Allen learned much about Peter Levine and his associates and about Gold Run itself in the following conversation, and when he and the girls finally said good-by to the old man and his daughter and started off down the trail again, he was more than satisfied.
As for the girls, they could hardly wait to get out of earshot of the mine before letting loose a flood of excited comment.
"Well, I don't see anything to get so excited about," said Allen, after they had rattled on for several minutes. "Dan Higgins didn't tell us anything we didn't already know—or suspect, anyway. He simply confirmed our suspicions, that's all."
"Seems to me that's enough," retorted Mollie. "It's one thing to think a thing yourself and an entirely different thing to find out somebody else thinks it too."
"Don't be an old granddaddy, Allen," Bettysaid, adding threateningly: "If you don't look out we won't let you have any of that wonderful gold we are going to find—not one little tiny nugget."
"That's gratitude for you," said Allen reproachfully. "Not one little nugget for a fellow who finds her a fortune."
"You haven't found it yet," Amy reminded him.
"No," said Allen suddenly animated, "I haven't found it—not yet—but I'm pretty sure I'm on the right track. Look here," he appealed to them: "It seems reasonable to me to suppose that if Peter Levine and the people above him are so anxious to get the property they know pretty well where they stand. They don't want the ranch simply because theythinkthere is gold on it."
"Then you think——" Betty was beginning breathlessly, when Allen interrupted her with a rush of words.
"Yes, that's just what I think," he said. "I've been pretty well over the whole of this ranch since I came, and I've noticed that this extreme northwest portion of it, the only part where there would be any possibility of finding gold, is pretty well deserted most of the time—absolutely so at night——"
"Then you think," Betty burst forth, "that thesepeople, whoever they are, may have made actual tests? That they are sure there is gold here?"
Allen nodded.
"That is my theory," he said gravely. "But of course the only way to prove the truth of it is to keep my eyes open and catch them, if that is possible, in the act."
"But how could one conceal such a thing?" Grace objected. "A big thing like a mine can't be hidden away in the daytime like a rag doll. There must be some signs about the place to show that people have been here——"
"Exactly," said Allen. "There probably are signs—only nobody has had the incentive—or the interest, maybe—to hunt for those signs up to this time. Although," he added thoughtfully, "there are many ways of camouflaging the entrance to a mine so that a casual observer, even an interested one, possibly, would be fooled—branches, leaves, a rock or two."
"But wouldn't there be noise?" It was Amy who put the objection this time. "I should think they would make enough disturbance to rouse suspicion at least."
"They might not," Allen contended. "Remember, they are right in the mining territory, so that if any of the miners heard an unusual noise they would think it was one of their neighbors working late. Anyway," he finished, "their operations would necessarily have to be small, and they might be so small as not even to arouse suspicion. Sometimes," he added, and the girls hung on his words as though they were prophetic, "there need be no actual digging to ascertain that there is gold in a certain region. Sometimes the bed of a spring if sifted to get rid of pebbles and other débris will reveal gold enough to make the finder certain that there is a rich gold vein close by."
"Goodness, let's go and hunt up some springs!" cried Mollie irrepressibly. "What's the use of leaving all this gold finding to Mr. Peter Levine?"
"I remember seeing an old broken sieve around the ranch house somewhere," Grace suggested helpfully. "Don't you suppose we can go back and get it?"
"But, Allen," Betty asked anxiously, "how do you expect to find out about these men? I suppose you intend to show them up?"
"I most certainly do," responded Allen cheerfully. "It would give me the greatest delight to land Mr. Peter Levine and his associates in jail."
"Well, you'd better look out you don't get landed yourself," said Mollie sagely. "I imagine these particular gentlemen are pretty handy withtheir guns—like most of the other people around here—and I reckon they wouldn't be very backward about using them."
"It would be fifty-fifty, at that," said Allen, adding grimly: "I'm not so very unhandy with a gun myself. But the war's over and I haven't any idea of staging a tragedy," he added lightly, anxious to banish the cloud that had come over Betty's bright face. "I shall keep out of sight till I have them just where I want them, and when they find themselves caught I don't think they'll do much fighting. All crooks are more or less cowards, you know."
"But what are you going to do in the meantime—while you are waiting for a chance to show them up?" Betty persisted. She did not half like the way things were going—even if there was a chance of finding a fortune on the ranch. It seemed to her that Allen was putting himself into too great danger. And if anything happened to him, what would all the gold in the world be worth?
"'In the meantime?'" Allen was answering her question lightly. "Why, in the meantime I intend to keep my eyes and ears wide open and do a little scouting around Gold Run until I get a line on the doings of Peter Levine and his crowd—if he has a crowd. He may just be in partnership with one other rascal like himself, for all I know. That's one of the first things I want to find out. After the information of our friend, back there at the mine," he added, "there is no longer any doubt in my mind that this Levine is a crook."
"Humph," said Betty, "I was sure of that the first time I laid eyes on him."
"And yet you said you could almost love him for making your mother decide to come out here," Allen reminded her quizzically.
"And you said you were on your way to kill him," said Betty, adding with a chuckle: "What made you change your mind?"
"I didn't change my mind," retorted Allen, with a grin. "I just didn't happen to meet him, that's all."
They had nearly reached the ranch house before Betty thought to ask Allen if he had talked his plans over with her mother.
"No, I haven't," he admitted. "As a matter of fact, I hadn't made any definite plans until I had this confab with Dan Higgins. He made me see the whole thing straight, so to speak. I'll have a talk with your mother and father to-night," he promised.
He kept his promise and had the satisfaction ofknowing that both his clients were backing him heartily.
"Go to it, Allen," Mr. Nelson said at the end of the conference. "Seems to me that you have gotten the correct angle on this thing, and if you need any help from me just call on me. Only," he warned, "don't run yourself into unnecessary trouble."
"I've found, sir," said Allen, with that straight-forward look that made every one like and admire him, "that it's usually the fellow who runs away from trouble who gets the most of it. I'm not worrying about that end of the business."
But if he did not worry, Betty certainly did in the days that followed. She had dreams at night in which she saw Allen riding about in the shadows. There would be a report, two reports, and he would topple over backwards to lie crumpled up and motionless. No wonder that she became pale and lost her appetite and made her mother worry even in the midst of the excitement over this double hunt—the hunt for men and gold.
