us, so he is to live here for a while. You and Howard will stand by
him, won't you, Ned?" she added persuasively, laying her mittened hand
on his. "I'm afraid the other boys will run on him and make fun of him.
Don't tell Howard I said so, but I don't expect to like him much myself,
only I'm sort of sorry for him; and then he's our cousin, so I suppose
we must make sure he has a good time."

"I won't be hard on him, Allie," her companion answered her, laughing a
little at the unwonted seriousness of her tone; "as long as he doesn't
put on airs and talk big about New York and 'the way _we_ do East,' and
all that poppycock, I'll stand by him. But if he's coming out here to
show us how to do it, the sooner it's taken out of him the better."

"Wait till the train comes in, day after to-morrow morning, Ned," said
Howard, as, with a few quick strokes, he and Marjorie overtook them once
more. "We'll take a look at him and see what he's like, before we make
too many promises. Now, then, ma'am," he added, as he and Marjorie
paused at a great stone on the bank of the creek; "if you'll be good
enough to sit down, I'll have your skates off instanter."

Marjorie laughed, as she dropped down on the stone and put one little
foot on Howard's knee, while Ned performed a similar service for Allie.

"I'm crazy to see your cousin, Allie," she said. "I know he's going to
be great fun, only I'm afraid he'll think we are hopeless tomboys.
Probably he's been used to girls that sit in the parlor and sew
embroidery, instead of skating and riding bronchos bareback, and playing
hare and hounds with the boys."

"Don't care if he has!" And Allie made a little grimace of defiance as
she scrambled to her feet. "I'm not going to give up all my good times
and take to fancy work, when it's as much as I can do to sew on my own
buttons. He can stay in the house, and sing songs and sew patchwork all
day long, if he wants to, but I'm not going to give up all my frolics;
need I, boys?" she concluded, in a mutinous outburst, quite at variance
with her recent plea for their expected guest.

Howard laughed teasingly.

"Catch Allie turning the fine young lady! If you shut her up in a
parlor, she'd jump over the chairs and play tag with herself around the
table; and Marjorie is about as bad."

"Perhaps I am," she assented placidly; "but you boys could never get
along without us. I've heard you say, over and over again, that we can
catch a ball as well as half the boys in town, and I can outrun you any
day. Want to try?"

"Not much," returned Howard, laughing, though there rankled in his mind
the memory of recent races in which he had not been the winner. "You
only beat me because you've been used to this air longer than I have.
Besides, it would hurry us home too much, and I've an idea that this may
be the last time that we four chums will be off together, for one while.
I shall have to trot round with that fellow, for the next week, and show
him the ways of the country, so he won't make too great a jay of
himself. But, I say, if it doesn't storm to-morrow, we'll come down here
again in the afternoon, and have an hour or two on the ice before it's
spoiled."

With their skates strapped together and slung over their shoulders,
their collars turned up around their ears, and their hands plunged deep
into pockets and muffs, they turned northward along the bank of the
creek for a short distance, and then struck off across the level, open
ground till they came into one of the streets of the little town, which
they followed until they reached the main business street. There they
parted, Ned and Marj