Why, of course they could not keep it to themselves! At least, the three
girls could not. They simply had to tell Miss Cullam and Tom, and the
other Ardmore freshmen and Ann of their discovery.
So every day after that the visitors from the East "went prospecting."
They searched up and down the creek for several miles, turning over
every bit of "sparkling" rock they saw and bringing back to the camp
innumerable specimens of quartz and mica, until Mr. Hammond declared
they were all "gold mad."
"Why, this place has been petered out for years and years," he said. "Do
you suppose I want my actors leaving me to stake out claims along
Freezeout Creek, and spoiling my picture? Stop it!"
The idea of gold hunting had got into the girls, however, as well as
into Flapjack Peters and his daughter. The other Western men laughed at
them. Gold this side of the Hualapai Range had "petered out." They
looked upon the old-timer as a little cracked on the subject. And, of
course, these "tenderfoots" did not know anything about "color" anyway.
Even Miss Cullam searched along the creek banks and up into the low
hills that surrounded the valley.
"Who knows," said the teacher of mathematics, "but that I may find a
fortune, and so be able to eschew the teaching of the young for the rest
of my life? Gorgeous!"
"But pity the 'young'," begged Jennie Stone. "Think, Miss Cullam, how we
would miss you."
"I can hardly imagine that you would suffer," declared the mathematics
teacher. "Really!"
"We might not miss the mathematics," said Rebecca, wickedly. "But you
are the very best chaperon who ever 'beaued' a party of girls into the
wilds. Isn't that the truth, Ardmores?"
"It is!" they cried. "Hurrah for Miss Cullam!"
Ruth, however, despite the discovery of the possibly gold-bearing
quartz, was not to be coaxed from her work. Each morning she shut
herself into the "sanctum sanctorum" and worked faithfully at the
scenario. Likewise, Rebecca stuck to the typewriter, for she had work to
do for Mr. Hammond now, as well as for Ruth.
Some part of each afternoon Ruth took for exercise in the open. And
usually she took this exercise on ponyback.
Riding alone out of the shallow gorge one day, she struck into what
seemed to her a bridlepath which led into "dips" and valleys in the
hills which she had never before seen. Nothing more had been observed of
either the lone horseman or the supposed squaw for so many days that
their presence about Freezeout Camp had quite slipped Ruth Fielding's
mind.
Besides, there were so many men at the camp now that to have fear of
strangers was never in the girl's thoughts. She urged her hardy pony
into a gallop and sped down hill and up in a most invigorating dash.
Such a ride cleared the cobwebs out of her head and revivified mind and
body alike. At the end of this dash, when she halted the pony in an
arroyo to breathe, she was cheerful and happy and ready to laugh at
anything.
She laughed first at her own nose! It really was ridiculous to think
that she smelled wood smoke.
But the pungent odor of burning wood grew more and more distinct. She
gazed swiftly all around her, seeing no campfire, of course, in this
shallow gulch. But suddenly she gathered up the bridle reins tightly and
stared, wide-eyed, off to the left. A faint column of blue smoke rose
into the air--she could not be mistaken.
"Here's a pretty kettle of fish!" thought Ruth. "Another camping party?
Who can be living so near Freezeout without giving us a call? The lone
horseman? The Indian squaw? Or both?"
She half turned her pony to ride back. It might be some ill-disposed
person camping here in secret. Flapjack and Min had intimated there were
occasionally ne'er-do-wells found in the range--outlaws, or ill-disposed
Indians.
Still, it was cowardly to run from the unknown. Ruth had tasted real
peril on more than one occasion. She touched the spur to her pony
instead of pulling him around, and rode on.
There was a curve in the arroyo and when she came into the hidden part
of the basin the mystery was instantly explained. A fairly substantial
cabin--recently built it was evident--stood near a thicket of mesquite.
The door was hung on leather hinges and was wide open. Yet there must be
some occupant, for the smoke rose through the hole in the roof. It
struck Ruth, for several reasons, that the cabin had been built by an
amateur.