One night after dinner Allen asked her to ride with him a little way, said it would do him a lot of good just to talk to her. Betty agreed, and they cantered off in the twilight, their bodiesswaying to the rhythm of the beautiful animals under them.
For a long time they were silent, just enjoying the rapid motion, the sweet scented air that fanned their faces, the beauty of the hazy mountains in the distance. Then, suddenly Allen spoke.
"Betty," he said, swinging round toward her, "you aren't letting this thing get on your nerves, are you?"
"Wh-what do you mean?" she asked faintly. "What thing?"
"This gold business—the excitement of it all," he said, waving his hand largely as though to take in the whole landscape. "I've noticed you looked tired lately," he went on gently, "and I've worried about it, little Betty. I—I have almost dared to hope," he leaned toward her, but Betty was looking the other way, "that you were a little anxious about me. Were you?"
"Why—I—yes—no—why—I don't know," cried Betty wildly, then, meeting his eye, she laughed, a twinkling little laugh. "You shouldn't ask questions like that, not so suddenly, anyway," she said primly. "It isn't fair."
"Never mind, I got my answer," said Allen jubilantly, and again Betty found it a little hard to look at him. "You mustn't worry though,little girl," he went on gently. "There isn't any danger—really. I'm just playing a delightful little game—and I'm going to win. Went to see Levine to-day, representing your mother," he added, and his tone suddenly became grim. "He made me feel, or at least he tried to make me feel, that he had as much respect for my ability as he would for a little speck of dirt."
"The very idea!" cried Betty indignantly. "I'd just like to tell him what I think of—your ability——" she faltered on these last words, for Allen was gazing at her with a most disconcerting light in his eyes.
Suddenly she whirled Nigger's head about and urged him to a gallop.
"Race you home, Allen!" she challenged. "Winnergetsthe other fellow's piece of cake."
"Who cares for cake!" cried Allen, but it might have been noticed that he followed her just the same.
Allen was acting in two capacities at this time—that of lawyer and that of private detective. He probably would not have taken this rôle for anybody but Betty and her family, but in order to serve them he was willing to do pretty nearly anything.
So he had taken to scouting around the northern end of the ranch after dark, in the hope that he might possibly discover something that would help him in his theory that there was really gold on the ranch and, also, that Peter Levine and his cronies, whoever they were, knew of it.
However, as the days passed, bringing no new developments, the young fellow began to think that he had let his imagination run away with him. He even began to formulate plans by which he could lure the unsuspecting Peter Levine into telling what he knew.
And then—just when he was beginning to despair of being any help at all to Betty and herfamily—fate or luck, or whatever one wishes to call it, chose to smile upon him once more.
He was prowling around when quite unexpectedly he found himself confronted by Andy Rawlinson. He had struck up quite a liking for the head cowboy, and the two walked along together.
Gradually they neared a patch of timber near the northern boundary of the ranch. The cowboy said he was looking for two calves that had strayed away.
"And it ain't no use to follow 'em into the woods on hossback," he explained.
"I have an object in coming here," declared Allen, at last. "I am watching out for Peter Levine." He felt he could trust Rawlinson.
"I thought as much," replied the head cowboy, with a chuckle. "Believe me, I wouldn't trust Levine out o' my sight, if I was the boss. I've seen him prowlin' around here several times."
"Then you think he has some secret motive in getting hold of the ranch?"
"Sure as shootin'. That feller is a bad one—take it from me."
"Please don't make too much noise around here," went on Allen. "I was thinking he might come again in the dark some night—to do a little prospecting, or something like that."
"I get you. It would be just like him. Quiet it is." And after that the pair spoke only in whispers.
Nothing was seen of the calves, and presently Rawlinson was on the point of going back, when, all at once, something occurred to make him remain.
The night was intensely dark; not a star twinkled through the storm clouds that scudded across the sky. Allen had just stubbed his toe on a projecting root and had muttered something uncomplimentary to the darkness of the night when an unusual sound caught the ears of the two young men and stopped them dead in their tracks.
Some one was coming through the brush. Some one, like Allen, had stumbled and was muttering under his breath.
"Shut up, can't you?" a second voice growled, and Allen's hand instinctively went to Rawlinson's arm to quiet him.
"Two of them," he thought exultantly, as he held himself and the cowboy against the trunk of a tree. "There may be some action after all."
The two strangers passed close enough to Allen and Rawlinson to have touched them. But they did not notice the young men.
Allen and the cowboy, their blood tingling with excitement, followed the pair, and when, some hundred yards on, the strangers stopped, they stopped too, keeping within the shadow of the trees.
The strangers were bending over some sort of paper which they were examining by the light of an electric torch.
"Here's the place, Jim," one of the men said, pointing first to the paper and then into the shadow of the woods. "There's gold running wild around here, man. I've tested the bed of the creek that runs down there, and it's chock full of yellow men. Why, if we can get hold of this ranch we're rich men—rich over night, I tell you!"
"Huh!" grunted the other, noncommittally. "How are you goin' to get hold of this ranch? Ain't done it yet, so's any one could notice it."
"No, that's where you come in, Jim," replied the other, and as he turned eagerly to his companion Allen and Rawlinson recognized the features of Peter Levine. "This woman, this Mrs. Nelson who owns the place, won't sell. I'm afraid she may have an idea that there's gold here. And she suspects me, for some reason."
The other man laughed unpleasantly.
"'Tain't hard for most of us to guess thereason for that, Pete." And at the sneer Levine gave a grunt.
"You must have your little joke, Jim," he said. "But now let's get down to business. The woman distrusts me and she has sent for this insolent cub lawyer—Washburn, his name is. He's been to see me already, the unwhipped pup," he went on, while in the shadows Allen's hands gripped themselves into fists, "trying to find out more about my client and John Josephs. Say, that's a good joke, Jim. Here they are after that imaginary ranchman, John Josephs, and my client who they think are crooks, when all the time little Peter Levine is their meat and they don't know it."
