Ruth Fielding at Silver Ranch Part 26

"That's my business. I am going," returned The Fox, shortly.

"Why, you can't do any such thing," began Jane Ann; but Mary turned to Ike and proffered her request:

"Isn't there room for me in the car, Mr. Stedman?"

"Why, I reckon so, Miss," agreed Ike, slowly.

"And won't there be a pony for me to ride from the river to Tintacker?"

"I reckon we can find one."

"Then I'm going," declared Mary, getting promptly into the tonneau with the doctor and Sally. "I've just as good a reason for being over there-maybe a better reason for going-than Ruth Fielding."

None of her girl friends made any comment upon this statement in Mary's hearing; but Madge declared, as the car chugged away from the ranch-house:

"I'll never again go anywhere with that girl unless she has a change of heart! She is just as mean as she can be."

"She's the limit!" said Heavy, despondently. "And I used to think she wasn't a bad sort."

"And once upon a time," said Helen Cameron, gravely, "I followed her leaders.h.i.+p to the neglect of Ruth. I really thought The Fox was the very smartest girl I had ever met."

"But she couldn't hold the Up and Doing Club together," quoth the stout girl.

"Ruth's Sweetbriars finished both the Upedes and the Fussy Curls,"

laughed Madge, referring to the two social clubs at Briarwood Hall, which had been quite put-out of countenance by the Sweetbriar a.s.sociation which had been inaugurated by the girl from the Red Mill.

"And The Fox has never forgiven Ruth," declared Heavy.

"What she means by forcing herself on this party at Tintacker, gets my time!" exclaimed Jane Ann.

"Sally will make her walk a chalk line if she goes over there with her,"

laughed Helen. "Think of her and Ike getting married without a word to anybody!"

Jane Ann laughed, too, at that. "Sally whispered to me that she never would have taken Ike so quick if it hadn't been for what we did at the party the other night. She was afraid some of the other girls around here would see what a good fellow Ike was and want to marry him. She's always intended to take him some time, she said; but it was Ruth that settled the affair at that time."

"I declare! Ruth _does_ influence a whole lot of folk, doesn't she?"

murmured Heavy. "I never saw such a girl."

And that last was the comment Dr. Burgess made regarding the girl of the Red Mill after the party arrived at Tintacker. They reached the mine just at daybreak the next morning. Mary c.o.x had kept them back some, for she was not a good rider. But she had cried and taken on so when Sally and Ike did not want her to go farther than the river, that they were really forced to allow her to continue the entire journey.

Dr. Burgess examined the sick man and p.r.o.nounced him to be in a very critical condition. But he surely had improved since the hour that Ruth and Jib Pottoway had found him. Old Bill Hicks had helped care for the patient during the night; but Ruth had actually gone ahead with everything and-without much doubt, the doctor added-the stranger could thank her for his life if he _did_ recover.

"That girl is all right!" declared the physician, preparing to return the long miles he had come by relays of horses to the ranch-house, and from thence to Bullhide in the automobile. "She has done just the right thing."

"She's a mighty cute young lady," admitted Bill Hicks. "And this chap-John c.o.x, or whatever his name is-ought to feel that she's squared things up with him over that bear business--"

"Then you have learned his name?" queried Tom Cameron, who was present.

"I got the coat away from him when he was asleep in the night," said Mr.

Hicks. "He had letters and papers and a wad of banknotes in it. Ruth's got 'em all. She says he is the man with whom her Uncle Jabez went into partners.h.i.+p over the old Tintacker claims. Mebbe the feller's struck a good thing after all. He seems to have an a.s.sayer's report among his papers that promises big returns on some specimens he had a.s.sayed. If he dug 'em out of the Tintacker Claim mebbe the old hole in the ground will take on a new lease of life."

At that moment Mary c.o.x pushed forward, with Sally holding her by the arm.

"I've got to know!" cried The Fox. "You must tell me. Does the-the poor fellow say his name is c.o.x?"

"Jest the same as yourn, Miss," remarked Old Bill, watching her closely.

"Letters and deeds all to 'John c.o.x.'"

"I know it! I feared it all along!" cried The Fox, wringing her hands.

"I saw him in the canon when he shot the bear and he looked so much like John--"

"He's related to you, then, Miss?" asked the doctor.

"He's my brother-I know he is!" cried Mary, and burst into tears.

CHAPTER XXV-AT THE OLD RED MILL AGAIN

The mist hovered over the river as though loth to uncover the dimpling current; yet the rising sun was insistent-its warm, soft September rays melting the jealous mist and uncovering, rod by rod, the sleeping stream. Ruth, fresh from her bed and looking out of the little window of her old room at the Red Mill farmhouse, thought that, after all, the scene was quite as soothing and beautiful as any of the fine landscapes she had observed during her far-western trip.

For the Briarwood Hall girls were back from their sojourn at Silver Ranch. They had arrived the night before. Montana, and the herds of cattle, and the vast canons and far-stretching plains, would be but a memory to them hereafter. Their vacation on the range was ended, and in another week Briarwood Hall would open again and lessons must be attended to.

Jane Ann Hicks would follow them East in time to join the school the opening week. Ruth looked back upon that first day at school a year ago when she and Helen Cameron had become "Infants" at Briarwood. They would make it easier for Jane Ann, remembering so keenly how strange they had felt before they attained the higher cla.s.ses.

The last of the mist rolled away and the warm sun revealed all the river and the woods and pastures beyond. Ruth kissed her hand to it and then, hearing a door close softly below-stairs, she hurried her dressing and ran down to the farmhouse kitchen. The little, stooping figure of an old woman was bent above the stove, muttering in a sort of sing-song refrain:

"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!"

"Then let somebody else save your back and bones, Aunt Alviry!" cried Ruth, putting her arms around the old housekeeper's neck. "There! how good it is to see you again. Sit right down there. You are to play lady.

_I_ am going to get the breakfast."

"But your Uncle Jabez wants hot m.u.f.fins, my pretty," objected Aunt Alvirah.

"And don't you suppose anybody can make m.u.f.fins but you?" queried Ruth, blithely. "I made 'em out to Silver Ranch. Maria, the Mexican cook, taught me. Even Uncle Jabez will like them made by my recipe-now you see if he doesn't."

And the miller certainly praised the m.u.f.fins-by eating a full half dozen of them. Of course, he did not say audibly that they were good.

And yet, Uncle Jabez had a much more companionable air about him than he had ever betrayed before-at least, within the knowledge of Ruth Fielding. He smiled-and that not grimly-as the girl related some of her experiences during her wonderful summer vacation.

"It was a great trip-and wonderful," she sighed, finally. "Of course, the last of it was rather spoiled by Mary c.o.x's brother being so ill.

And the doctors found, when they got the better of the fever, that his head had been hurt some months before, and that is why he had wandered about there, without writing East-either to his folks or to you, Uncle Jabez. But he's all right now, and Mary expects to bring him home from Denver, where he stopped over, in a few days. She'll be home in time for the opening of school, at least," and here Ruth's voice halted and her face changed color, while she looked beseechingly at Uncle Jabez.

The miller cleared his throat and looked at her. Aunt Alvirah stopped eating, too, and she and Ruth gazed anxiously at the flint-like face of the old man.

"I got a letter from that lawyer at Bullhide, Montana, two days ago, Niece Ruth," said Uncle Jabez, in his harsh voice. "He has been going over the Tintacker affairs, and he has proved up on that young c.o.x's report. The young chap is as straight as a string. The money he got from me is all accounted for. And according to the a.s.sayers the new vein c.o.x discovered will mill as high as two hundred dollars to the ton of ore.