She held in her pony again and might, after all, have wheeled him and
ridden away without going closer, if the little beast had not betrayed
her presence by a shrill whinny. Immediately the pony's challenge was
answered from the mesquite where the unknown's horse was picketed.
Ruth was startled again. No sound came from the cabin, nor could she
discover anybody watching her from the jungle. She rode nearer to the
cabin door.
It was then that the unshod hoofs of her pony announced her presence to
whoever was within. A voice shouted suddenly:
"Hullo!"
The tone in which the word was uttered drove all the fear out of Ruth
Fielding's mind. She knew that the owner of such a voice must be a
gentleman.
She rode her pony up to the open door and peered into the dimly lighted
interior. There was no window in the cabin walls.
"Hullo yourself!" she rejoined. "Are you all alone?"
"Sure I am. I'm a hermit--the Hermit Prospector. And I bet you are one of
those moving picture girls."
A laugh accompanied the words. Ruth then saw the man, extended at full
length in a rude bunk. One foot was bare and it and the ankle was
swathed in bandages.
"Sorry I can't get up to do the honors. Doctor's ordered me to stay in
bed till this ankle recovers."
"Oh! Is it broken?" cried Ruth, slipping out of her saddle and throwing
the reins on the ground before the pony so that he would stand.
"Wrenched. But a bad one. I'm likely to stay here a while."
"And all alone?" breathed Ruth.
"Quite so. Not a soul to swear at, nor a cat to kick. My horse is out
there in the mesquite and I suppose he's tangled up----"
"I'll fix that in a moment," cried Ruth. "He'd better be tethered here
on the hillside before your door. The grazing is good."
"Well--yes. I suppose so."
Ruth was off into the mesquite in a flash. She found the whinnying pony.
And she discovered another thing. The animal's lariat had been untangled
and his grazing place changed several times.
"You've hobbled around a good bit since your ankle was hurt," she said
accusingly, when she returned to the cabin door. "And see all the
firewood you've got!"
"I expect I did too much after I strained the ankle," the man admitted
gravely. "That's why it is so bad now. But when a man's alone----"
"Yes. When he _is_ alone," repeated Ruth, eyeing him thoughtfully.
He was a young man and as roughly dressed as any of the teamsters at
Freezeout Camp. There was, too, several days' growth of beard upon his
face. But he was a good looking chap, with rather a humorous cast of
countenance. And Ruth was quite sure that he was educated and at present
in a strange environment.
"Have you plenty of water?" she asked suddenly, for she had seen the
spring several rods away.
"Lots," declared "the hermit." "See! I've a drip."
He pointed with pride to the arrangement of a rude shelf beside the head
of his bunk with a twenty-quart galvanized pail upon it. A pin-hole had
been punched in this pail near the bottom, and the water dripped from
the aperture steadily into a pint cup on the floor.
"Would you believe it," he said, with a smile, "the water, after falling
so far through the air, is quite cooled."
"What do you do when the pail is empty?" the girl asked quickly.
"Oh! I shall be able to hobble to the spring by that time. If the cup
gets full and I don't need the water, I pour it back."
Ruth stood on tiptoe and looked into the pail. Then she brought water
from the spring in her own canteen, making several trips, and filled the
pail to the brim.
"Now, what do you eat, and how do you get it?" she asked him.
"My dear young lady!" he cried, "you must not worry about me. I shall be
all right. I was just going to cook some bacon when you rode up. That is
why I made up a fresh fire. I shall be all right, I assure you."
Ruth insisted upon rumaging through his stores and cooking the hermit a
hearty meal. She marked the fact that certain delicacies were here that
the ordinary prospector would not have packed into the wilds. Likewise,
there was vastly more tea and sugar than one person could use in a long
time.
Ruth was quite sure "the hermit" was not a native of the West. She was
exceedingly puzzled as she went about her kindly duties. Then, of a
sudden, she was actually startled as well as puzzled. In a corner of the
cabin she found hanging on a nail a rubber bathcap on which was
stenciled "Ardmore." It was one of the gymnasium caps from her college.