"You didn't let on you wuz the one that wanted the place?" questioned Jim, who was evidently able to appreciate this joke. "You wuz just the lawyer, and so nowise interested except jest in the fee?"
"Righto!" chuckled the other. "And a good-sized fee it will be if once I can get my hands on it."
"Which you ain't—yet," the other reminded him. "Get busy, Pete, and tell us your scheme. I don't want to be standin' around here all night." He gave an uneasy glance over his shoulder, and Allen and Rawlinson shrank still further into theshadows. They were not yet ready to make their presence known.
"All right," said Peter Levine, speaking hurriedly. "If you'll agree to my suggestion, you're in for easy money, Jim. All you have to do is to approach this Mrs. Nelson and make her an offer for the ranch—for yourself, you understand. She doesn't know you, and she may have become tired of mooning around here by now, and there's just a chance that she'll take you—that is, if you handle the cards right. No eagerness, you understand—just sort of offhand and careless, as if you didn't care much whether she took you or not."
"Huh!" said the other, with his noncommittal grunt. "Sounds easy, don't it? But what do I get out of it, ef I pull this deal off, eh?"
"Half of all the gold we find, Jim," said the other, waving his hand largely. "You'll never regret it if you put this thing through. You'll be a rich man."
"All right, I'm on," said Jim.
"Then I guess it's about time we got back," returned Peter Levine, and the two men moved as if to leave that vicinity.
"We don't want them to get away," Allen whispered excitedly to Rawlinson. "I want to get hold of that paper if possible."
"I reckon that will be easy, Washburn," returned the head cowboy. "I'm armed, you know, and I'll take my chances against those two rascals any time. Just follow me."
Without waiting for Allen to reply to this, Andy Rawlinson ran forward swiftly and silently, and in a few seconds had confronted the rascally pair. He had drawn his pistol, but he did not raise the weapon.
"Halt, both of you!" he cried, sharply. "Hands up there!"
"Hi! what's the meaning of this?" cried Levine, in astonishment. "Who are you?"
"It's Rawlinson, the head man here," muttered the man called Jim.
"Right!" answered the cowboy. "And here is a particular friend of yours, Levine," he added, as Allen stepped closer.
"Washburn!" muttered the rascally lawyer from Gold Run. And then he added quickly: "Have you been spying on us?"
"If we have, that's our affair," answered Allen coolly. "You'd better keep those hands up," he went on quickly, as he saw the two rascals making a move as if to start something.
"They'll keep 'em up all right enough," broke in Rawlinson. "I reckon you know me," he went on sternly. "And I'll stand for no foolin'."
"We haven't been doing anything wrong," came from Levine, lamely.
"Oh, no! Of course not!" said Allen sarcastically. "Only trying to get hold of a bonanza for next to nothing!"
"Wait a minute, Washburn," came from the head cowboy. "Just relieve 'em of their weapons first. Then maybe we'll be able to talk with more satisfaction."
With Rawlinson confronting them, Levine and his companion did not dare offer any resistance, and quickly Allen took their weapons from them and handed the firearms to Rawlinson.
"Now I'll thank you, Levine, for that paper you were examining so carefully just a few minutes ago," went on the young lawyer.
"This is robbery!" fumed Peter Levine. "I'll have you before the courts for this."
Allen eyed him steadily.
"Do you represent the law in this place?" he asked. "If so, I am sorry for the inhabitants. But there is no use in prolonging this discussion, Levine. I want that paper. Hand it over at once."
The rascally lawyer from Gold Run attempted to argue, but the sight of Rawlinson's weapon subdued him, and presently he handed over the crumpled sheet, which Allen seized with muchsatisfaction. During this transaction Jim remained sullenly silent.
"Now I guess that's about all," said Allen to the cowboy.
"If that's the case I guess we can bid you skunks good-evening," came quickly from Rawlinson. "Both of you beat it. And don't ever let me ketch you around here again."
"What about my gun?" came feebly from Jim.
"I'll send the guns over to Levine's office to-morrow," answered the head cowboy. "Now clear out, and be quick about it." And a moment later the two rascals stumbled away through the darkness.
"This is certainly what I call luck," cried Allen excitedly, as he gazed at the scrap of paper Levine had passed over. "Rawlinson, you have certainly helped me do a good night's work. If what that scoundrel said is true, this will mean a fortune for Betty and her mother."
"I'm glad I chanced along, Washburn," answered the head cowboy. "After this I think I'll set a guard. If it leaks out that there is gold on this ranch there will be all sorts of fellows beside those skunks trying to locate claims around here."
"Will you go up to the house with me?"
"No. I'll stick around here a while and see if those fellows come back. Besides, I want to see if I can get any trace of those strayed-away calves. You go ahead. You can tell me about it later. You can take their guns with you if you will."
Half running, half stumbling, in his eagerness, Allen reached the house, took the steps of the porch three at a time, and burst into the big homelike kitchen, where he found the family assembled.
"We've got 'em, folks!" he cried, waving the scrap of paper over his head, while they stared at him as though they thought he had gone mad. "I've been out hunting and brought home a prize. Come look at it."
He went over to the table beside which Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were sitting and laid the two captured pistols upon the table. Infected by his excitement, the girls crowded around, demanding an explanation.
THE GIRLS CROWDED AROUND, DEMANDING AN EXPLANATION.THE GIRLS CROWDED AROUND, DEMANDING AN EXPLANATION.
The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle.Page 163
"Pistols!" cried Betty, her eyes wide with dislike of the things. "Where did you get them, Allen?"
"Oh, just picked them off the trees by the roadside," said Allen airily. Then, suddenly becoming serious, he laid the scrap of paper beside the weapons on the table. "There," he said,dramatically, "is the key that may open your door to a fortune."
"A map," said Mrs. Nelson, her eyes glistening. "Oh, Allen, you've found out something wonderful. Tell us about it, please."
And so Allen recounted what had taken place during that fruitful half hour in the shadows of the trees. His audience listened breathlessly.
"Then this thing," said Mr. Nelson, taking the bit of paper which was crossed and criss-crossed with a number of lines and dotted with numbers until it seemed more like a jig-saw puzzle than a map, "is supposedly a map which will point out the probable location of gold."
