The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle Part 26

"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."

CHAPTER XXIII

GREAT DAYS

That very afternoon Allen composed a letter to Paul Loup's concert manager--advised and censored by the girls, of course--and they all rode off to town to mail it in time to catch the four o'clock outgoing mail.

"Now," said Mollie, as, this duty well performed, they started back to the ranch, "I feel better. We've started something, anyway."

"Let's hope that we can finish it," added Grace, dubiously.

They did not expect an answer to this epistle within ten days, and in the meantime they found plenty to keep them busy around the ranch.

Progress at the mines was swift, and almost any minute now they might expect to hear the glorious tidings that some one had "struck it rich."

Nothing had been seen of Peter Levine since that memorable night when the map had been taken from him, and it was rumored that the rascally lawyer had left town.

"And the longer he keeps away the healthier it will be for him, I reckon," Allen said, adding with a laugh: "Gee, but it makes me happy every time I think of how sore that chap may be."

Betty had dimpled sympathetically.

"You have an awfully mean disposition, Allen," she chided him.

Meggy and Dan Higgins were working furiously at their mine, but after a few days Betty was quick to see that they were not progressing as well as some of the others. After all Meggy, though unusually strong and robust for her age, was only a girl and her father was an old man who had just about worn out his energies in a fruitless search for fortune.

Betty had besought her father to send help to these good friends of hers, and Mr. Nelson had immediately complied.

There had been some trouble with Dan at first--with Meggy too, for that matter.

"We can't take nothin' thet we can't pay fer, sir," the old fellow a.s.sured Mr. Nelson positively. But the latter reminded him that he and Meggy had saved his daughter's life, as well as those of the other girls, and that this put him, Mr. Nelson, deeply in the others' debt.

In view of this the old fellow finally surrendered. In his heart he was deeply, fervently thankful for the help of the young, able-bodied man whom Mr. Nelson provided and for whose services he paid.

"But ef I strike thet thar gold vein, sir," Dan a.s.sured Mr. Nelson earnestly, "I'm goin' to make it up to you, sir, every cent of it."

"All right, we can talk about that later," Mr. Nelson said, and laughed and walked on to view his own operations, feeling that he had done a very good day's work.

One morning, as the girls mounted their horses and turned their heads in the direction of the gold diggings, they heard what seemed to be wild cheering and shouting in the distance and with one impulse they urged their horses to a gallop.

"Somebody's found something!" shouted Mollie, as the cheering and shouting became more distinct. "Oh, girls, I wonder who it is."

"Maybe a mine has caved in, or something," Grace called back, pessimistically. "You'd better not get too happy, all at once."

"You old wet-blanket!" cried Betty, as she leaned forward and whispered in n.i.g.g.e.r's ear, urging him to greater speed. "That kind of mine doesn't cave in very often. Oh, n.i.g.g.e.r, hurry, old boy! Don't you know we've got to get there quickly?"

As they approached the noise became tumultuous, and as they topped a small hill that brought them in full view of the new diggings they saw a sight that they would never forget as long as they lived.

They gazed on what seemed to be a mob gone wild. Men grasped each other around the waists, performing some kind of crazy dance that looked like an Indian cakewalk. Others tossed their hats in the air and shot holes through them as they fell to the ground. And all were laughing, crying, shouting, waving arms and head gear in a sort of wild, feverish, primal jubilation.

The girls caught the thrill of it and they tingled to their finger tips.

Putting spurs to their horses, they galloped down into the thick of it.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE END OF PETER LEVINE

The crowd scattered as the Outdoor Girls came whirling down into its midst, but in an instant it had closed about them again. They dismounted, leaving their excited horses to go where they would, and pushed their way through to the group that seemed to be the center of all this wild demonstration.

And when they saw Meggy, fairly weeping with joy, and old Dan Higgins, holding a handful of precious golden nuggets, they nearly went mad themselves.

They kissed and hugged Meggy till she cried aloud for mercy. They kissed and hugged old Dan, and he took it as though he had been used to being made much of by pretty girls all his life.

Twenty years had fallen from the old man's age. No matter that he had wasted the best part of his life in a vain hunt for gold. His dream had been realized at last. There was a fortune in his grasp, and he felt again the thrill that had coursed through his veins when, as a young man, heart high with aspirations, he had started on his quest.

He was young again! Young! It seemed as though the sight of those golden nuggets--his own--had renewed the fires of youth.

Nimbly he sprang upon an empty powder keg and addressed his frenzied audience.

"Friends and fellow gold hunters," he yelled, and there was a roar of appreciation. "They is a few words I'd like to say afore we go back to wrestlin' some more gold outen them rocks. An' these is them. Ef I'm a happy man to-day an' a rich one, then it's all due to these four young gals here. They set me on the trail o' this new thing when I was purty near tuckered out. You all knows 'em an' loves 'em. Now give 'em a cheer. Hearty, now, hearty----"

Then arose such a roar that the Outdoor Girls' hearts swelled near to bursting and they felt the tears sting their eyes. That moment would be something to remember all their lives.

The roar gradually subsided and the miners wandered back to their own operations again, followed by scattered groups of curious onlookers.

They worked with redoubled energy, with redoubled hope. Gold had been found. More gold would be found. It was a thrilling, glorious race to see who would be the next to announce good fortune.

Left to themselves, the girls crowded around Meggy, questioning her, congratulating her, demanding to know how it had all happened and when.

"My--my mouth is so dry I can hardly speak," said Meggy, quivering with nervous reaction. "I--I can't jest make up my mind that it has happened yet."

"We know," said Betty, soothingly. "You needn't tell us about it if you don't want to."

"But I do--I've got to!" cried Meggy tensely. "Why, it seems like a dream. But I'm so happy, so wildly happy----" A sob caught in her throat and she paused for a moment, then went on swiftly, the words tumbling over each other in her eagerness: "It was jest this morning that it happened, jest a little while ago. You know we have been workin' awful hard the last few days, an' I was getting worried over dad again. He was gittin' that thin an' weak an' kind o' discouraged, too. Seemed like he'd jest made up his mind that there wasn't no luck fer him nowhere's.