"Yes, sir," said Allen.
"Then," said Mr. Nelson, feeling the thrill of adventure in his own blood, "we'll begin to look for this gold to-morrow. That is—" He paused and looked quizzically about at the group of tense young faces. "If everybody is willing."
"Oh-h," was all that they could say—just then.
The next day much excitement filled the ranch house. Betty declared that she had not slept a wink the night before, worrying for fear her father had not meant what he said.
But Mr. Nelson had meant what he had said, and there was Mrs. Nelson as eager as the girls to keep him to his word.
"The ranch is mine, you know," she laughingly reminded the girls. "And if there are gold mines on it I certainly intend to find them."
It was settled, and Mr. Nelson and Allen set out for town to make arrangements for the enterprise. The girls wanted to go too, but Mr. Nelson pointed out that he and Allen could probably do the work more quickly if they were alone, and it was upon this point and this point only that the girls consented to let them go.
"But that needn't keep us from the saddle," Mollie decided, as they watched the two mencanter swiftly away. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just longing for action."
"Ditto," cried Betty, then added with bright eagerness: "Girls, I know what we can do! Let's go down to the place where Allen found those two men last night. That's where the mines are, you know, and we might stake out claims or something."
"Your mother might have something to say to that," said Grace, making a funny face. "It isn't quite the thing to stake out claims on somebody else's property."
"Oh well, you needn't be so particular," cried Betty airily. "Come on, girls, who's with me?"
It seemed they all were, and, fairly dancing with excitement, they made their way to the corrals where Andy Rawlinson saddled their horses for them.
The horses seemed to catch some of the girls' excitement, and it was all that the latter could do to hold the animals in.
"It must be in the air," laughed Grace, as she pulled in Nabob sharply. "We've all got the gold fever."
"Let's give them their heads," said Mollie suddenly. "I'd like a regular gallop this morning."
"All right, let's go," sang out Betty, and in another minute they were off, the horses gallopinglike mad and the girls laughing and shouting in utter abandonment to their high spirits.
At this rate it took them only a few minutes to reach the spot where Allen had had his adventure the night before.
They reined in sharply, and Betty jumped down, throwing the reins over Nigger's neck and giving him a fond little pat on the flank.
"There, old boy," she said. "Go and eat some grass for yourself while we do a little prospecting. Girls," she added as they in turn dismounted and ran up to her, "from Allen's description, it must have been just about here that he stood." She indicated the bent tree with the great bowlder behind it that Allen had described to them. "And the two men must have stood in there among that heavy shrubbery somewhere."
"Then this is where they will begin work," cried Amy, a faint flush warming her face. "Oh, Betty, it all seems like a fairy story."
"Fairy story, nothing!" exclaimed Mollie. "This is a real, honest-to-goodness adventure story. My, it's a wonder Allen didn't get shot up last night," she added thoughtfully. "It must have taken nerve to stand here, listening to those old scoundrels and not knowing what minute they might find him out and fire upon him."
"I think Allen is perfectly wonderful, anyway,"said Grace, and Betty thrilled at the tribute. "He never seems to know what it is to be afraid. And he always gets what he wants, too."
"And to think that 'John Josephs' never existed!" chuckled Betty. "Peter Levine must have quite a good deal of imagination."
"Well, what's the use of standing here?" said Amy, after a moment of silent musing. "Let's look around a little bit and see what we can see."
So for a while they thrashed around in the bush, accomplishing very little besides scaring some rabbits and woodchucks into their holes. They found the tiny creek Peter Levine had spoken of, and they gazed with interest at its muddy, sluggish water.
"Who would ever think there was gold in the bottom of that?" whispered Mollie.
When they finally became convinced that there was nothing more to be seen they started reluctantly home again.
"Let's go around by the mine and see how Meggy and her dad are coming on," suggested Betty, and so they changed their course a little to include the mine.
Meggy was glad to see them as usual but they could tell by the weariness of her bearing that there was no good news as far as she was concerned and they had not the heart to tell her their own.
"Can't you come over to the ranch for a little while?" asked Betty, eager to do some little thing toward cheering the girl. But Meggy shook her head.
"I can't leave father—even for a little while," she said sadly. "He ain't feeling well, and I'm afraid if his luck doesn't change pretty soon I—I—won't have any dad——" she choked and turned away. Betty was beside her in a moment, her arm about the girl's shoulders.
"We're awfully sorry, honey," she said compassionately. "We didn't know that your father was feeling bad. Is he—is he really sick?"
"Sick of life, I guess," said Meggy, conquering her emotion and instantly ashamed of it. "I've heered of people dyin' of a broken heart, an' that's what dad's doin', I guess. Bad luck can kill you if it keeps up long enough."
The girls rode home saddened by this brief encounter. It seemed almost wrong for them to be happy when Dan Higgins was "dyin' of a broken heart" and Meggy, brave, splendid girl that she was, had almost lost hope.
"If only everybody in the world could be happy," said Grace plaintively. "It just spoilsall your fun when you know that other people are miserable."
"The worst of it is," said Betty soberly, "that with all this luck coming our way we can't pass on a single little bit of it to that poor girl and her dad. If only they weren't so proud——" The sentence trailed off into a sigh, and she gazed pensively out over the plain.
"Well, there's no use of crying over it," said Mollie briskly. "We may find a way of being useful to Meggy yet, and until then, as my mother says, 'let's be canty with thinking about it.' Oh, look, girls, here comes Allen. I wonder what kind of news he has."
They galloped gayly to meet him, and Allen thought they made a very pretty picture as they swept up to him.
"Well," he said as they surrounded him, "everything is settled and they are to begin work to-morrow morning. Our news has aroused great excitement in town, and there's a rush to establish claims near that end of our ranch. Better give your friend, Dan Higgins, a hint, so that he can get in first. So long. I'm on to the house for the map, and then I'm going to join Mr. Nelson again in town."
So he dashed off in the direction of the ranch and the girls wheeled and galloped back in thedirection they had come—back toward Dan Higgins' mine to warn him to stake a new claim before others reached the spot.
They were so excited that it was hard to make their purpose clear at first, but when the old man and Meggy comprehended what they were trying to tell them, they were immediately galvanized to action.
"I'll show you the best place," Betty eagerly volunteered.
Mollie offered to stay behind and give the old man her horse, and in a minute Betty and Dan Higgins were galloping over the plain to that part of the ranch where the new gold mines were to be. They had not far to go, and they saw with relief that they were the first on the spot.
Betty pointed out the place where Peter Levine had said there was gold running wild, and old Dan Higgins staked his claim as near to the place as he could without actually encroaching upon the ranch itself.
With trembling fingers he printed on two big placards the exact dimensions of his claim, and, with Betty's help, nailed them to two trees at the two extreme ends of his new property, and began to dig.
"Thar," he sighed, after a few moments, taking off his hat to mop the perspiration from hisforehead, "I've made another bargain with luck, an' mebbe this time I'll win."
"I'm sure you will," cried Betty, with conviction. "If there is gold on our ranch, and we are sure there is, then there is almost certain to be some on your property also. Oh, Mr. Dan Higgins, I so dearly hope that there is!" This was so evidently a cry straight from her earnest young heart that the keen eyes of the hardened old miner filled with tears and he patted Betty's head with an unsteady hand.
"You're a mighty fine little gal," he said finally. "Ef an old man's gratitude means anything to you, you sure have got it. I've a sort of sure feelin' you've changed the luck for Meggy and me."
They were silent on the ride back to the mine, but as they reached the last stretch of the trail that led down to it the old man shifted in his saddle and looked at Betty earnestly.
"An' ef Meggy's mother was alive," he said simply, "she would thank you, too."
As Allen had predicted, there was a general rush on the part of the miners to establish claims on the property adjoining the ranch, and the girls congratulated themselves over and over again that they had reached Dan Higgins with the glad tidings in time for him to secure the best location.
All day long the girls were in the saddle, hovering about the new gold diggings, fascinated at the way new mines seemed to spring up over night.
Next to those on their own property, they were most interested in Dan Higgins' mine and in their hearts they would really rather have had him find gold than to find it themselves.
"They need it so much more than we do," Betty said anxiously. "If Dan Higgins and Meggy have drawn another blank I don't know what they will do."
In the midst of all this confusion and excitement, Amy received the program of the benefit concert given at the Hostess House for which she had sent home some time before. They had almost forgotten the hermit and it was with a shock of surprise that they remembered they had not seen him since the new mining operations. Before that they had run across him quite often attempting to help Meggy and Dan in his rather eccentric way.
"Guess he must have been scared off by the crowd," said Mollie. "Too much excitement for the old boy."
The four of them were sitting on the large front porch of the house, still in their riding habits, while their horses, at the foot of the steps, stamped their impatience to be off again. Nothing but the arrival of the mail could have drawn the girls from the fascination of the new gold diggings. They hardly took time to eat; and as for sleep, well, they took that in between times!
Now Grace called to Amy, making room on the step beside her.
"Come over here and show us your program," she said, extracting a bit of candy from some hidden recess somewhere about her person and popping it into her mouth. "I'm anxious to see what that violinist's name was."
Amy obeyed, and as Grace opened the program Mollie and Betty drew closer and peeped over her shoulder.
"Concerto—Liszt," read Grace, her finger pointing down the page. "No, that isn't it. That's for the piano. Hold on, here we are. Chopin—Nocturne—Paul Loup, violinist. There he is. Now will you please tell me how that helps us to find out anything about the hermit?" She paused with her finger still pointing to the name and looked up at them inquiringly.
"We-el," said Betty thoughtfully, "it doesn't help very much, I must admit. It doesn't prove that Paul Loup is our Hermit of Gold Run. Only that funny feeling I have of having seen him before and heard him play——"
"I tell you what we'll do!" Mollie snapped her fingers decisively. "It's a long chance and it may not work at all but—are you game to try it?" She paused and regarded the expectant girls eagerly.
"Maybe," said Betty, noncommittally. "You might tell us the idea first."
"Listen," cried Mollie. "My idea is that if we take the hermit by surprise, call him by his name of Paul Loup. Why—" She paused, and the light of inspiration filled her eyes. "I could even speak to him in French——"
As the girls caught her full meaning they looked at her admiringly.
"I shouldn't wonder if that plan would work," said Betty swiftly. "Why can't we go now? Dinner won't be ready for a couple of hours."
"Right you are," cried Mollie, taking the four steps at one jump and springing upon her astonished horse. "Come on, girls, are you with us?"
"We'll have to lead 'em a merry pace," said Betty to Mollie a moment later as they galloped abreast up the road. "If we don't get them there in a hurry they're apt to get cold feet and think we're crazy."
"Maybe we are," chuckled Mollie, urging Old Nick on to even greater speed. "I've had a suspicion that way several times before."
It was Betty's turn to chuckle.
"So have I!" she said, adding with a sigh of resignation: "But oh, it is so much fun. Look behind, Mollie. Are they still coming?"
"Strong," reported Mollie, with a glance over her shoulder. Then, as they reached the trail that led through the woods, she reined in a little, motioning for Betty to take the lead. "You know the trail better," she said.
Over the rough woodland trail their progress necessarily became slower, a fact which the girls did not relish at all. It gave them time to reflecton what a really rash adventure they had embarked, and any but the Outdoor Girls might have turned back even at this last minute.
However, curiosity, together with some vague hope that they might become of service to this strange sad fellow, urged them on. If Paul Loup and the Hermit of Gold Run were really one and the same person, then surely there was a real mystery which they might in some way help to unravel.
They did not linger any longer on the way than was absolutely necessary, for the terrible experience they had had with the timber wolves soon after their arrival had made them suspicious of the forest, and try as they would they could not suppress an uncomfortable desire to search every shadow for some sinister, lurking presence.
In vain had the cowboys on the ranch assured them that wolves were very scarce in this part of the forest, especially in the summer, and that they had had an unusual and unique experience. As Amy had said, one experience like that was enough to last a lifetime.
They came in sight of the cabin without mishap, however, and they tethered their horses a little farther from the house than usual, so that their stamping and neighing might not frighten the hermit away.
Then they made their way with as little noise as possible along the narrow path.
"Suppose he isn't at home?" whispered Mollie to Betty.
"Then we're out of luck, that's all," returned Betty cheerfully.
But the hermit was at home. They could see him moving about, and as they came nearer they smelled an appetizing odor of frying bacon, as though he were cooking his dinner.
"Hope he asks us to stay to lunch," said Grace, and the girls giggled nervously.
"We'll be lucky if he doesn't slam the door in our faces," said Amy pessimistically.
It was Mollie who knocked this time—and it was no timid little rap either, but a good, hearty rat-at-tat, that brought the occupant of the cabin to the door in a hurry. He had the frying pan still clutched in his hand and on his long narrow face was such a look of dread that the girls felt sorry for him.
"Well," he said, the emotion within him making his voice sound stern and forbidding, "what is it you wish? It is not raining to-day as it was that other time." He gazed significantly up at the cloudless sky seen in little blue patches through the trees, and the girls flushed, partly from embarrassment and partly from anger. Somehow,they had not been prepared to have him take this attitude, and they resented it.
For a moment they stood miserably tongue-tied. Even their usually quick-witted Little Captain seemed suddenly to have been stricken speechless. They were just about to turn and run when Mollie saved the day for them.
Pushing forward through the group she confronted the man on the door step.
"Vous êtes Paul Loup, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?" she said in a clear voice, gazing up at him fearlessly.
While the girls gasped at her temerity a most astounding thing happened. The man dropped the frying pan and it clattered to the floor, its contents spilling out greasily. While they looked he seemed to crumple, shrivel, and his eyes stared at them glassily out of his white mask of a face.
"Mon Dieu!" he cried hoarsely, staggering back into the shack. "You have found me! But I swear to you I did not kill him.Mon Dieu, I could not kill my brother!"
Hardly able to believe that they were actually living this weird thing, the girls crowded into the shack after the stricken man and found that he had sunk upon a bench and covered his face with his hands.
Strangely enough, though it had been Mollie who had precipitated this thing, it was Betty who now took the lead. Softly she went over to the shrinking man and put a gentle hand on his shoulder.
"You say you did not kill your brother?" she questioned in so calm a voice that the girls marveled at her. "You are sure you did not?"
"No! no!" cried the man again raising his haggard face, deep-lined with the marks of suffering, "No—I am not sure. Can you not see? It is that that is killing me. Yet in my sane moments I know that he was dead. He lay there, so white, so still, with only that red, red stream of blood to mar his whiteness. I leaned down,I listened to his heart——" The man had evidently forgotten the presence of the girls, engulfed as he was in the horror of the incident he related. Once more he was living the tragedy, and the girls, tense, strained, horrified, lived it with him.
"I listened to his heart," the man repeated, his arms stretched out before him, his long, delicate hands gripped with a fierceness that made the knuckles go white. "There was no beating. I put my face close to his mouth to see if there was breath. But he had stopped breathing—forever!
"My heart went cold. I seized him by the shoulders. I called him by his name—that brother that I had loved! Oh, how I had loved him. I begged him to come back to me, to open those gray lips that a moment before had been beautiful with life—to speak to me—and all the time——" his hand relaxed and pointed to the floor and the girls followed the movement fascinated—"there kept spreading and spreading on the rug a deep red stain—my brother's blood!Mon Dieu!And when I staggered to my feet I found that the horrible stuff had clung to my fingers—they were dark and sticky—the fingers of a murderer! I went mad then, I think. I rushed from the house, from the place. One thing only was in my mind. To get away—to get away from Paris, that accursed city——" Hepaused, staring at the floor, and the girls waited, hardly daring to move for fear they would break the spell.
"The rest is like a bad dream to me," the man continued in a weary voice. "Ghost-ridden, haunted, I came to this country incognito—under what you call an assumed name. For a short time I stayed in New Orleans——"
"But your violin!" Betty interrupted in a voice that amazed her, it seemed so little and weak. "Surely you were under contract."
The man turned on her what was almost a pitying look from his sunken eyes.
"I could not play," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "To have gone to my manager would have been like going to the hangman—the electric chair, what you have in this country. No, mademoiselle, I was a murderer, a man hunted by his fellowmen. There was but one thing for me to do—to hide, to dodge about like a rabbit from a pack of baying dogs. Hide!" he added bitterly. "I could not hide from myself.
"Always when the night grows dark and the wind it makes to howl around this place I can hear my brother's voice uplifted in anger. We quarreled over something my uncle had said—a foolish quarrel. He called me liar, and I—something snapped in my brain, I think, and fora moment everything went red. There was a wine bottle on the table—we had been drinking—blindly I struck out with it—— Now, when the darkness comes and the wildcat calls into the night with a scream like a soul in torment, I hear again the tinkling of that bottle as it shattered, the short groan, the falling of a heavy body.
"It is a wonder that I have not gone mad," he said. "Many a time I have prayed that I might or that I might find courage to end this miserable life and go to join my brother. But I am a coward, a coward——" His voice lowered till it was almost inaudible and tears trickled through the long white fingers. "I have not the courage even to die. There is a tribunal above that I should have to face, more just, more awful, than any man-made law. There you have what Paul Loup has become."
"But you must not speak that way," said Betty, whose quick mind had been forging ahead while the man had been speaking. "It is one thing to kill a man deliberately, and quite another to kill in hot blood, blindly. Besides," she added eagerly, "you are not even sure that you did kill your brother. Did you—have you seen the papers since—since you ran away?"
"No," said the man. His tone was dead, hopeless. "I was afraid of what I might find there.He was dead, Mademoiselle," he added wearily. "When I say that there is a doubt of that it is simply to give myself one little excuse for continuing to live. He did not move, he did not breathe. Ah, yes, he was dead, quite dead."
There was silence for a moment while Betty thought rapidly. Amy and Mollie and Grace stared wide-eyed with the feeling that they were witnessing some tremendous, swift-moving drama.
"Of course," said the man, breaking the silence abruptly, his somber eyes upon Betty, "there is but one thing left for me now to do. I shall surrender to the authorities—a thing which I should have done long ago. Or," he added grimly, "you might rather go with me now. If you left me I might attempt to escape—so you will think, Mademoiselle?"
There was a lift at the end of the sentence that made it a question and, startled, the girls looked at Betty to see what she would say.
The Little Captain herself was startled. Evidently the man thought they had been tracking him, had used their knowledge to trap him.
"Oh, it isn't as you think!" she cried impulsively. "We never had the slightest little wish to harm you. And please, please," she added earnestly, "don't give yourself up to the authorities, or do anything rash until you hear from me again. You may not believe me—I wouldn't blame you if you didn't——" she went on shyly, for the man had risen and was staring at her, "but all we want to do is to help you if we can——" she broke off confusedly for the look in the man's eyes silenced her.
"You know I am Paul Loup," he cried hoarsely. "You have heard my story, my confession from my own lips, and still you say that you wish me no harm! Who are you? what are you? what do you want of me?" He had advanced toward them, and in a panic the girls moved back toward the open door. Only Betty stood fearlessly in his path.
"We are the Outdoor Girls, and we are living just at present on Gold Run Ranch," she said quietly. "We found out who you were because you were good enough to play for us at a benefit we gave at the Hostess House at Camp Liberty some time ago. And we came up here because we thought that you were in trouble and that we might help you. If we can't help you, I'm sorry." And with head bravely uplifted Betty turned toward the door.
She had almost reached it when he called to her.
"You are a brave girl," said Paul Loup slowly,his eyes intent on Betty's pretty face, "How do you know that I—the murderer—will not kill you also for this knowledge you have of me?"
Betty heard the frightened gasp of the girls behind her, but, strangely enough, she herself felt no fear.
"You wouldn't do that," she said, her clear gaze holding his burning one. "You could not wish harm to a friend."
"Is that what you wish me to consider you—a friend?" asked the strange man, feeling suddenly as though something warm and vital had closed about his heart.
"If you will," replied Betty, reaching out her hand. "I would like very much to be."
But Paul Loup, for all he was a murderer and an outcast, was also a Frenchman. With a quick gesture, ignoring her outstretched hand he caught her in his arms, held her there for a minute, then, releasing her, kissed her gently, first on one cheek, then on the other.
"I had forgotten there were kind hearts in the world," he murmured brokenly, turning from her. "You have restored my faith.Au revoir, my friend."
Someway, somehow, the girls found themselves outside that little cabin, making their way blindly down the path to where their horses were tethered.In a daze they mounted and rode off down the trail.
When they came to the open trail they found that Betty was crying, openly, unashamed. Mollie pushed a handkerchief into her hand, but the Little Captain did not seem to notice it. She stared straight ahead, her cheeks burning, the tears rolling unchecked down her face.
"Never mind, honey," said Mollie, trying to steady her voice. "It was hard for you, I know; but I would give anything I own to have made him feel that way about me. I don't care if he did commit murder. I'm for him—strong."
"To be all alone," said Betty as though Mollie had not spoken, "and so heart-hungry that a little sympathy from a stranger——" A sob choked the rest of her sentence. But a moment later she faced the girls with a light of resolve shining in her eyes.
"Girls," she said, "I don't believe Paul Loup is a murderer, and some way or other I'm going to prove it. A man like that just couldn't commit murder. I know it!"
Certainly the girls had never expected such startling developments from Mollie's simple little ruse to find out who the mysterious Hermit of Gold Run was. In the beginning it had been something of a lark, and they never dreamed that their interest and curiosity would uncover such a tragedy.
However, they were not at all in sympathy with Betty's conviction that Paul Loup had not really killed his brother.
"I don't see how you get that way, Betty," Grace argued hotly. "We all feel as sorry for the hermit as you do, but we have his own word for it that he really killed his brother."
"He did seem to be pretty sure of it," said Amy, with a quaver in her voice. "When the wind rose last night and wailed around the house, I got all creepy thinking of him alone up in that dreary little shack, living that whole horrible thing over again."
It was the next day, and the girls were in the saddle, as usual. They had visited the new gold diggings and found everybody excited and optimistic, though no gold had been uncovered as yet. And now they were trotting slowly along the open road, their thoughts busy with the startling happenings of the day before.
"It's a wonder he doesn't go crazy," shuddered Mollie, taking up the thread where Amy had dropped it. "I know I would. What was it he said about being 'ghost-ridden?'"
"I don't believe he is ghost-ridden at all, except by his imagination," said Betty positively. "I think if he had taken the trouble to look at the newspapers before he decided that he was a hunted man he might have saved himself a lot of trouble and unhappiness."
"Goodness, how do you get that way, Betty?" Grace said irritably. "The man ought to be the best judge of whether he killed anybody or not."
"Well," said the Little Captain stubbornly, "it seems to me it would have had to be a pretty heavy bottle with a pretty strong arm behind it to kill a man with one blow. And a scalp wound bleeds horribly, you know."
The girls looked a little thoughtful, and for the first time since Betty had advanced her theorythey began to think that there might possibly be something in it after all.
"That's right," said Amy, and then went on to relate an experience she had had when skylarking with Sarah Stonington.
"She had hold of that heavy rocking chair we have in the library," Amy said. "She was trying to pull it away from me, and I was hanging on to it for dear life.
"Then suddenly I let go, and Aunt Sarah—she's pretty heavy, you know—lost her balance as the chair swung forward, and fell over backward, striking her head on the sharp edge of the piano."
"Goodness, you must have been scared," commented Mollie.
"'Scared!'" echoed Amy. "Why, I was struck dumb with terror. I thought I had killed her. She lay there all white and funny, and her head was bleeding dreadfully——"
"There's your scalp wound for you," Betty pointed out. "Just a little scratch will make the whole place look like a shambles."
"But what happened to your aunt Sarah, Amy," pursued Mollie interestedly. "We know she didn't die."
"Well, I should say she didn't!" said Amy roundly. "She was as good as ever in ten minutes and laughing at me for being so frightened. But we had to have the rug sent away to get the stain out," she added significantly.
"Huh," said the girls, and once more became thoughtful.
"But suppose you were right, Betty?" said Mollie, after a while. "Suppose our poor musician is torturing himself by thinking he has committed a crime that he hasn't? What could you possibly do about it?"
"I don't just know," Betty admitted truthfully.
"We might ask your father," Grace hazarded, but Betty turned on her, startled.
"That's just the thing I don't want to do!" she said hurriedly. "Dad is just the best and most easy-going father in the world, but he has a terribly stern sense of justice. I'm not sure he wouldn't think we were making ourselves—oh, what do you call it——"
"Accessoriesafter the fact?" suggested Mollie, helpfully.
"That's it," said Betty. "He might argue that we were committing a crime ourselves by helping to hide a criminal——"
"Well, maybe we are, at that," said Grace, uncomfortably.
"They can put you in jail for that sort of thing,can't they?" added Amy, a suggestion which certainly did not add to the cheerfulness of the atmosphere.
"I don't care," said Betty stoutly. "I'd rather go to jail than deliver a man to a doubtful justice—especially when he may really be innocent. Anyway," she added, reasonably: "who is there to know that we went to Paul Loup's cabin the other day? I'm very sure no one saw us go in or come out, and if we keep quiet no one will have to know. That's why I didn't even want to take dad into our confidence."
"But if our musician is, as you think, innocent," Grace insisted, "then your father could do more for him than we."
"But we don't know that he is innocent. That's only my idea," said Betty. "And dad would probably think it was a very foolish one. Maybe it is, for all I know," she added dubiously.
"How about Allen?" said Grace suddenly after another rather long silence. "He would certainly sympathize with our poor hermit and, being a lawyer, he would probably be able to think up some way that we might establish the man's innocence or guilt without giving away his whereabouts. There, how's that for a brilliant idea?" she finished proudly.
"I had already thought of that," admittedBetty, while the girls turned amused eyes upon her. "But I was almost afraid to suggest it."
"Maybe Allen would agree with your father that we, ought to turn him over to justice," said Mollie, but Betty shook her head vigorously.
"Never! Not Allen!" she declared fervently. "He believes the other fellow innocent until he is proved guilty."
"So does the law," said Amy wisely.
"Yes, but the law has sent many an innocent man to prison nevertheless," retorted Mollie. "We don't always find justice in the courts."
"Hear, hear," cried Grace. "Get a soap box, Mollie."
"Then it is settled that we are to tell Allen, is it?" said Betty eagerly. "I'm sure he will find some way to help us."
"If we can pry him loose from the mining outfit," laughed Mollie. "He seems to have gold fever worse than any of them."
But Allen had been busy, during the intervals when he could tear himself away from the fascination of the mining operations, on some legal matters.
Mrs. Nelson, and her husband also, had feared that these numerous relatives of her great uncle, of whose existence she herself had scarcely beenaware, might see fit to contest the old man's will especially when it became apparent that his property at this time was far more valuable than it had been at the time of his death.
Allen, after considerable investigation, was able to set their fears at rest upon this point, however, by asserting that the old gentleman had made only one will and that he thought it very doubtful under the circumstances that the relatives would take the case into the courts. They were not Mr. Barcolm's children and grandchildren, as Lizzie had supposed, but distant relatives whom at one time and another the old man had befriended and gathered about him, but who had later quarreled with their benefactor.
"Anyway," Mrs. Nelson decided happily, "if we really do find some gold I will give each one of them a share of it, even to the littlest."
On this particular afternoon the girls found Allen, not at the mines as they supposed they would, but at the ranch house busy with some papers.
When they besought him to come out for a ride, he hesitated at first, saying that he ought to get his work done before night. But they finally persuaded him not to let duty interfere with pleasure.
"All right," he surrendered at last. "If youwill get one of the boys to saddle Lightning for me I will be with you in ten minutes."
He kept his promise, and in a short time was listening to the strangest tale he had ever heard. As he listened his face became more and more serious.
"But, girls, this thing sounds impossible!" he burst forth, finally. "Are you telling me that you, alone and unprotected, managed to inveigle this murderer into confessing his crime to you? Gee, it's—it's unbelievable! The four of you would be a great help to me in my profession," he added, with a chuckle.
"I didn't think you would take it as a joke," said Betty, reproachfully.
"It isn't a joke," returned Allen, his face grave again. "It's a mighty serious business, if you will excuse my saying so. It makes me sick when I think of the chance you took." He was speaking to all the girls, but his look of concern was for Betty.
"Oh, we don't want to think about ourselves," said the latter, impatiently. "We've done a good deal more dangerous things than that in our lives. We thought—we hoped—you might help us to prove his innocence——"
"But the man's guilty," said Allen, surprised. "We have that by his own confession——"
With a glance of despair at the others, Betty interrupted him.
"Listen to me, Allen," she said. "This is what I think——" And she went on to tell him her idea while he listened, at first with a smile of faint amusement on his lips which gradually changed to grave admiration as he realized Betty's unfailing faith in the basic goodness of human nature.
"I hope you are right, little girl," he said at last, when she had finished and was looking at him earnestly. "I'd like to believe you were right——"
"But you can't?" she finished for him, trying to stifle the disappointment in her heart.
"No, I can't," he answered truthfully. "When a man is so sure of his crime that he flees his own country, gives up money and fame to escape the law, you may be pretty sure that his crime was a real one."
"But, Allen, you don't know the man," Betty pleaded, pretty close to tears in the bitterness of her disappointment. "No one could make the kind of music he does and be truly wicked. I wish you could have met him. I think you would have tried a little harder to help him."
"I'm willing to help him, if I can," Allen answered gently, feeling that he would be almostwilling to step into this poor musician's place if he might have Betty plead for him as she had just done for the other. "What is it you would like me to do?"
Then suddenly the great idea popped full grown into Betty's head.
"I have it!" she cried. "Why not write to Paul Loup's manager in New York and ask him for particulars?"
"Capital!" replied Allen approvingly, while the girls looked at their Little Captain admiringly. "If anybody ought to be able to give us information, he surely is the one."
"And, Allen," begged Betty, reining her horse close to Allen and laying a timid hand on his arm, "you won't even whisper a word of what we've told you—not for your foolish old law, or anything else?"
"Of course not," said Allen, smiling at her. "We have to give the poor fellow his chance."